After a scathing rebuke from Judge Alsup about the slanted nature of the Bartz v. Anthropic Class Settlement website, the Bartz Class Counsel has now made the necessary revisions required by Judge Alsup’s Third Order.
Judge Alsup had found the prior class website did not give “equal dignity” to a class member’s right to opt out as it did to a class member’s right to claim the $3,000 payout from settlement money. “But the most important among them is that the entire process engineered by class counsel is steered toward submitting claims and steered away from opting out.”
Here’s what the revised class website looks now (at least for the time being):
Before the landing page for the class website looked like this:
As noted above, Judge Alsup took issue with the way in which the prior website did not provide equal dignity to a class member’s right to opt out. The website did not provide a button to opt out, for example, but did provide a prominent button to file a claim. Also, a class member could file a claim without receiving information adequately explaining the right to opt out.
Judge Alsup will be holding an evidentiary hearing on Nov. 25 in San Francisco on a related issue: third-party ClaimsHero’s attempt to possibly mislead class members to opt out. The CEO of ClaimsHero Matt Freund must appear in person and must testify under oath to answer Judge Alsup’s questions.
ClaimsHero also modified its website to comply with Judge Alsup’s interim order:
The flurry of activity has exposed the underbelly of class actions. There are a lot of strategic efforts taking place surrounding a class settlement.