Peter Maldini v. Accenture LLP, No. 22-1744 (4th Cir. 2023)
Annotate this Case
In November 2018, Marriott International, Inc., announced that hackers had breached one of its guest reservation databases, giving them access to millions of guest records. Customers across the country began filing lawsuits, which were consolidated into multidistrict litigation in Maryland. Plaintiffs then moved to certify multiple class actions against Marriott and Accenture LLP, an IT service provider that managed the database at issue. The district court obliged in part. It certified classes for monetary damages on breach of contract and statutory consumer-protection claims against Marriott under Rule 23(b)(3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. It also certified “issue” classes on negligence claims against Marriott and Accenture under Rule 23(c)(4), limited to a subset of issues bearing on liability.
The Fourth Circuit granted Defendants’ petitions to appeal the district court’s certification order and now concludes that the order must be vacated. The court found that the district court erred in certifying damages classes against Marriott without first considering the effect of a class action waiver signed by all putative class members. And because the existence of damages classes against Marriott was a critical predicate for the district court’s decision to certify the negligence issue classes, that error affects the whole of the certification order. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court’s certification order.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.