Norton Rose Fulbright secures class certification denial for Brinker International, Inc.

A team of Norton Rose Fulbright litigators recently secured a class certification denial for Brinker International, Inc. (Brinker) in a long-running nationwide data breach class action lawsuit.

Following a 2018 data incident, plaintiffs filed multiple nationwide data breach class action cases against Brinker across the country, which were later consolidated in the Middle District of Florida. The plaintiffs alleged that Brinker was responsible for a data incident in which cyber criminals allegedly stole customers’ credit and debit card data and posted it for sale on a dark web marketplace.

The United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida initially certified multiple classes and the firm’s lawyers appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The Eleventh Circuit vacated the District Court’s class certification order and remanded the case to the District Court to re-perform its Rule 23(b)(3) predominance analysis.

On June 27, 2025, the District Court denied plaintiff’s motion for class certification, finding that “individualized questions abound” for the proposed class including as to time-and-place details of each putative class member’s transaction, whether any putative class member suffered fraudulent charges, had their data posted on the dark web, and/or engaged in mitigation efforts. Determining that individualized questions predominate over common questions, the court denied class certification in its entirety.

Norton Rose Fulbright’s litigation team was led by Jason Fagelman and included Beau Cox and Joseph Simmons (Dallas) as well as appellate lawyers Jonathan Franklin and Peter Siegal (Washington, DC).