The People of the State of Cal v. Intelligender, LLC

This case sits squarely at the intersection of the Class Action Fairness Act (“CAFA”) and a sovereign’s right to bring an enforcement action to protect its citizens from unscrupulous, fraudulent, or harmful business practices. The district court approved a CAFA settlement between a nationwide certified class of disappointed purchasers of the IntelliGender Prediction Test and defendant IntelliGen-der, which sold and advertised the Test as an accurate predictor of a fetus’s gender using the mother’s urine sample. Subsequently, the People of the State of California filed an enforcement action against IntelliGender under the State’s Unfair Competition and False Advertising Laws, largely based on the same claims asserted in the CAFA class action. The State seeks civil penalties, injunctive relief, and restitution for some individuals who were bound by the CAFA class action settlement. IntelliGender initially moved for an injunction against the State’s entire action, which the district court denied. IntelliGender next moved for an injunction against only the State’s restitution claims, positing that the State’s action undermines the finality of the CAFA settlement, which the…