Krysta Kauble Pachman

Pachman litigates complex cases in state and federal courts, specializing in class action work. She has obtained hundreds of millions of dollars and impactful injunctive relief for plaintiffs in class action settlements.

Her interest in class actions began as a law clerk to the Hon. Philip S. Gutierrez of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. When she joined Susman, Pachman's first case was a class action working under Mark Seltzer, "a terrific mentor of mine, who has effectively written the book on class actions," she said.

"I ended up just loving class actions because these are cases where you can really fight for the little guy, but you can do so on a really broad scale," she said. "In an individual plaintiff case for someone who couldn't necessarily afford massive litigation, you might not have the resources to take on areas of law like antitrust or intellectual property."

In February 2021, Pachman filed a class action against PornHub parent company MindGeek, alleging that MindGeek violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) and federal child pornography laws by knowingly posting, enabling the posting of, and profiting from thousands of pornographic videos featuring persons under the age of 18. Jane Doe v. MindGeek USA Incorporated et al. 8:21-cv-0338 (C.D. Cal., filed Feb. 19, 2021).

"It's such an important case for all sorts of victims who otherwise wouldn't be able to have their voices heard," she said. "I hope we can make some change in this industry and start getting protections for victims who historically haven't been able to achieve the kind of privacy they deserve, because the internet has been really difficult to litigate.

"The law is changing in favor of victims, and it's really exciting to be at the forefront of that litigation."

In September, a U.S. District judge denied in substantial part MindGeek's motion to dismiss--a groundbreaking decision in this area of law and a huge win for Pachman's clients. The court held that MindGeek was not protected under the Communications Decency Act, which shields service providers from liability related to content published by third parties using their service.

"This is an area of law where there's going to be a lot of litigation in the future. I think that amendments to the TVPRA in 2018 have made this really fertile ground for change," Pachman said. "I'm very interested in how the TVPRA interacts with the Communications Decency Act, and this case is a really interesting one to follow because of that."

The case has been stayed due to an ongoing criminal investigation against MindGeek. Pachman has filed another complaint, assigned to Judge Dolly Gee in the Central District. Jane Doe v. MindGeek USA Incorporated et al., 2:22-cv-01016 (C.D. Cal., filed Feb. 14, 2022).

- JenniferChungKlam