DLA Piper secures significant win for CrowdStrike in consumer class action

DLA Piper secured a significant win for cybersecurity company CrowdStrike in a national putative class action brought by airline passengers who claimed they experienced flight disruptions as a result of a July 2024 company software outage. Plaintiffs sought to recover expenses related to delayed or cancelled flights, along with compensation for hotel, transportation, and other expenses.

DLA Piper lawyers argued that the plaintiffs’ claims were preempted by the federal Airline Deregulation Act (ADA). To prevent a patchwork of inconsistent state laws governing the airline industry, the US Congress included a preemption provision in the ADA, which expressly preempts state-law claims related to airline services. 

Despite the claims being against an airline vendor, not an airline, the US District Court held plaintiffs’ claims related to airline services were preempted.  

“That the plaintiffs here bring their suit against CrowdStrike, rather than against the airlines themselves, does not prevent ADA preemption,” the US District Court order stated.

CrowdStrike is a leading cybersecurity technology company specializing in cloud-delivered protection for endpoints, cloud workloads, identity, and data.

The DLA Piper team consisted of Partner Isabelle Ord (San Francisco), Of Counsel Jeff DeGroot (Seattle), Partner Andrew Serwin (San Diego), along with Of Counsel Scott Murray (San Francisco) and associates Virginia Weeks (Seattle), Tia Nguyen (Seattle), and Kylie Green (San Francisco).