Plaintiff Opposes Amazon's Motion to Consolidate Service Fee Cases

Amazon’s motion to consolidate service fee cases involves different Amazon services, different service changes “made over years apart,” different putative class members and different key contractual terms, said plaintiff Wilbert Napoleon’s opposition Monday (docket 2:22-cv-00743) in U.S. District Court for Western Washington in Seattle. Amazon already tried to relate Napoleon v. Amazon (docket 2:24-cv-00186) to In Re: Amazon Service Fee Litigation and U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein for Western Washington “was not persuaded,” said the opposition. Napoleon filed his case Feb. 9, and the next week, Amazon filed a notice of relation, attempting to persuade Rothstein to relate the case to Amazon Service Fee, it said. Napoleon filed a response explaining why the cases weren’t related, and Rothstein didn’t relate them, instead entering a scheduling order and setting case deadlines, it said. Amazon then filed its motion to consolidate, “but consolidation should not be an end-run around relation,” said the opposition. Amazon doesn’t meet the consolidation standard, it said, saying that in deciding whether to consolidate, courts look to “the existence of common questions of law or fact and weigh the interests of judicial economy against any delay or prejudice that might result.” Amazon "is huge; it may get accused of violating similar laws many times a year, in many different ways, and not all of these actions can or should be consolidated,” said the opposition, citing Daly v. Amazon.com. “This is because judges do not decide cases based on superficial similarities, like the fact that both cases assert consumer protection claims against Amazon subscriptions,” said the filing. Instead, judges decide cases “based on the granular operative facts and specific legal issues,” which in this case, don’t justify consolidation, it said. Napoleon’s complaint alleged Amazon “changed the deal” on its Prime Video offering by charging consumers an additional $2.99 a month for ad-free streaming (see 2402120001). Amazon Service Fee is about Amazon’s grocery delivery service, through Whole Foods.