RALEIGH, N.C. (Legal Newsline) – The second front of class action lawyers’ attack on their colleagues’ $26.5 million settlement over in-game purchases in Fortnite has begun.
Lawyers at Bay Advocacy and One LLP first sued Fortnite-maker Epic Games in California federal court in February and have now filed a challenge to the pending multimillion-dollar settlement in a North Carolina state court.
An April 6 complaint filed as an intervenor says the lawsuit leading to the settlement should be thrown out of court.
“This is a made-to-order lawsuit that Plaintiffs never intended to litigate,” lawyer at Brooks Pierce wrote for Bay Advocacy.
“Plaintiffs and Defendant stipulated to the complaint in this action in advance and filed it in this court for the sole purpose of asking the court to approve a pre-packaged settlement that will extinguish the rights of millions of claimants – minor children among them – in the process.
“Nothing in North Carolina law permits private parties to burden the court with collusive class action suits filed for purposes other than litigating them. This suit should be dismissed as nonjusticiable.”
The issue in the litigation is with V-Bucks, which can be earned or purchased while playing Fortnite. Bay Advocacy says allowing a minor to use parents’ credit cards to buy them is a violation of the law.
A minor can’t enter into a contract relating to any personal property not in his or her immediate possession, the California suit says. Those contracts are void and amounts paid pursuant to them are refundable, it adds.
The North Carolina settlement provides up to $26.5 million in cash for the class and 1,000 V-Bucks for each member.
Firms involved in that settlement include Whitfield Bryson, McGuire Law, Devlin Law Firm and McMorrow Law. Their fee request is $11.3 million.
The K.W. case could be stayed pending final resolution of the North Carolina settlement proceedings. Epic Games says if the settlement goes through, the K.W. case should be tossed.
Bay Advocacy is trying not to let that happen.
“(T)he resulting settlement purports to resolve virtually any consumer protection claim related to the purchase of virtual currency or in-game items – including any minor disaffirmation claim – by any person who had an Epic games account and played Fortnite or Rocket League,” attorneys for Bay Advocacy wrote in the North Carolina intervenor complaint.
“Epic Games evidently picked the counsel it wanted to settle with (counsel who had never litigated any of the claims the settlement purports to resolve), got the deal it wanted, resolved the individual claim of the plaintiff in the one class case that was actually pending, agreed on a form of complaint, and then had the stipulated complaint filed here – in a forum where none of the relevant prior litigation was ever pending – where everyone agreed that it would never actually be litigated.”