Class Action Certification Attempt Defeated in a Case against LifeVantage Corporation Following Testimony Supported by a Brattle Team

Brattle consultants worked with the Winston & Strawn team (John Sanders, Rex Mann, Katrina Eash, and Becca Loegering) that recently defeated attempts to certify a class action against LifeVantage Corporation, a direct-selling company of wellness products that are sold to consumers by hundreds of thousands of independent distributors worldwide. In a suit, a putative class of distributors alleged that the corporation defrauded them because LifeVantage allegedly operates a pyramid scheme.

Brattle supported Professor Howard Beales of George Washington University, who provided expert testimony on behalf of LifeVantage. Under Professor Beales’s direction, the Brattle team analyzed LifeVantage’s business intelligence data and showed that any calculation of purported harm for individual distributors would require individualized inquiry, contrary to the plaintiffs’ expert’s theory of harm. He also demonstrated that there was substantial consumer demand for LifeVantage’s products and that distributor compensation was tied to sales to ultimate consumers, contradicting the plaintiffs’ claims that the company operated as a pyramid scheme.

Professor Beales was supported by Brattle Principal Dr. Branko Jovanovic and a Brattle team that also included Senior Associate Dr. Pablo Robles and Research Analyst Lia Bozzone.