Mass Tort Defense : Mass Tort Defense Lawyer & Attorney : Sean P. Wajert : Dechert Law Firm : Products Liability, Class Actions, Pharmaceutical Litigation

A federal court has denied class certification in a proposed consumer fraud class action arising from the sale of microwave popcorn with artificial butter flavoring. See Courtney Fine v. Conagra Foods, Inc., No. CV 10-01848 SJO (C.D. Calif., Aug. 27, 2010).

The facts: Diacetyl is a naturally occurring chemical in butter, and was also used in artificial butter flavors for decades. In 2007 defendant Conagra, maker of microwave popcorn, issued a press release to the public stating it was no longer adding the compound diacetyl, which has been associated with lung injury in factory workers exposed to high doses, to its butter-flavored microwave popcorn products. Since the announcement, defendant "reformulated" all butter-flavored varieties of Orville Redenbacher's and Act II microwave popcorn in response, it said, to consumer uncertainty regarding the ingredients of the microwave popcorn. Conagra also redesigned the packaging for these products to display the words "No Added Diacetyl."

Plaintiff alleged that she understood the advertising claim to be there was no diacetyl in the new popcorn, as opposed to no added diacetyl, and alleged she relied on defendant's claims that there was "no diacetyl" in the popcorn products when making the purchases. Plaintiff asserted, however, that diacetyl is still present in the products (as part of natural butter). Plaintiff further asserted that had she known the representation regarding the diacetyl was false, she would not have made the purchases.

Plaintiff alleged causes of action for: (1) false and misleading representation of material facts, constituting unfair competition within the meaning of California Business & Professions Code §§ 17200, et seq. ("UCL"); and (2) false advertising in violation of Business & Professions Code §§ 17500, et seq. ("FAL"). She further alleged that she suffered a monetary loss as a result of defendant's alleged actions, which were in violation of the Consumer Legal Remedies Act ("CLRA"), Cal. Civ. Code §§ 1750, et seq.

Last March, Conagra removed the case from state court to federal (Judge Otero). Then they filed a Motion to Dismiss based on various grounds, including that: (1) Plaintiff does not allege a cognizable injury resulting from defendant's products and therefore lacks standing; (2) Plaintiff fails to state a claim under the UCL, FAL, and CLRA as a matter of law under Rule 12(b)(6). The gist of the final argument was that plaintiff "received exactly what she paid for."  But, the court was persuaded that plaintiff adequately asserted that she did not get what she paid for, as she was under the impression that defendant's popcorn products were free of diacetyl. That is, she asserted that Conagra’s placement of "No Diacetyl Added" on the packaging is a material misrepresentation, and that reasonable consumers could (somehow) have taken the label to mean that diacetyl did not exist in the product at all.

Plaintiffs then moved for certification of a class consisting of all persons residing in the state of California who purchased Orville Redenbacher's brand Light Butter, Movie Theater Butter Light microwave popcorn, and/or ACT II brand 94% Fat Free Butter, Light Butter, and Butter Lover's microwave popcorn for personal use and not for resale since September 1, 2007. Plaintiff sought certification under Rule 23(b)(3) and 23(b)(2), but argued her "primary goal is to obtain injunctive relief by way of an order enjoining Defendant from its continued practice of making misleading advertising and label claims about its butter flavored microwave popcorn products."

The court denied the motion for class certification on three related grounds. The first problem was that in the court's prior Order Denying Defendant's Motion to Dismiss (6/29/10), the court had ruled that plaintiff established standing for herself because she alleged that she incurred injury as a result of defendant's allegedly improper conduct. That is, plaintiff's spending money on defendant's popcorn in reliance of defendant's placing "No Added Diacetyl" on the packaging.

In the class Motion, plaintiff sought to certify a class that includes "all persons residing in the State of California who purchased [Defendant's] popcorn for personal use and not for resale since September 1, 2007."  Named plaintiff made no mention of the proposed class being comprised only of members who made the purchase as a result of defendant's allegedly false statements, which would be necessary in order to establish standing for the rest of the class.  The court noted that other courts have held that class definitions should be tailored to exclude putative class members who lack standing; each class member need not submit evidence of personal standing but, nonetheless, a class must be defined in such a way that anyone within it would have standing. Burdick v. Union Sec. Ins. Co., 2009 WL 4798873, at *4 (C.D. Cal. 2009).

Accordingly, class certification was improper here, given that plaintiff's proposed class included many people who may not have relied on defendant's alleged misrepresentations when making their purchasing decisions.

Second, a related problem was the Rule 23(a) requirement that plaintiff’s claims be typical of the class claims. The court agreed with Conagra that plaintiff failed to adduce facts suggesting that other class members have been injured by the same course of conduct that she asserts injured her. There could be no serious question, said the court, that the vast majority of putative class members here never read (let alone considered) the defendant's statement at issue, do not know what diacetyl is, and did not base their popcorn purchases on diacetyl-related issues. Plaintiff purchased popcorn, she said, because of defendant's allegedly misleading statements regarding diacetyl. Plaintiff's injury was established due to her alleged reliance on defendant's statements. But plaintiff sought to certify a class that would likely include people with varying rationales behind their purchases – many who purchased popcorn based on factors like flavor or brand. Plaintiff thus failed to establish that she could be a typical representative of the class, whose members were buying for all sorts of reasons unrelated to diacetyl.

Third, because the court found that plaintiff was not a typical representative, the court also held that plaintiff was not an adequate representative under Rule 23(a)(4).

What is refreshing about this short opinion is the recognition that Rule 23(a) matters too.  Often we see courts giver very cursory analysis of the (a) elements and/or emphasize that regardless of the initial prerequisites the issues of predominance, manageability and superiority dictate the certification result.  While the fact that class members undoubtedly bought microwave popcorn for many reasons would impact predominance of individual issues, it also does in fact suggest that the class representative's claims were not typical of the the class, as defined.

(NB. Your humble blogger is involved in the diacetyl litigation, but not this case.)

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Couple of interesting issue being debated in the Gulf Oil Spill Litigation.  In re: Oil Spill by the Oil Rig "Deepwater Horizon" in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, MDL-2179 (E.D. La.).

The first concerns control over the testing of key components of the rig, once they are recovered.  Readers know how important such testing can be in supporting or refuting causation theories. But the very act of testing, even if not destructive, potentially alters the condition of the product.  Who goes first; what tests get run in what order; who does the testing; how tests are done... all of these can be vitally important issues in accident investigation and product liability litigation.

Defendant Transocean Ltd. unit has asked the judge in the MDL to grant a motion for a protective order that would block the government's apparent plan to unilaterally control testing of the oil rig's blowout preventer. Press reports suggest the blowout preventer could be recovered from the Gulf floor in the near future. Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling Inc. and several other defendants thus filed a motion last week in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana for an expedited hearing on the protective order covering the blowout preventer.

The federal government has indicated that it wants to take exclusive control of the blowout preventer, transport it to a government site, and then contract for forensic testing and analysis. The motion argues that while the government has solicited input from other parties on testing protocol, it never said it would pay attention to any of those suggestions.

The second issue is a battle between Transocean and co-defendant BP over document discovery. Transocean attorneys are claiming that BP has been withholding documents and limiting Transocean's access to sensitive information connected to the accident, including records of tests on the blowout preventer, lab reports on components of the rig such as the well cement mix, and data on equipment used to keep well pipes in place during cementing.  BP, for its part, calls the claim a "publicity stunt” designed to divert attention from Transocean's alleged role in the accident.  BP claims it has already turned over thousands of pages of documents, including materials on the initial exploration plan, lab tests and daily drilling reports, and mud log reports.

Third, the American Petroleum Institute and other parties who are defendant-intervenors have asked the MDL judge to remand one of the many coordinated cases.  Gulf Restoration Network et al. v. Salazar et al.  This one is the suit brought by environmental groups against the federal government, and the argument is that it is fundamentally different from the other cases because it focuses on administrative law issues regarding the government’s approval of offshore drilling plans.

The Gulf Restoration Network, along with the Sierra Club, accused the U.S. Department of the Interior of ignoring environmental regulations when it allegedly waived safety regulations to allow BP and Transocean to conduct offshore drilling exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.

The discovery for negligence claims at the core of the MDL, these moving parties assert, will not materially assist or advance a case that stems from the legal issue whether the federal government took proper steps in granting the companies the offshore drilling exploration permits.  In fact, the argument goes, keeping Gulf Restoration in the MDL would unreasonably delay what would normally be a quick resolution to an administrative law action.

 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The federal government (Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal on behalf of the Tennessee Valley Authority, a government-owned company), last week urged the Supreme Court to overturn a court of appeals decision that allowed Connecticut and several other states to move forward in their suit seeking greenhouse gas emissions reductions under a federal common law nuisance theory. American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, No. 10-174 (U.S., brief filed 8/24/10).

Readers may recall from earlier posts that in Connecticut v. American Electric Power Co., 2009 WL 2996729 (2nd Cir. 9/21/09),  two groups of plaintiffs, one consisting of eight states and New York City, and the other consisting of three land trusts, sued several electric power corporations that own and operate fossil-fuel-fired power plants, seeking abatement of defendants' alleged ongoing contributions to the "public nuisance of global warming." Plaintiffs claimed that global warming, to which the defendants allegedly contributed as large emitters of carbon dioxide, is causing and will continue to cause serious harm affecting human health and natural resources. The plaintiffs' theory is that carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the earth's atmosphere, and that as a result of this trapped heat, the earth's temperature has risen over the years and will continue to rise in the future. Pointing to an alleged “clear scientific consensus” that global warming has already begun to alter the natural world, plaintiffs predicted that it “will accelerate over the coming decades unless action is taken to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.”

When thinking about "global climate" changes, MassTortDefense has always been sobered by the fact that humans have been trying to measure temperature consistently only since the1880s, during which time advocates think the world may have warmed by about +0.6 °C -- which is less than the margin of error on our ability to measure the Earth's temperature!

Anyway, plaintiffs brought these actions under the federal common law of nuisance or, in the alternative, state nuisance law, to force defendants to cap and then reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. The district court held that plaintiffs' claims presented a non-justiciable political question and dismissed the complaints. 406 F. Supp. 2d 265.

On appeal to the Second Circuit, plaintiffs argued that the political question doctrine does not bar adjudication of their claims; that they had standing to assert their claims; that they had properly stated claims under the federal common law of nuisance; and that their claims were not displaced by any federal statutes.

In a lengthy opinion, the two judges (Justice, then-Judge Sotomayor had to drop out) held that the district court erred in dismissing the complaints on political question grounds; that all of plaintiffs had standing; that the federal common law of nuisance governs their claims; that plaintiffs had stated claims under the federal common law of nuisance; that their claims were not displaced by other federal law.

In a very minimalist interpretation of what is needed for standing, the Second Circuit distinguished multiple precedents of the Supreme Court which held that to have standing a plaintiff must allege an injury that is concrete, direct, real, and palpable -- not abstract.  Injury must be particularized, personal, individual, distinct, and differentiated -- not generalized or undifferentiated. The Supreme Court has further stated that the asserted injury must be actual or imminent, certainly impending and immediate --not remote, speculative, conjectural, or hypothetical. The court rejected defendants challenge that the contentions of future injury at some unspecified future date are not the kind of “imminent” injury required. The court also gave short shrift to the argument that plaintiffs could neither isolate which alleged harms will be caused by defendants' emissions, nor allege that such emissions would alone cause any future harms.

As we noted here, several defendants have filed a cert petition that raises the important, recurring question whether states and private plaintiffs have standing to seek, and whether federal common law provides authority for courts to impose, a non-statutory, judicially created regime for setting caps on greenhouse gas emissions based on vague and indeterminate nuisance concepts. It also asks the Court to decide whether judges, in addition to Congress and the EPA, may regulate greenhouse gas emissions at the behest of states and/or private parties and, if so, under what standards. Under the Second Circuit's ruling, a single judge could set emissions standards for regulated utilities across the country—or, as here, for just that subset of utilities that the plaintiffs have arbitrarily chosen to sue. Judges in subsequent cases could set different standards for other utilities or industries, or conflicting standards for these same utilities.

While the Second Circuit called this an ordinary tort suit, this litigation seeks to transfer to the judiciary nearly standard-less authority for some of the most important and sensitive economic, energy, and social policy issues presently before the country. Federal nuisance law is neither sufficiently developed nor sufficiently detailed to substitute for actual regulation. Thus, at stake is the financial health and security of numerous sectors of the economy. Indeed, virtually every entity and industry in the world is responsible for some emissions of carbon dioxide and is thus a potential defendant in climate change nuisance actions under the theory of this case. The threat of litigation, and the indeterminate exposure to monetary and injunctive relief that it entails, could substantially impede and alter the future investment decisions and employment levels of all affected industries, and ultimately every sector of the economy.

Now the government brief takes a different approach, asking the Court not to accept the case for full review, but rather to simply vacate the decision and direct the Second Circuit to reconsider two issues: whether the plaintiffs have standing to bring the lawsuit, and whether recent actions by the EPA  to regulate greenhouse gas emissions supplant the reason given by the Second Circuit for allowing the lawsuit to go forward.  Since the initial decision below, EPA has issued final rules establishing reporting requirements for major emitters of greenhouse gases; issued a finding that greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks endanger public health and welfare; and established new greenhouse gas emissions limits for cars and light trucks. In addition, EPA has signed off on a final rule requiring that additional categories of sources begin to track and report greenhouse gas emissions under EPA's earlier GHG reporting rule.  The Second Circuit decision was seemingly predicated on the "now-obsolete conclusion" that EPA had not taken action to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions from stationary sources. 

The TVA brief also argues that  that the lower court should dismiss the case based on “prudential standing,” a narrower ground than the case or controversy argument of the other defendants.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Georgia Superior Court has preliminarily approved a $6.5 million settlement between the Lowe's home improvement stores and a nationwide proposed class of drywall purchasers. Vereen v. Lowe's Home Centers Inc., SU10-CV-2267B (Ga. Super. Ct., Muscogee Cty.).

The proposed resolution of this piece of the drywall litigation would provide Lowe's gift certificates ranging from $50 to $2,000 to any consumer who purchased drywall (not just from China), as well as cash awards of up to $2,500, if the claimant can provide documentation of damages and proof of purchase. That is, plaintiffs who provide proof of purchase of drywall from Lowe's but have no proof of actual damages would receive gift cards valued up to $250. Class members unable to provide a proof of purchase would receive $50 gift cards.

Under the settlement, Lowe's also agreed to pay attorneys' fees and expenses up to 30% of the class fund, as well as $1 million to the plaintiff attorneys for administration of claims. The settlement purports to release Lowe's from all drywall claims.The Georgia court conditionally certified a settlement class and set a final fairness hearing for November 19th.

But the proposed settlement has apparently drawn objections from participants in the federal Chinese drywall multidistrict litigation, who are arguing that the settlement fund is too small and that the settlement would interfere with federal jurisdiction.  The plaintiffs' steering committee for the Chinese drywall multidistrict litigation in the Eastern District of Louisiana went so far as to move to enjoin the state court from moving ahead with the settlement, arguing that the benefit to the class is too small, and the attorneys' fees too large. Ironically, these plaintiff attorneys assert that the form of the class benefit, i.e.,  a gift card, is also improper.

The MDL lawyers assert that the parties involved in the MDL have been negotiating towards a global settlement, and allowing the state court, one-defendant settlement to go forward would simply undermine those efforts.  They called on the federal court, pursuant to the Anti-Injunction Act, to enjoin state court proceedings where, as here, it is allegedly necessary in aid of its jurisdiction or to protect or effectuate its judgments.

Readers will recall that after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, drywall was imported from China to address a shortage of drywall required for repairs and new construction. After the drywall was installed, homeowners began to complain of smells, gas emanations, corrosion of appliances and electrical fixtures, and other alleged property damage. The lawsuits typically allege that sulfur compound levels in the drywall are too high, causing issues with air conditioning systems, electrical appliances, internal wiring, and other electrical systems in homes. Plaintiffs also allege the drywall produces a rotten egg-like stench and causes a variety of respiratory and other health problems for those who live in the affected homes.

So far, a few bench or jury bellwether trials have been completed, with mixed results.
 
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Earlier this month a trial court in New York denied class certification purchaser of Snapple beverages who complained that drinks labeled “All Natural” are somehow misleading because they contain high fructose corn syrup.  See Weiner v. Snapple Beverage Corp., (S.D.N.Y. 8/3/10).

Off and on, we have commented on the growing and alarming trend for plaintiffs lawyers to concoct consumer fraud class action claims against products, even when consumers were not injured and got basically what they paid for, because of some alleged ambiguity in the label or old-fashioned puffing.

Snapple Beverage Corporation was founded in New York’s Greenwich Village in 1972. Snapple began selling and marketing its teas and juice drinks in the late 1980s. In marketing its beverages, Snapple focused on, among other things, flavor, innovation, and humor. Snapple became known for its quirky personality and funny advertising, as well as its colorful product labels and beverage names. For instance, Snapple’s television advertisements featured, among other things, Snapple bottles dressed in wigs and hats, singing in a Backstreet-esque “boy-band,” running with the bulls (hamsters with cardboard horns) in Spain, and performing synchronized swimming.

When Snapple entered the beverages market in the late 1980s, it avoided putting preservatives, which were then commonly found in some similar beverages, in its teas and juice drinks. Snapple was able to do so by using a “hot-fill” process, which uses high-temperature heat pasteurization to preserve products immediately before bottling. Snapple also used 16-ounce glass bottles instead of aluminum cans or plastic. Hence the term on their label "All Natural."

From their inception, Snapple’s beverages were sweetened with high fructose corn syrup.  HFCS is made from corn ( a natural product last time we checked), and its primary constituents are glucose and fructose, the sugars that comprise table sugar and honey (which also sound pretty natural). It is undisputed that Snapple disclosed the inclusion of HFCS in the ingredient list that appears on the label of every bottle of Snapple that was labeled “All Natural.”

But plaintiffs alleged that they paid a price premium for Snapple beverages as a result of the “All Natural” labeling, and that Snapple’s “All Natural” labeling was misleading because Snapple had HFCS.  They brought a class action on behalf of all people who purchased Snapple in New York.  The FDA is reportedly looking at whether high fructose corn syrup may be considered a natural ingredient, but the court didn't need that guidance to dispose of this bogus class claim.

The court focused on the Rule 23(b)(3) predominance inquiry which tests whether proposed classes are sufficiently cohesive to warrant adjudication by representation. The predominance requirement is met only if the plaintiff can establish that the issues in the class action that are subject to generalized proof, and thus applicable to the class as a whole, predominate over those issues that are subject only to individualized proof.  The issues in turn are determined by the causes of action and defenses to them.  Plaintiffs' main claim was for alleged deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any business, trade or commerce under N.Y. Gen. Bus. L. § 349. Generally, claims under § 349 are available to an individual consumer who falls victim to misrepresentations made by a seller of consumer goods through false or misleading advertising.

New York's § 349 does not require proof of actual reliance. But the plaintiff must show that the defendant’s material deceptive act caused the injury. In addition, a plaintiff must prove actual injury to recover under the statute.  The court noted that proof of actual injury in this case is bound up in proof of damages, or by how much plaintiffs have been harmed. Only by showing that plaintiffs in fact paid more for Snapple beverages as a result of Snapple’s “All Natural” labeling could plaintiffs establish the requisite elements of causation and actual injury under § 349.

The court concluded that plaintiffs had not proposed a suitable methodology for establishing the critical elements of causation and injury on a class-wide basis. Without a reliable methodology, plaintiffs had not shown that they could prove at trial using common evidence that putative class members in fact paid a premium for the beverage. Because individualized inquiries as to causation, injury, and damages for each of the millions of putative class members would  predominate over any issues of law or fact common to the class, plaintiffs’ § 349 claim could not be certified under Rule 23(b)(3).

In support of their contention that causation and injury were susceptible to generalized proof on a class-wide basis, plaintiffs relied on the expert report of Dr. Alan Goedde, an economist.  In his report, Goedde proposed two “approaches” for determining the purported price premium attributable to Snapple’s “All Natural” labeling: (1) a “yardstick” approach, which would use “class-wide economic data and standard economic methodologies” to “compare the price of products labeled ‘All Natural’ to similar products which do not have ‘All Natural’ labeling;” and (2) an “inherent value”  approach, which would analyze unspecified “studies and market research” to gather “data that can be used to determine the increased value, standing alone, that a product realizes due to the perception of that product being natural.”

The court found Goedde’s testimony unreliable. The witness did not demonstrate in adequate detail how his proposed “approaches” would be used to develop an empirical algorithm to determine, on a class-wide basis, whether there was a price premium as a result of Snapple’s “All Natural” labeling and, if so, how such a premium could be quantified. For example, he did not identify the products to which Snapple should be compared. He did not explain how his approach would isolate the impact of the “All Natural” labeling from the other factors that purportedly affect the price of Snapple and its competitors. He failed to take into account that there was no uniform price for Snapple beverages during the class period, and thus did not explain how his approach would account for the various prices that putative class members actually paid in determining injury
on a class-wide basis.

Goedde relied on two internal Snapple marketing strategy documents to support his alternate hypothesis that Snapple’s “All Natural” label allowed it to command a premium in the marketplace. Yet he did not review the deposition transcripts of Snapple’s witnesses or any of the other  documents produced by Snapple, which would have provided critical context for these documents.

The court accurately spotlighted the common plaintiff tactic in these kinds of cases: the failure to
invest sufficient time and effort to develop a reliable methodology to support an expert opinion at the class certification stage.  Although the court thought plaintiffs correct in arguing that Goedde need not “implement” or fully “test” his methodology at the class certification stage, an expert must still provide sufficient detail about the proposed methodology to permit a court to determine whether the methodology is suitable to the task at hand.

Without Goedde’s testimony, plaintiffs offered no evidence that a suitable methodology is available to prove the elements of causation and actual injury on a class-wide basis. Individualized inquiries would therefore be required in order to determine whether class members in fact paid a premium for Snapple beverages, and whether any such premium was attributable to the “All Natural” labeling. This would require, among other things, an examination of each of the millions of class members’ Snapple purchases, which the evidence showed were made in different locations, at different times, and for different prices, over the nearly eight-year class period.

One further issue of note is class definition.  The court found that plaintiffs failed to show how the potentially millions of putative class members could be ascertained using objective criteria that were administratively feasible. Plaintiffs - typically  - suggested that after certification, the court could require simply that class members produce a receipt, offer a product label, or even sign a declaration to confirm that the individual had purchased a Snapple beverage within the class period. The court labeled this suggestion "unrealistic." Plaintiffs offered no basis to assume that putative class members retained a receipt, bottle label, or any other concrete documentation of their purchases of Snapple beverages bearing the “All Natural” description.  Indeed, putative class members were unlikely to remember accurately every Snapple purchase during the class period, much less whether it was an “All Natural” or diet beverage, whether it was purchased as a single bottle or part of a six-pack or case, whether they used a coupon, or what price they paid. Soliciting declarations from putative class members regarding their history of Snapple purchases would invite them "to speculate, or worse."

However beloved Snapple may be, said the court,  there is no evidence to suggest that its consumers treat it like a fine wine and remove and save its labels.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled last week that two top Toyota executives do not have to give depositions in a personal injury lawsuit involving the death of a Flint, Mich., woman whose vehicle allegedly suddenly accelerated and struck a tree. See Alberto v. Toyota Motor Corporation, No. 296824 (Mich. Ct. App.,  8/5/10).

Plaintiff filed this wrongful death action and claimed that decedent drove a 2005 Toyota
Camry at a speed of less than 25 miles per hour when the vehicle suddenly accelerated to a speed in excess of 80 miles per hour. Plaintiff also asserts that decedent attempted unsuccessfully to apply the vehicle’s brakes, but the vehicle struck a tree, went airborne, struck another tree; plaintiff’s decedent sustained fatal injuries.

Plaintiff noticed the video depositions of Yoshimi Inaba, defendant’s Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer, and Jim Lentz, defendant’s President and Chief Operating Officer, and defendant moved in response for a protective order to prevent the depositions because neither Mr. Inaba nor Mr. Lentz participated in the design, testing, manufacture, warnings, sale, or distribution of the 2005 Camry, or the day-to-day details of vehicle production.  Thus neither officer had unique
information pertinent to issues in the case.  The trial court denied the protective order, and defendant appealed.

This appeal presented the question whether Michigan should formally adopt the apex
deposition rule in the corporate context. As used by other state and federal courts, the apex
deposition rule provides that before a plaintiff may take the deposition of a high-ranking or
“apex” government official, the plaintiff must demonstrate that: (1) the government official or officer possesses superior or unique information relevant to the issues being litigated, and (2)  information cannot be obtained by a less intrusive method, such as by deposing lower-ranking persons. See, e.g., Baine v Gen Motors Corp, 141 F.R.D. 332, 334-35 (M.D. Ala. 1991).  Courts have applied the apex deposition rule not to shield high-ranking officers from discovery, but rather to sequence discovery in order to prevent litigants from deposing high-ranking government officials as a matter of routine procedure before less burdensome discovery methods are attempted. See, e.g., Sneaker Circus, Inc. v. Carter, 457 F Supp 771, 794 n. 33 (E.D.N.Y. 1978).

Courts have reasoned that giving depositions on a regular basis would impede high-ranking government officials in the performance of their duties, and thus contravene the public interest. See, e.g., Union Savings Bank v. Saxon, 209 F. Supp. 319, 319-320 (D.D.C. 1962). In essence, the apex deposition rule prevents high-ranking public officials from being compelled to give oral depositions unless a preliminary showing is made that the deposition is necessary to obtain relevant information that cannot be obtained from another discovery source or mechanism. Baine, 141 F.R.D. at 334-336.

Premised on similar reasoning, several federal appellate and district courts have extended
application of the apex deposition rule to high-ranking corporate executives. Generally, these
cases hold that before a high-ranking corporate executive may be deposed, the plaintiff must
establish that the executive has superior or unique information regarding the subject matter of the
litigation, and that such information cannot be obtained via a less intrusive method, such as by
deposing lower-ranking executives, etc. See, e.g., Salter v. Upjohn Co., 593 F.2d 649, 651 (5th Cir.
1979); Lewelling v Farmers Ins. of Columbus, Inc., 879 F.2d 212, 218 (6th Cir. 1989); Thomas v.
Int’l Business Machines, 48 F.3d 478, 482-484 (10th Cir. 1995); Mulvey v. Chrysler Corp, 106 F.R.D.
364, 366 (D.R.I. 1985); Evans v. Allstate Ins. Co., 216 F.R.D. 515, 518-519 (N.D. Okla. 2003).

Some state courts, including California and Texas, have also adopted the apex deposition rule
in the corporate context. For example, in Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. v. Superior Court, 10 Cal. App. 4th
1282; 13 Cal. Rptr. 2d 363 (1992), the California Court of Appeals, relying on federal decisions
adopted the apex deposition rule in the corporate context and held that the potential deponent, the company President and Chief Executive Officer, could not be deposed absent a showing that the officer had “unique or superior personal knowledge of discoverable information.” Id. at 1289.

The court here adopted the apex deposition rule in the public and private corporate context as consistent with Michigan’s broad discovery policy, which allows a trial court to control the timing and sequence of discovery for the convenience of parties and witnesses and in the interests of
justice. Recognizing that the highest positions within a business entity rarely have the specialized
and specific first-hand knowledge of matters at every level of a complex organization, courts
have adopted the apex deposition rule in the corporate context to: (1) promote efficiency in the
discovery process by requiring that before an apex officer is deposed it must be demonstrated
that the officer has superior or unique personal knowledge of facts relevant to the litigation, and (2) prevent the use of depositions to annoy, harass, or unduly burden the corporate parties.

The rule does not mean that an apex or high-ranking corporate officer cannot be deposed under any circumstances. The rule is to ensure that discovery is conducted in an efficient manner and that other methods of discovery have been attempted before the deposition of an apex officer is conducted.

Adopting the apex deposition rule in the corporate context does not shift the burden of proof, but
merely require the party seeking discovery to demonstrate that the proposed deponent has unique
personal knowledge of the subject matter of the litigation and that other methods of discovery
have not produced the desired information.  It is invoked only after the party opposing discovery has moved for a protective order and has made a showing regarding the lack of the proposed deponent’s personal knowledge and that other discovery methods could produce the required information. In other words, after the party opposing the deposition demonstrates by affidavit or other testimony that the proposed deponent lacks personal knowledge or unique or superior information relevant to the claims in issue, then the party seeking the deposition of the high-ranking corporate or public official must demonstrate that the relevant information cannot be obtained absent the disputed deposition, said the court of appeals.

Here, the record reflected that Mssrs. Inaba and Lentz had only generalized knowledge of Toyota’s alleged unintended acceleration problems, but had no unique or superior knowledge of or role in designing the subject vehicle or in implementing manufacturing or testing processes.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Several electric power companies have asked the Supreme Court to review a Second Circuit ruling that Connecticut and several other states may seek greenhouse gas emissions reductions under a federal common law nuisance claim.  American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, No. 10-174 (U.S. 8/2/10). The petition for certiorari was filed by American Electric Power Co., Duke Energy Corp., Southern Co., and Xcel Energy Inc.

Readers may recall that in 2004, two groups of plaintiffs, one consisting of eight states and New York City, and the other consisting of three land trusts, sued six electric power corporations that own and operate fossil-fuel-fired power plants, seeking abatement of defendants' alleged ongoing contributions to the "public nuisance of global warming." Plaintiffs claimed that global warming, to which the defendants allegedly contributed as large emitters of carbon dioxide, is causing, and will continue to cause serious harm affecting human health and natural resources.

Because of the procedural posture (motion to dismiss), the court did not really describe the other side of the story, but readers of MassTortDefense know that change is what the climate is always doing as a result of the planet's orbital eccentricities, axial wobbles, solar brightness changes, cosmic ray flux, and multiple other factors. There are numerous plausible terrestrial drivers of climate changes too. While global warming is a serious topic worthy of scientific study and political discussion, plaintiffs' alleged "consensus" on this issue ignores the fact that global mean temperature is only one part of climate, and may not even be the best metric. Moreover, the most important driver of the greenhouse effect are water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide is only about 0.038% of the atmosphere, and humans are responsible for only about 3.4% of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere annually, the rest of it being natural.  When thinking about "global climate" changes, we have to be cognizant of the fact that humans have been trying to measure the temperature consistently only since the1880s, during which time even advocates think the world may have warmed by about +0.6 °C -- which is less than the margin of error on our ability to measure the Earth's temperature. 

Anyway, plaintiffs brought these actions under the federal common law of nuisance or, in the alternative, state nuisance law, to force defendants to cap and then reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. The district court correctly held that plaintiffs' claims presented a non-justiciable political question and dismissed the complaints. On appeal, plaintiffs argued that the political question doctrine does not bar adjudication of their claims; that they had standing to assert their claims; that they had properly stated claims under the federal common law of nuisance; and that their claims were not displaced by any federal statutes.

In a lengthy opinion, the court of appeals held that the district court erred in dismissing the complaints on political question grounds; that all of plaintiffs had standing; that the federal common law of nuisance governs their claims; that plaintiffs had stated claims under the federal common law of nuisance; that their claims were not displaced.  In a very minimalist interpretation of what is needed for standing, the Second Circuit distinguished multiple precedents of the Supreme Court which held that to have standing a plaintiff must allege an injury that is concrete, direct, real, and palpable -- not abstract. Injury must be particularized, personal, individual, distinct, and differentiated -- not generalized or undifferentiated. The Supreme Court has further stated that the asserted injury must be actual or imminent, certainly impending and immediate --not remote, speculative, conjectural, or hypothetical. The court of appeals rejected defendants challenge that these vague contentions of future injury at some unspecified future date are not the kind of “imminent” injury required. The court also gave short shrift to the argument that plaintiffs could neither isolate which alleged harms will be caused by defendants' emissions, nor allege that such emissions would alone cause any future harms. 

This petition raises the important, recurring question whether states and private plaintiffs have standing to seek, and whether federal common law provides authority for courts to impose, a non-statutory, judicially created regime for setting caps on greenhouse gas emissions based on vague and indeterminate nuisance concepts.  It also asks the Court to decide whether judges, in addition to Congress and the EPA, may regulate greenhouse gas emissions at the behest of states and private parties and, if so, under what standards.  Under the Second Circuit's ruling, a single judge could set emissions standards for regulated utilities across the country—or, as here, for just that subset of utilities that the plaintiffs have arbitrarily chosen to sue. Judges in subsequent cases could set different standards for other utilities or industries, or conflicting standards for these same utilities.

While the Second Circuit called this an ordinary tort suit, this litigation seeks to transfer to the judiciary nearly standardless authority for some of the most important and sensitive economic, energy, and social policy issues presently before the country.  Thus, at stake is the financial health and security of numerous sectors of the economy. Indeed, virtually every entity and industry in the world is responsible for some emissions of carbon dioxide and is thus a potential defendant in climate change nuisance actions under the theory of this case. The threat of litigation, and the indeterminate exposure to monetary and injunctive relief that it entails, could substantially impede and alter the future investment decisions and employment levels of all affected industries, and ultimately every sector of the economy.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation yesterday selected New Orleans as the site of the oil spill litigation MDL. The Panel ordered coordination, and transferred 77 lawsuits to the Eastern District of Louisiana before U.S. Judge Carl J. Barbier (and referred to more than 200 potential tag along actions). In Re: Oil Spill by the Oil Rig "Deepwater Horizon" in The Gulf of Mexico, MDL No. 2179 (Aug. 10, 2010). 

In its order, the Panel found that the cases indisputably share factual issues concerning the cause (or causes) of the Deepwater Horizon explosion/fire and the role, if any, that each defendant played in it. Centralization under Section 1407 would eliminate duplicative discovery, prevent inconsistent pretrial rulings, including rulings on class certification and other issues, and conserve the resources of the parties, their counsel, and the judiciary. Interestingly, the Panel noted that centralization may also facilitate closer coordination with Kenneth Feinberg’s administration of the BP compensation fund.

Over some objections, the Panel also concluded that it made sense to include the personal injury/wrongful death actions in the MDL. While these actions will require some amount of individualized discovery, in other respects they overlap with those that pursue only economic damage claims, found the Panel. The Order notes that the transferee judge has broad discretion to employ any number of pretrial techniques – such as establishing separate discovery and/or motion tracks – to address any differences among the cases and efficiently manage the various aspects of this litigation. See, e.g., In re Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., Securities & Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) Litigation, 598 F.Supp.2d 1362, 1364 (J.P.M.L. 2009). 

In terms of where the cases should be coordinated, the Panel noted that the parties advanced sound reasons for a large number of possible transferee districts and judges. They settled upon the Eastern District of Louisiana as the most appropriate district for this litigation. Without discounting the spill’s effects on other states, the Panel concluded that "if there is a geographic and psychological center of gravity in this docket, then the Eastern District of Louisiana is closest to it."

In selecting Judge Barbier, the Panel expressly declined the suggestion made at oral argument that, given the litigation’s scope and complexity, it should assign the docket to multiple transferee judges. "Experience teaches," said the Panel, that most, if not all, multidistrict proceedings do not require the oversight of more than one judge, provided that he or she has the time and resources to handle the assignment. Moreover, Judge Barbier has at his disposal all the many assets of the Eastern District of Louisiana which is accustomed to handling large MDLs. Judge Barbier may also, found the Panel, choose to employ special masters and other case administration tools to facilitate certain aspects of the litigation. See Manual for Complex Litigation, Fourth §§ 11.52, 11.53 (2004).

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The California supreme court has taken a major step backward by modifying a 1985 decision that had properly limited the power of government agencies to retain private plaintiffs attorneys on a contingency fee basis to prosecute nuisance litigation. County of Santa Clara v. The Superior Court of Santa Clara County, Cal., No. S163681 (7/26/10). 

A group of public entities composed of various California counties and cities were prosecuting a public-nuisance action against numerous businesses that manufactured lead paint. Defendants moved to bar the public entities from compensating their privately retained counsel by means of contingent fees. The lower court, relying upon People ex rel. Clancy v. Superior Court, 39 Cal.3d 740 (1985), ordered that the public entities were barred from compensating their private counsel by means of any contingent-fee agreement, reasoning that under Clancy, all attorneys prosecuting public-nuisance actions must be “absolutely neutral.”

The supreme court acknowledged that Clancy arguably supported defendants' position favoring a bright-line rule barring any attorney with a financial interest in the outcome of a case from representing the interests of the public in a public-nuisance abatement action. The court proceeded to engage in a reexamination of the rule in Clancy, however, finding it should be "narrowed," in recognition of both (1) the wide array of public-nuisance actions (and the corresponding diversity in the types of interests implicated by various prosecutions), and (2) the different means by which prosecutorial duties may be delegated to private attorneys supposedly without compromising either the integrity of the prosecution or the public's faith in the judicial process.

The court had previously concluded that for purposes of evaluating the propriety of a contingent-fee agreement between a public entity and a private attorney, the neutrality rules applicable to criminal prosecutors were equally applicable to government attorneys prosecuting certain civil cases. The court had noted that a prosecutor's duty of neutrality stems from two fundamental aspects of his or her employment. As a representative of the government, a prosecutor must act with the impartiality required of those who govern. Second, because a prosecutor has as a resource the vast power of the government, he or she must refrain from abusing that power by failing to act evenhandedly.

But now, the court concluded that to the extent Clancy suggested that public-nuisance prosecutions always invoke the same constitutional and institutional interests present in a criminal case, that analysis was "unnecessarily broad" and failed to take into account the wide spectrum of cases that fall within the public-nuisance rubric. In the present case, found the court, both the types of remedies sought and the types of interests implicated differed significantly from those involved in Clancy and, accordingly, invocation of the strict rules requiring the automatic disqualification of criminal prosecutors was unwarranted.

The court described a range of cases; criminal cases require complete neutrality. In some ordinary civil cases, neutrality is not a concern when the government acts as an ordinary party to a controversy, simply enforcing its own contract and property rights against individuals and entities that allegedly have infringed upon those interests. The present case fell between these two extremes on the spectrum of neutrality required of a government attorney. The case was not an “ordinary” civil case in that the public entities' attorneys were appearing as representatives of the public and not as counsel for the government acting as an ordinary party in a civil controversy. A public-nuisance abatement action must be prosecuted by a governmental entity and may not be initiated by a private party unless the nuisance is personally injurious to that private party. The case was being prosecuted on behalf of the public, and, accordingly, the concerns identified in Clancy as being inherent in a public prosecution were, indeed, implicated.

But, the court found that the interests affected in this case were not similar in character to those invoked by a criminal prosecution or the nuisance action in Clancy.  This case would not result in an injunction that prevents the defendants from continuing their current business operations. The challenged conduct (the production and distribution of lead paint) has been illegal in the state since 1978. Accordingly, whatever the outcome of the litigation, no ongoing business activity would be enjoined. Nor would the case prevent defendants from exercising any First Amendment right. Although liability may be based in part on prior commercial speech, the remedy would not involve enjoining current or future speech, said the court.

With the public-nuisance abatement action being prosecuted on behalf of the public, the attorneys prosecuting this action, although not subject to the same stringent conflict-of-interest rules governing the conduct of criminal prosecutors or adjudicators, were held to be subject to a heightened standard of ethical conduct applicable to public officials acting in the name of the public — standards that would not be invoked in an ordinary civil case.  That is,  to ensure that an attorney representing the government acts evenhandedly and does not abuse the unique power entrusted in him or her in that capacity — and that public confidence in the integrity of the judicial system is not thereby undermined — a heightened standard of neutrality is required for attorneys prosecuting public-nuisance cases on behalf of the government.

The court then determined that this heightened standard of neutrality is not always compromised by the hiring of contingent-fee counsel to assist government attorneys in the prosecution of a public-nuisance abatement action.  Use of private counsel on a contingent-fee basis is permissible in such cases if neutral, conflict-free government attorneys retain the power to control and supervise the litigation.  In so finding, the court downplayed the reality that the public attorneys'  decision-making conceivably could be influenced by their professional reliance upon the private attorneys' expertise and a concomitant sense of obligation to those attorneys to ensure that they receive payment for their many hours of work on the case.

To pass muster, neutral government attorneys must retain and exercise the requisite control and supervision over both the conduct of private attorneys and the overall prosecution of the case. Such control of the litigation by neutral attorneys supposedly will provide a safeguard against the possibility that private attorneys unilaterally will engage in inappropriate prosecutorial strategy and tactics geared to maximize their monetary reward. Accordingly, when public entities have retained the requisite authority in appropriate civil actions to control the litigation and to make all critical discretionary decisions, the impartiality required of government attorneys prosecuting the case on behalf of the public has been maintained, said  the court.

The list of specific indicia of control identified by the court seem quite strained, and to elevate form over substance, written agreements over human nature. The authority to settle the case involves a paramount discretionary decision and is an important factor in ensuring that defendants' constitutional right to a fair trial is not compromised by overzealous actions of an attorney with a pecuniary stake in the outcome. The court found that retention agreements between public entities and private counsel must specifically provide that decisions regarding settlement of the case are reserved exclusively to the discretion of the public entity's own attorneys. Similarly, such agreements must specify that any defendant that is the subject of such litigation may contact the lead government attorneys directly, without having to confer with contingent-fee counsel.

But in reality, even if the control of private counsel by government attorneys is viable in theory, it fails in application because private counsel in such cases are hired based upon their expertise and experience, and therefore always will assume a primary and controlling role in guiding the course of the litigation, rendering illusory the notion of government “control”.  The concurring opinion questioned whether public attorneys under all foreseeable circumstances will be able to exercise the independent supervisory judgment the majority concludes is essential if private counsel are to be retained under contingent fee agreements. 

The court noted that the issues all arose under its authority to regulated the practice of law, and no statutes or state constitutional provisions were at issue, which may distinguish the case from the issue in other states.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal court last week refused to dismiss most claims by a putative class challenging health claims in vitaminwater beverage labeling. Ackerman v. Coca-Cola Co., CV-09-0395 (E.D.N.Y., 7/21/10).

Here at MassTort Defense we have warned companies about the dangers of consumer fraud class actions and highlighted some of the many ridiculous, far-fetched, beyond belief claims that plaintiffs make about being misled about some product.  This one is near the top of the list. Plaintiffs allege that the name, "vitaminwater," along with a description of the vitamins in the water are somehow deceptive because they supposedly mislead people to believe that the beverages do not have sugar or calories in them. Plaintiffs are not alleging that vitaminwater doesn't have water or doesn't have vitamins or that the particular vitamins in vitaminwater fail to provide the benefit claimed. Rather, they claim that vitaminwater’s labeling and marketing are misleading because they "bombard" consumers with a message that supposedly draws consumer attention away from the significant amount of sugar in the product. About the sugar? The FDA-mandated label on each bottle bears the true facts about the amount of sugar per serving.

(The opinion also rejected defendant's argument that the claim was expressly and/or impliedly preempted by statutes and regulations preventing states from imposing labeling requirements that are different from those imposed by the FDA.)

The complaint alleged claims of unlawful business acts and practices in violation of California Business and Professions Code (“Cal. BPC”) § 17200 et seq. (“Unfair Competition Law” or “UCL”); Cal. BPC § 17500 et seq. (“False Advertising Law” or “FAL”); and California’s Consumers Legal Remedies Act, Cal. Civ. Code § 1750 et seq. (“CLRA”); (2) unfair business acts and practices in violation of California UCL; (3) fraudulent business acts and practices in violation of California UCL; (4) misleading and deceptive advertising in violation of California FAL; (5) untrue advertising in violation of California FAL; (6) unfair methods of competition or unfair or fraudulent acts or
practices in violation of § 1770(a)(7) of the CLRA; (7) deceptive acts or practices in violation of
New York General Business law (“GBL”) § 349; (8) false advertising in violation of New York
GBL § 350; (9) violation of New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act (“NJCFA”), N.J.S.A. 56:8-1 et
seq.; (10) breach of an express warranty; (11) breach of an implied warranty of merchantability;
(12) deceit and/or misrepresentation; and (13) unjust enrichment.

The claims were brought on behalf of three purported classes of plaintiffs: all California Residents who purchased vitaminwater at any time from January 15, 2005 to the present, (the “California Class”); all New York residents who purchased vitaminwater at any time from January 30, 2003 to the present, (the “New York Class”); and all New Jersey residents who purchased vitaminwater at any time from January 22, 2003 to the present (the “New Jersey Class”).

So what's misleading? The court found that plaintiffs had sufficiently pleaded that the collective effect of the marketing statements was to mislead a reasonable consumer into believing that vitaminwater is either composed solely of vitamins and water, or that it is a beneficial source of nutrients.   Despite the fact that the sugar content was plain as day to anyone who would look at the label. The court found that the fact that the actual sugar content of vitaminwater was accurately stated in an FDA-mandated label on the product does not eliminate the possibility that "reasonable" consumers may be misled. The court relied on Williams v. Gerber Products Co., 552 F.3d 934 (9th Cir. 2008), for the notion that the mere fact that an FDA-mandated nutritional panel provided
accurate nutritional information on a product did not bar claims that reasonable consumers could
be misled. Reasonable consumers should not, said the court, be expected to look beyond representations on the front of the box to discover the truth from the ingredient list in smaller print on the side of the box. But unlike the Gerber case, there were no allegations here that the packaging for vitaminwater contained any false statements or pictures. As noted, plaintiffs concede that vitaminwater actually contains the vitamins the marketing says it does. And it hardly seems like an unfair burden on a "reasonable" consumer to turn from the word "vitaminwater" on one part of the bottle to the label in close proximity on the very same bottle.

As a matter of law, plaintiffs should not be permitted to move forward with a claim about the presence of an ingredient that is clearly disclosed on the Nutrition Facts label, exactly where FDA tells the manufacturer to put that information.  And, of course, the problem with allowing the claim to proceed past the motion to dismiss claim is that the case will proceed through expensive discovery to reach a stage where common sense prevails and summary judgment is granted -- if a defendant is not blackmailed into settling.  And a common thread in many of these consumer fraud class actions is the fundamental notion by plaintiffs' attorneys --implicit in their theory-- that the public must be stupid, cannot read labels, and cannot make legitimate product choices for itself. In fact, the public speaks just fine with its wallets and pocketbooks. Fortified beverages are not new and are one of the fastest-growing market segments. Consumers are indeed able to read nutrition labels and ingredient listings and make smart choices, for themselves, without the help of the plaintiffs' bar.  Contrast this case with recent comon sense decisions.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation heard oral argument last week on the issue of consolidating the hundreds of cases arising from the Gulf oil spill. In re: Oil Spill by the Oil Rig “Deepwater Horizon” in the Gulf of Mexico,  MDL No. 2179.

The MDL panel met this time in Boise, Idaho, and suspended the usual rule limiting oral
argument to 20 minutes.  Multiple attorneys representing the various parties in the pending cases addressed the panel.  Most defendants urged the cases be coordinated in the Southern District of Texas, while most plaintiffs, including some of the restaurant owners and fishermen affected by the spill, argued for the Eastern District of Louisiana, asserting that much of the injury/damages is centered there. A  few other plaintiffs pushed for the cases to be coordinated in Mississippi, Alabama, or Florida courts.

BP argued that the Texas forum was appropriate because this defendant's headquarters, documents, and key fact witnesses are all located there. The government wants the cases consolidated in New Orleans. But one issue is that 8 federal judges, including several in Louisiana, have recused themselves from the spill cases.  This led to discussion whether potential judicial conflicts should compel the panel to bring in a judge from outside the Gulf states. In New Orleans, the Eastern District of Louisiana has consolidated its 50+ oil spill cases before Judge Carl J. Barbier, who has issued interim case management orders and appointed interim liaison counsel for plaintiffs and defendants.  Some have argued this has effectively created an administrative framework that could be utilized were the Panel to send the MDL to New Orleans.

At last look, federal cases were spread around the country, including in New York and California and Illinois.  However, the busiest oil spill dockets are in the Eastern District of Louisiana, Southern District of Texas, Southern District of Alabama, and the three Florida district courts, each with more than 10 cases. 

As noted here, the litigation involves a wide variety of claims, from personal injury, to property or environmental damages, lost profits, and securities-based economic injury.  The panel asked whether the cases, even if consolidated, should be put in separate groupings.  Some plaintiffs' attorneys  argued it was particularly important to set up a separate track for personal-injury claims.  

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The judge overseeing the Toyota unintended acceleration MDL has issued an order permitting expanded discovery. In Re: Toyota Motor Corp. Unintended Acceleration Marketing, Sales Practices, and Products Liability Litigation, Case No. 8:10ML2151 JVS (Order No. 5: Phase I Discovery Plan, July 20, 2010).

Judge Selna (C.D. Calif.) noted that the Phase I Discovery Plan being promulgated was intended solely to educate the parties about foundational issues involved in the litigation, including the identification of the proper parties to this litigation, the identity of relevant third-parties, organizational structure, the identify of relevant witnesses, and identity, nature, and location of relevant documents. The court expects that discovery on foundational issues during Phase I will enable the parties to develop a more narrowly tailored discovery plan for subsequent phases of the litigation and to be more focused, economical and efficient in subsequent phases of discovery. In addition to the foundational information to be provided to plaintiffs by Toyota, Phase I will also provide Toyota the opportunity to obtain foundational, threshold information from plaintiffs, the class representatives, and relevant third-parties.

Phase I Discovery will last for 100 days, and the parties agreed the Phase I discovery plan needs to be coordinated to the extent feasible with related cases pending in state courts.

Under the order, the Toyota Defendants are to produce witnesses pursuant to Rule 30(b)(6) to testify concerning the twenty-one issues, including:

• organizational structure,
• the roles and responsibilities of each of the various Toyota companies with respect to the design, manufacture and sale of Toyota vehicles,
• the identity, nature, location and retention of documents related to the design, evaluation, manufacture, and testing of the ETCS system and any modifications or adaptations of the ETCS system for Toyota vehicles,
• the identity of the persons and departments involved in the design, evaluation, testing and manufacture of the ETCS and its components,
• the identity, nature, location and retention of documents related to information Toyotas has received about speed control, surge, and SUA events in Toyota and Lexus vehicles, including specifically warranty records, customer complaints, claims and lawsuits,
• procedures employed for investigating and responding to complaints of unintended acceleration by owners or operations of any Toyota vehicles, and
• the internal decision-making process by the Toyota Defendants about what and when to inform Toyota customers, governmental agencies and the public about SUA events and the identities of the persons and departments involved in that decision-making process and the identity of the persons and departments involved in that process.

The court ruled that during this litigation the parties must endeavor to avoid duplicative depositions or repetitive questions and to avoid deposing any witness more than once on the same subject matter. But it held off on ruling on Toyota’s position that no Toyota witness deposed during Phase I
would be deposed again in subsequent phases of this litigation on the same subject matter, except by agreement of the parties. Plaintiffs did not agree with Toyota’s position.

Plaintiffs are to provide completed Plaintiff Fact Sheets and Class Representative Fact Sheets, including the production of any documents responsive to the fact sheets. Fact Sheet Responses to information requests are deemed interrogatory responses pursuant to FRCP 33 and may be treated as such at time of trial, under the order. Responses have to set forth all information known or reasonably ascertainable to the party and/or their counsel. The parties are obligated to make a reasonable search and diligent inquiry for information or documents responsive to the request.
Fact Sheet Responses to document requests and the production of documents are deemed responses and production under FRCP 34. 

Additionally, the Toyota Defendants shall be permitted to conduct inspections of the subject vehicles.  Plaintiffs and class representatives have to identify whether the subject vehicle exists, and if so, its current location, general condition, and vehicle identification number, if known.  The parties agreed that vehicle inspections would be permitted commencing in Phase I. The protocol for vehicle inspections will apparently be determined on a case-by-case basis. 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

 A federal court has dismissed a proposed class action against PepsiCo Inc. alleging that consumers were somehow being misled to believe that the company's Cap'n Crunch's Crunch Berries breakfast cereal contain real fruit.  Roy Werbel v. PepsiCo Inc., No: C 09-04456 SBA (N.D. Cal. 7/1/2010).

Here at MassTortDefense we have railed against the trends in consumer fraud class actions, as plaintiff lawyers seek class status for alleged economic-only harm claims, when they find some word or image in advertising that they can quibble about or argue is somehow ambiguous to a client.  No one is really harmed; no one is misled; no one is defrauded.  The theories of the case make a mockery of common sense and personal responsibility. But, hey, fees may be available. This case is part of an appropriate response to such claims.

Cap'n Crunch debuted in 1963, and Crunch Berries came along in 1967. The Cap'n was drawn by the same guy that created Dudley Do-Right, George of the Jungle, and Moose and Squirrel (Rocky and Bullwinkle.)  Perhaps some of our readership will remember the original commercials featuring the canine Sea Dog, who sailed with the Cap’n on his ship, The Good Ship Guppy. The crew was tasked with keeping the cereal safe from the Cap’n’s nemesis, Jean LaFoote, the Barefoot Pirate.  Trivia question: what is the Cap'n's full name?  See below.

Plaintiff Roy Werbel brought the putative class action against defendant on behalf of consumers who allegedly were misled into believing that “Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries” cereal derives some of its nutritional value from real berries or fruit.  On the package, immediately below the product name is a product description, which states: “SWEETENED CORN & OAT CEREAL.”  The display panel also depicts a ship’s captain in cartoon form standing behind a bowl of cereal, and holding a spoonful of multi-colored Crunch Berries. Plaintiff alleged that the colorful Crunchberries [sic] on the box conveyed only one message: that Cap’n Crunch "has some nutritional value derived from fruit.”  Although the product contains strawberry juice concentrate, that ingredient allegedly is for flavoring only.  According to plaintiff, the only reason that the front display panel on the Cap’n Crunch cereal box refers to “berries” is “to lead consumers to believe that the Product contains nutritional content derived from fruit.”

Plaintiff alleged statutory violations under California’s Unfair Competition Law (“UCL”), Cal. Bus. & Prof.Code § 17200, et seq., False Advertising Law (“FAL”), id. § 17500, et seq., and Consumer Legal Remedies Act (“CLRA”), Cal. Civ.Code § 1750, et seq., along with common law causes of action for intentional misrepresentation and breach of express and implied warranty. Claims made under these statutes are governed by the “reasonable consumer” test which focuses on whether “members of the public are likely to be deceived.” Williams v. Gerber Prods. Co., 552 F.3d 934, 938 (9th Cir. 2008) (citing Freeman v. Time, Inc., 68 F.3d 285, 289 (9th Cir. 1995)).

In response to the theory that members of the public were likely to be deceived into believing that Cap’n Crunch derives nutrition from actual fruit by virtue of the reference to Crunch Berries, the court gave a one word conclusion: "Nonsense."   It was obvious from the product packaging that no
reasonable consumer would believe that Cap’n Crunch derived any nutritional value from
berries. As an initial matter, the term “Berries” was not used alone, but always was preceded by the
word “Crunch,” to form the term, “Crunch Berries.”  Even the image of the Crunch Berries showed four cereal balls with a rough, textured surface in hues of deep purple, teal, chartreuse green and bright red. These cereal balls do not even remotely resemble any naturally occurring fruit of any kind we have ever seen; there are no pictures or images of any berries or any other fruit depicted on the Cap’n Crunch cereal box.  

Moreover, there were no representations that the Crunch Berries are derived from real fruit or are nutritious because of fruit content. To the contrary, the packaging clearly stated that product is a “SWEETENED CORN & OAT CEREAL.” In short, no reasonable consumer would be deceived into believing that Cap’n Crunch has some nutritional value derived from fruit. 

The warranty claim, that defendant allegedly warranted that Cap’n Crunch “contains berries” and “was a substantially fruit-based product deriving nutritional value from fruit,” was deemed "frivolous." No such claim was made expressly or impliedly anywhere on the Cap’n Crunch packaging or marketing material cited by plaintiff.

Case dismissed, with NO leave to amend to try to salvage some treasurer from nothing.  The Cap'n lives on.

Trivia answer: In May 2007 Cap'n Crunch's full name was revealed as Captain Horatio Magellan Crunch.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Last week, the California Assembly’s Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials approved the Consumer Right to Know Act, S.B. 928.  The bill passed the California State Senate last April, and is currently pending in the California Assembly’s Committee on Appropriations.

This bill would ban the manufacture, sale, or distribution of certain consumer products unless the manufacturer publishes a comprehensive list of ingredients on a publicly available website and directs consumers to a web address on the product’s label. The ingredients would have to be identified with a Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) number. Additionally, they should be identified by either the Consumer Specialty Products Association Consumer Product Ingredients Dictionary (CSPA dictionary) name or the International Nomenclature Cosmetic Ingredient (INCI) name.

As originally drafted, the bill applied to all consumer products as defined by the federal Consumer Product Safety Act. As amended, the current bill applies only to “designated consumer products.” So far, those products include: air care products, automotive products, cleaning products, and polish or floor maintenance products. But, according to observers, the scope of products is under review and could be changed by the legislature before enactment.

One huge issue with the bill is its inadequate protection for legitimate intellectual property, including trade secret information.

As it is currently drafted, S.B. 928 purports to protect trade secrets from disclosure, but it also restricts this ostensible protection in several problematic ways.

• First, “hazardous” ingredients cannot be trade secrets for purposes of the bill. And the bill has an overbroad broad definition of “hazardous.” That is, a “hazardous substance” is defined as a chemical, or chemical compound, including breakdown products, identified by any state or federal agency or other governmental body or the World Health Organization as potentially having properties of eye and skin irritation, sensitization, acute or chronic toxicity, carcinogenicity, cytotoxicity, neurotoxicity, developmental or reproductive toxicity, or both, endocrine disruption or ecotoxicity.  Any chemical has the "potential" to be toxic at the wrong dose. Even substances universally regarded as safe can cause sensitization in a few hyper-allergic persons.

 

• Second, hazardous incidental ingredients—those without a technical or functional effect, which, for example, can be present in very small quantities from processing or the production of other products—cannot be protected as trade secrets.

 

• Third, if a product or its ingredients or incidental ingredients can be reverse engineered, it should not receive trade secret protection. Of course, it is impossible for manufacturers to know in advance what is capable of being reversed engineered for the purposes of disclosing ingredients.

Such disclosure of all chemical ingredients in products may lead to final product manufacturers being placed in the awkward situation of asking suppliers to divulge ingredient information, unique combinations of ingredients, and/or formulas that are patented, proprietary, or considered trade secrets. Many times these formulas are provided to final product manufacturers only under confidentiality agreements. The legislation, in those cases, would appear to require manufacturers to violate those confidentiality agreements by disclosing chemical ingredient information.

In addition, the bill requires that a manufacturer complete a complicated and unworkable formal process to have product information protected as a trade secret. This includes a showing of how secrecy leads to value, the ease of duplication if disclosure is made, how the chemical identity relates to how the chemical is made, how the manufacturer maintains secrecy, and how hard it is to reverse engineer the product. Most importantly, this includes disclosure of the basis for the manufacturer’s determination that its ingredients are not hazardous. That is, prove the negative. 

Finally, if the state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) determines that the product is not deserving of trade secret protection for any number of listed reasons, including request from the public, the government can affirmatively disclose the product information. In order to prevent disclosure, the manufacturer will have 30 days to file for an injunction. That is an unfair and unworkable time frame.

A coalition of business interests led by the California Chamber of Commerce is opposing the bill on the grounds it increases costs to consumers and will expose confidential business information.  It fears that the definition of product will be expanded "to include everything under the California sun."

The bill would also eliminate trade secret protection after six years unless the manufacturer renews its claim. There is no apparent purpose for such a sunset provision on a trade secret claim other than to burden and place additional expense on the manufacturer. Finally, the bill provides no protections against private rights of action, including actions that may arise under California consumer fraud laws.

We could go on, but isn't that enough reason to conclude the bill strikes the wrong balance?

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Readers may recall that last month we posted about H.R. 5503, the “Securing Protections for the Injured from Limitations on Liability Act” (SPILL Act). This is one of many pending and promised bills addressing legal liability issues arising from the Gulf Coast oil spill, including amendments to the Death on the High Seas Act.

Specifically, H.R. 5503 would:

• Amend the Death on the High Seas Act to permit recovery of non-pecuniary damages (e.g., pain and suffering and loss of care, comfort, and companionship) by the decedent’s family, as well as standardizing the geographic threshold for its application, and permitting surviving family members to bring suit directly rather than through a personal representative.
• Amend the Jones Act to permit recovery of non-pecuniary damages by the families of seamen who are killed.
• Repeal the Limitation on Liability Act to the extent it limits the liability of vessel owners to the value of the vessel and its cargo.
• Amend bankruptcy rules to prevent corporations allegedly responsible for damages under the Oil Pollution Act from certain moves seeking to sever their assets from the legal liabilities.

The bill was supposed to be in response to the Gulf Oil Spill. However, we cautioned that some of  its provisions were not limited to the subject matter of oil spills. For example, Section 5 of the bill as introduced, proposed to amend the Class Action Fairness Act to exclude from its reach any action brought by a State or subdivision of a State on behalf of its citizens. Such a provision could have significant effect on CAFA, far beyond the oil spill litigation. For example, it might impact cases like State ex rel. McGraw v. Comcast Corp., 2010 WL 1257639 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 31, 2010).

The version passed by the House apparently does not contain this provision.  It was passed on motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended, and agreed to by voice vote.  Republicans and industry groups had expressed some concerns, and since many of the provision purport to be retroactive, wondered what the rush was.  Supporters argued that some of the prevailing laws were written in the mid-19th century to protect American merchant ship owners, and that the liability system needs to be updated.

As amended, Section 2 amends the Death on the High Seas Act (chapter 303 of title 46, United States Code), Section 3 alters recoveries under the Jones Act; Section 4 would repeal the Limitation of  Liability Act and the Oil Pollution Act; and Section 5 would provide new bankruptcy protection for tort claims arising from oil incidents.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The contrast is striking.  Recently, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 10-1 vote in favor of an ordinance requiring cell phone retailers in that city disclose cell phones' specific absorption rate, or SAR, to customers.

The same day, a study was published that further substantiates the safety of cell phone use.  Mobile phone base stations and early childhood cancers: case-control study, BMJ 2010;340:c3077.  The study, in the British Medical Journal, showed no link between proximity to cell phone towers and increased cancer risk to children whose mothers were pregnant while living near such towers.

The study looked at almost 7,000 children and incidence of early childhood cancers across Great Britain.  This was compared with data from Britain's four national mobile phone operators -- Vodafone, O2, France Telecom's Orange, and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile -- on more than 80,000 mobile phone towers used from 1996 to 2001.   The researchers found that those who developed cancer before the age of five were not more likely to have been born close to a tower than their peers. The scientists found no association between risk of cancer in young children and estimated exposures to radiofrequency from mobile phone base stations during pregnancy.

MassTortDefense notes some strengths in the study: its size and national coverage, avoiding selection and reporting bias in the choice of cases and areas for study. Also, because it focused on early childhood cancers, it avoided issues of long latency that can affect interpretation of some mobile phone studies in adults.

The study adds to a growing body of scientific research which has found no links between cell phones and cancer. Use of mobile phones has increased markedly in recent years. In the United Kingdom, the number of mobile connections has risen from just under nine million in 1997 to almost 74 million in 2007.

In light of the real science, we wonder if the ordinance will actually mislead consumers with point of sale requirements implicitly suggesting that some phones are "safer" than others based on radiofrequency (RF) emissions. In fact, all phones sold in the U.S. must comply with the Federal Communications Commission's safety standards for RF emissions.  

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

We are generally hesitant to post about some of the ridiculous industry-bashing that many anti-science, anti-capitalism groups spout -- for fear of spreading their misguided word one inch farther.  But sometimes, when litigation is threatened, you just have to stop biting your tongue.

The self-proclaimed Center for Science in the Public Interest has apparently threatened to sue McDonald’s if the popular food company does not stop marketing toys with its Happy Meals.  The claim is that the toys included in the meals instill unhealthy eating habits in children.  CSPI sent a letter to McDonald's last week demanding that the company immediately pull toys from its Happy Meal children’s meals. By advertising that Happy Meals include toys, McDonald’s somehow supposedly unfairly and deceptively markets directly to children.   Advertising a small toy in a Happy Meal box is supposedly deceptive because children under the age of 8 are not advanced enough to understand the "intent" of the marketing.

Well, how wrong can one misguided group be?  Let's count the ways.  Last time we checked, in a democracy with a free market economy, product sellers were free to make their products attractive to consumers, free to advertise them, and free to market their wares with accurate and truthful statements.  A Happy Meal is advertised to contain a toy.  It does.  It has a meal, just like promised.  And as a dad, I can attest to the fact the box meal does make kids happy.  Where is the deception?  There is none. The group cites a variety of state consumer fraud acts in the letter, but not a single case supporting its preposterous legal theories -- because there aren't any. For example, the group cites the Massachusetts law (93A), but the recent case Rule v. Ford Dodge Animal Health Inc., 2010 WL 2179794 (1st Cir. 6/2/10), makes clear that there is no valid consumer claim when the customer does not suffer a traditional and real economic injury.

Next, last time we checked, very few small children were behind the wheel in the drive-through line.  Parents can decide what their kids eat.  And parents can still say "no" when little Johnny or Suzie wants burgers and fries too often. When did we cross the line from parents raising their kids to the best of their ability, to the government (regulators or the courts through a suit) determining how kids should be raised, down to what they can eat and whether they get a small toy to play with after dinner?  According to CSPI, many children will pester their parents to take them to McDonald’s.  So what?  Kids pester; that's what they do.  Parents say "no."  That's what they do.  Problem solved -- without a class action.

Next, the rabble rousers complain that the Happy Meals are slightly higher in calories than the group thinks is reasonable.  Thank goodness for the self-appointed calorie police who think that the best way to tackle the issue of weight in this country is to have the courts force all food companies to make food that looks and tastes like cardboard and is boring, anything but "happy."  How about we get kids to put down the remote control and exercise and play sports more?  Problem solved -- without the litigation.

But, cries the group, the toys build brand loyalty and send the customers back again in the future.  Since when was it an actionable wrong to actually provide your customers with a product they like so much they come back and buy it again in the future?  What kind of economy does this group want?

CSPI needs to worry more about junk science than junk food.  In fact, in my area, McDonald's heavily advertises the four-piece Chicken McNuggets Happy Meal, which includes Apple Dippers, low-fat caramel dip and 1 percent low-fat white milk.  Maybe the issue is that the parents of the CSPI members never told them "no."  Not to worry, they will soon hear it from the courts if they pursue this threatened litigation.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

We have posted before about legislative efforts to make it easier for U.S. consumers to sue foreign product manufacturers.

Last week the the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection held a legislative hearing on H.R. 4678, the “Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act.”  The House bill  was introduced last February. The Senate's version, S. 1606, was introduced in August, 2009.

Witnesses included a representative of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Consumers Union,  American Association of Exporters and Importers, and a Professor from American University College of Law.

The Act would require foreign manufacturers and producers of several kinds of products to establish registered agents for service of process and to consent to jurisdiction here.  It appears to have bipartisan support, but raises a number of constitutional issues, and may not address the key issue of the enforceability of judgments handed down by U.S. courts.

Supporters of the bill note that the Hague Convention on Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters – of which the United States and many of its major trading partners, including China, are parties – provides a means of serving process on foreign manufacturers in their home countries.  However, this method can be time consuming and costly, because all the legal documents must be translated into the foreign manufacturer’s native language and then provided to a governmental central authority, which in turn attempts to serve the documents on the manufacturer. It can take many months for the central authority to serve the documents on the manufacturer.   In addition, even if a plaintiff successfully serves process on a foreign manufacturer, argue the supporters, the manufacturer will likely challenge the exercise of personal jurisdiction over it by a U.S. court. Before a U.S. court can exercise personal jurisdiction over a defendant it must consider: 1) the defendant’s purposeful minimum contacts with the state in which the court sits, and 2) fairness to the defendant of being subjected to jurisdiction in that state’s courts.  Foreign manufacturers have increasingly turned to litigating this issue to avoid being hauled into U.S. courts.

The Act would require foreign manufacturers and producers that import products into the United States to designate a registered agent who is authorized to accept service of process here in the United States. The agent would have to be registered in a state with a substantial connection to the importation, distribution, or sale of products of the foreign manufacturer or producer. CPSC, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency would each be required to determine, based on the value or quantity of goods manufactured or produced, which foreign manufacturers and producers under their respective authority would be required to designate a registered agent. Registering an agent consistent with the Act constitutes acceptance by the manufacturer of personal jurisdiction of the state and federal courts of the state in which the agent is located.

AAEI, on the other hand, is particularly concerned about the impact H.R. 4678 would have on U.S. exporters if this bill is enacted by Congress. If the United States enacts H.R. 4678 requiring foreign manufacturers to appoint a registered agent to receive service of process, they anticipate that our trading partners will enact similar measures. It will be difficult and expensive for American exporters to maintain registered agents in all the foreign markets to which it exports. Moreover, having a registered agent in foreign markets increase the likelihood that these companies will be
subject to litigation before foreign courts in countries with legal proceedings which are less
transparent than the United States, argued AAEI.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Last week,  U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) and Congressman Charlie Melancon (D-LA) introduced H.R. 5503, the “Securing Protections for the Injured from Limitations on Liability Act” (SPILL Act).  This is one of many pending and promised bills addressing legal liability issues arising from the Gulf Coast oil spill, including amendments to the Death on the High Seas Act.

Specifically, H.R. 5503 would:

• Amend the Death on the High Seas Act to permit recovery of non-pecuniary damages (e.g., pain and suffering and loss of care, comfort, and companionship) by the decedent’s family, as well as standardizing the geographic threshold for its application, and permitting surviving family members to bring suit directly rather than through a personal representative.

• Amend the Jones Act to permit recovery of non-pecuniary damages by the families of seamen who are killed.

• Repeal the Limitation on Liability Act to the extent it limits the liability of vessel owners to the value of the vessel and its cargo.

• Amend bankruptcy rules to prevent corporations allegedly responsible for damages under the Oil Pollution Act from certain moves seeking to sever their assets from the legal liabilities.

The bill is supposed to be in response to the Gulf Oil Spill. However, many of its provisions are not limited to the subject matter of oil spills.  For example, Section 5 proposes to amend the Class Action Fairness Act  to exclude from its reach any action brought by a State or subdivision of a State on behalf of its citizens.  Such a provision could have significant effect on CAFA, far beyond the oil spill litigation. For example, it might impact cases like State ex rel. McGraw v. Comcast Corp., 2010 WL 1257639 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 31, 2010). In that case, the state of West Virginia, in its capacity as parens patriae, filed an action in state court alleging that a cable company's requirements concerning cable boxes constituted impermissible tying behavior, in violation of state antitrust and consumer protection laws. On removal, the federal court held that the action was a “class action” under the Class Action Fairness Act, under which the definition of a class action must be “interpreted liberally.”

The bill has been referred to the following committees: House Judiciary, Subcommittee on House Transportation and Infrastructure, Subcommittee on House Transportation and Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation.

Earlier this month, the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a field hearing In Louisiana on the local impact of the Gulf oil spill.The House Subcommittee heard testimony from experts on the environment and wildlife, some of whom who warned that the full effects of the spill will not be known until the flow of oil is stopped.  But the most emotional testimony came from two widows, whose husbands died when the Deepwater Horizon Rig exploded in April. The widows urged Congress to reform the Death on the High Seas Act, but also noted that they fully support offshore drilling as essential to our nation's economy.

 

UPDATE: the House Judiciary Committee approved H.R. 5503, Securing Protections for the Injured from Limitations on Liability Act (SPILL Act), by a roll call vote of 16-11, with two Republicans, Reps. Lungren (R-Calif.) and Rooney (R-Fla.), joining the rest of the Democratic committee members in voting in favor.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

In a case that may impact some of the litigation rising from the Gulf Oil Spill, the Florida Supreme Court last week ruled in favor of a group of commercial fishermen who alleged damages arising from pollution in the Tamp Bay. See Howard Curd, et al. v. Mosaic Fertilizer LLC, (No. SC08-1920 Fla. 6/17/2010). The issue on appeal -- which the court took as a certified issue of great public importance -- was whether Florida law permits commercial fishermen to recover for economic losses proximately caused by the negligent release of pollutants, despite the fact that the fishermen do not own any property damaged by the pollution.

The defendant owned/operated a phosphogypsum storage area near Archie Creek in Hillsborough County. The storage area included a pond enclosed by dikes, containing waste water from a phosphate plant.  The dike gave way and pollutants were allegedly spilled into Tampa Bay.
The fishermen claimed that the spilled pollutants resulted in a loss of underwater plant life, fish, bait fish, crabs, and other marine life. They did not claim an ownership in the damaged marine and plant life, but claimed that it resulted in damage to the reputation of the fishery products the fishermen were able to catch and sought to sell.

The lower court concluded that the state statute on water pollution did not permit a claim by these fishermen for monetary losses when they did not own any real or personal property damaged by the pollution. After initially permitting the fishermen to proceed on their claims of negligence and strict liability, the lower court ultimately ruled that these claims were not authorized under the economic loss rule. The court reasoned that an action in common law either through strict liability or negligence was not permitted because the fishermen did not sustain bodily injury or property damage. The strict liability and negligence claims sought purely economic damages unrelated to any damage to the fishermen's property. Accordingly, the court further reasoned that Mosaic did not owe the fishermen an independent duty of care to protect their purely economic interests. 

The state supreme court disagreed.  The court pointed to a number of factors on the statutory claim:  it expressly protected public and private interests; it is to be liberally construed to effect the purposes set forth in the state statute and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act.  Moreover, the Florida  Legislature found and declared that escape of pollutants “poses threats of great danger and damage . . . to citizens of the state, and to other interests deriving livelihood from the state.”   Also, under the definition of statutory damages cited above, one can recover for damages to real or personal property and for damages to natural resources, including all living things. Finally, not owning property affected was not a listed defense to the cause of action in the act.

The lower court found that the economic loss rule barred the common law claims, as the fishermen's negligence and strict liability claims sought purely economic damages unrelated to any damage to the fishermen's property. Second, Mosaic did not owe an independent duty of care to protect the fishermen's expectation of profits. The supreme court found instead that neither the contractual nor products liability economic loss rule was applicable to this situation. The parties to this action were not in contractual privity. Moreover, the defendant in this case was not  a manufacturer or distributor of a defective product that has caused damage to itself.  Rather, plaintiffs brought traditional negligence and strict liability claims against a defendant who had allegedly polluted Tampa Bay and allegedly caused them injury.

Turning to the issue whether Mosaic owed an independent duty of care to protect the fishermen's purely economic interests—that is, their expectations of profits from fishing for healthy fish, the court found Mosaic did owe a duty of care to the fishermen, a duty that was not shared by the public as a whole.  The court admitted that as a general principle of common law negligence, some courts have not permitted recovery for purely economic losses when the plaintiff has sustained no bodily injury or property damage. See Union Oil Co. v. Oppen, 501 F.2d 558, 563 (9th Cir. 1974) (noting “the widely recognized principle that no cause of action lies against a defendant whose negligence prevents the plaintiff from obtaining a prospective pecuniary advantage”). The reasoning behind this general rule is that if courts allowed compensation for all losses of economic advantages caused by a defendant's negligence, a defendant would be subject to claims based upon remote and speculative injuries that it could not foresee. Such courts have concluded that the negligent defendant owes no duty to plaintiffs for such losses.

The Florida court concluded that the defendant here did owe a duty of care to these commercial fishermen, and that the commercial fishermen thus had a cause of action sounding in negligence. Under Florida law, the question of whether a duty is owed is linked to the concept of foreseeability. In the present case, the duty owed by Mosaic arose out of the nature of Mosaic's business and the special interest of the commercial fisherman in the use of the public waters. The court concluded that Mosaic's activities created an appreciable zone of risk within which Mosaic was obligated to protect those who were exposed to harm. Mosaic's business involved the storage of pollutants and hazardous contaminants. It was foreseeable, said the court, that were these materials released into the public waters, they would cause damage to marine and plant life as well as to human activity in the water.

Further, the commercial fishermen had a special interest within that zone of risk, an interest not shared by the general community, found the state supreme court.  The fishermen were licensed to conduct commercial activities in the waters of Tampa Bay, and were dependent on those waters to earn their livelihood. Mosaic's activities placed the fishermen's peculiar interests directly within the zone of risk created by the presence of its facility. As a result, Mosaic was obligated to exercise prudent foresight and take sufficient precautions to protect that interest.

As pointed out in the dissent, the majority opinion decided the case for a more narrow class than those bringing the suit -- and more narrowly than the claims they alleged. Although Curd's proposed class consisted of “all fishermen and those persons engaged in the commercial catch and sale of fish,”  the majority's decision did not extend to distributors, seafood restaurants, fisheries, fish brokers, or the like whose incomes may also have been affected by the alleged pollution. Additionally, the majority only addressed economic harm that allegedly resulted from the depletion of marine life and the resulting inability to harvest the commercial fishermen's usual yield—not from harm to reputation as alleged in the complaint. The fishermen presumably must still prove all of the elements of their causes of action, including damages.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a free-market think tank based in San Francisco, and the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, a public policy and economic research organization based in Arlington, VA, announced last week the release of their 2010 U.S. Tort Liability Index, a measure of which states impose the highest and lowest tort costs and risks.

According to the report, Alaska, Hawaii, and North Carolina lead the pack with the best rankings, while New Jersey, New York and Florida bring up the rear. Again, the states with the worst performance had the highest monetary tort losses and tort litigation risks, meaning they had more costly and riskier business climates due to larger plaintiff awards, larger plaintiff settlements, more lawsuits, or some combination of the three.

Direct tort costs account for almost 2 percent of GDP in the United States, which is the highest in the world, not surprising to our readers. Such high costs cause businesses to divert revenue, that could hire workers, to fight lawsuits. But all our readers ultimately shoulder the burden through higher prices and insurance premiums, lower wages, restricted access to health care, less innovation, and higher taxes to pay for court costs.

The Best Tort climates, according to the report:

Alaska
Hawaii
North Carolina
South Dakota
North Dakota
Maine
Idaho
Virginia
Wisconsin
Iowa

The Worst climates, according to the report:

New Jersey
New York
Florida
Illinois
Pennsylvania
Missouri
Montana
Michigan
Connecticut
California
 

States were also ranked according to their tort rules and reforms to reduce lawsuit abuse and limit tort costs and risks, such as award caps, or venue reforms to stop “litigation tourism."  Oklahoma, Texas, Ohio, Colorado and Mississippi did well on the tort reform scale in this report. The states with the least favorable tort rules for defendants, according to the analysis, are Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Illinois. 

This report can also be contrasted with the Chamber of Commerce report ranking state liability systems, and the ATRA report of the "most unfair jurisdictions."

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The First Circuit affirmed last week the lower court's dismissal of a putative consumer fraud class action involving a re-called heartworm medication for dogs. Rule v. Ford Dodge Animal Health Inc., 2010 WL 2179794 (1st Cir. 6/2/10).

Plaintiff, Rule, purchased two doses of ProHeart 6, a medicine for preventing heartworm in dogs, and had them administered to her dog Luke. She later filed a putative class action against Wyeth, alleging that defendant had sold ProHeart 6 without disclosing safety concerns revealed in initial testing and in subsequent use.  She alleged these concerns ultimately led Wyeth to recall the product at the FDA's request. According to plaintiff, adverse reactions were suffered by dogs after receiving ProHeart 6 during trials and in general use after the product was released. Importantly, the class representative conceded that Luke had not suffered any harm from the drug, and that Luke had not developed heartworm while using the drug.

Plaintiff's first cause of action was based on breach of the implied warranty of merchantability and the other based on the state consumer fraud statute, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93A. For damages on these two counts, Rule asserted that she and others similarly situated were entitled to the difference between the price they actually paid for ProHeart 6 and what it would have been worth had safety risks been adequately disclosed; for the chapter 93A count, she sought statutory damages if greater than actual damages and also trebling of damages. 

On the warranty count, the alleged unmerchantability (unfitness for ordinary use) of ProHeart 6 lay in its potential for causing harm to a dog. Rule conceded, however, that neither of the two doses injured Luke. So, while the sale to Rule may have been of an "unfit" drug, its unfitness did not give rise to any injury to Rule against which the warranty was designed to guard. Nor did she suggest that Luke became more susceptible to injury, as might be the case where one bought and installed a defective car tire that has not yet run its life. Recovery generally is not available under the warranty of merchantability where the defect that made the product unfit caused no injury to the claimant, the threat is gone, and nothing now possessed by the claimant has been lessened in value.

On the consumer fraud count, the act provides a cause of action for a plaintiff who has been injured by unfair or deceptive acts or practices. In Rule's view, she purchased Proheart 6 because of a deception (failure to disclose the risk), the product was “in reality” worth less than she paid for it (because of that undisclosed risk), and so she suffered damage measured by the difference between what she paid and what she would have paid if the risk had been disclosed. One problem with plaintiff's scenario was that she also alleged that had the risks been known, ProHeart 6 could not be sold at all, given FDA requirements.

But even assuming otherwise, Rule's suit was brought after her purchases and use of the drug, and she admitted that she got both the protection and convenience she sought and that the risk did not manifest itself in injury to her or her dog. Nor was she still holding a product that was worth less than she paid for it; she used the product up entirely and in fact suffered no economic injury at all. Indeed, her theory would not be adopted by deceived buyers whose dogs were actually injured or killed; they could seek not some modest reduction in price but the full cost of added veterinary bills and, if the dog died, its value.

So to the extent chapter 93A injury requires that a plaintiff who seeks to recover show “real” economic damages, Rule did not qualify. If, instead, a different notion of injury had sufficed - such as injury as a violation of some abstract “right” like the right not to be subject to a deceptive act that happened to cause no economic harm - then she would arguably have had a claim under chapter 93A and perhaps could obtain statutory damages.  The First Circuit observed some "tension" in the language used as between the earlier and the later state SJC decisions on the statute and especially where deception and risk are involved. However, said the court of appeals, the most recent SJC cases on point appear to have reaffirmed the notion that injury under chapter 93A means economic injury in the traditional sense.

Finally, the First Circuit addressed plaintiffs' typical policy-based argument that deceptive conduct needs to be deterred through a class action. While the alleged conduct such as that attributed to defendant needs to be deterred, that need not necessarily come from those who bought the product but were not injured.  It could be deterred by those with actual injury.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Third Circuit has affirmed the dismissal of two putative class actions that sought medical monitoring for workers and neighbors of factories using beryllium. Sheridan, et al.  v. NGK Metals Corp., et al., 2010 WL 2246392 (3d Cir. June 7, 2010). 

Readers may recall that previously we posted on the district court's dismissal of the claims against one of the defendants, an engineering firm that, according to the plaintiffs’ Amended Complaint, was involved with testing, sampling, analyzing, and monitoring the air quality and levels of beryllium at one plant involved in the cases. The Third Circuit affirmed.  Boiled down to its core, plaintiffs’ Amended Complaint contended that the engineering firm breached its duty of reasonable care by failing to warn members of the community surrounding one of the plants at issue about the alleged beryllium emissions from the facility. But there was no legal duty to warn.  In order for the engineers to have negligently failed to warn plaintiffs of harmful beryllium exposures, they must have undertaken the responsibility of making that warning. Plaintiffs never alleged that the firm negligently performed the tasks it actually undertook—that is, testing, analyzing, and monitoring the levels of beryllium, and reporting those tests to the owner and operator of the facility. 

Also of note for readers is the remainder of the court's analysis regarding other defendants, which focused on one of the elements of medical monitoring.

Some background.  Plaintiffs in each case filed a putative class action lawsuit against multiple defendants, alleging negligence in connection with beryllium exposure, and seeking a medical monitoring trust fund based on their alleged increased risk of developing chronic beryllium disease int he future. In the first action, (the “Anthony action”), the District Court granted defendants’ joint motion for summary judgment. In the second (the “Zimmerman action”), the District Court addressed three separate legal issues— medical monitoring under Pennsylvania law, claim preclusion of the claims of one named plaintiff, Sheridan, and third-party liability—and issued final orders in favor of defendants. Although the cases presented similar legal issues, they arose out of different locations and distinct facts. However, plaintiffs’ lawyers, many of the expert witnesses, and one defendant, were the same in each case. The Third Circuit did not consolidate the two separate appeals, but resolved them in one opinion.

Inhaling beryllium particles can lead to scarring of the lungs, a condition known as chronic beryllium disease.  CBD occurs when the immune system mounts an attack against beryllium particles that have entered the body. The lung sacs become inflamed and fill with large numbers of white blood cells that accumulate wherever the beryllium particles are found. The cells form balls around the particles called granulomas. Eventually, the lungs become scarred and lose their ability to transfer oxygen to the blood stream.

The dose-response picture is a bit unusual. Mere exposure itself appears to be insufficient because only persons who have a particular genetic “marker”—the Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA)-DPB1 allele—can potentially recognize beryllium in the lungs as an antigen. This reaction is called beryllium sensitization (“BeS”). The parties did not dispute that BeS is a necessary precursor to CBD. BeS by itself causes no abnormal lung function and requires no treatment (i.e., it is asymptomatic).  The experts debated how many people have the marker with estimates ranging from below 10% to 40% of the population. The most common test for sensitization is the beryllium lymphocyte proliferation test (“BeLPT”), which is not a test for the genetic marker, but a reasonably accurate test for sensitization according to the experts.

Readers know that one of the typical elements of a medical monitoring claim is proof of a significantly increased risk (of contracting the latent disease for which plaintiff seeks medical monitoring). Plaintiffs' expert testimony was that all individuals exposed to beryllium at above background levels are at a significantly increased risk and require medical monitoring. They  declared that there is a direct relationship between the level of exposure and risk, and that CBD is not qualitatively different from any other environmental exposure disease.  Defendants' expert opined that given class rep Anthony’s negative result in the test to show whether he had become sensitized, and the fact that only a small percentage of the population can become sensitized, Anthony was not at a significantly increased risk of developing CBD.

In the other class action, the parties stipulated that class rep Zimmerman was not beryllium sensitized. Plaintiff experts argued, however, that anyone who has lived in the area surrounding the plant in question was at a significantly increased risk given the levels of beryllium in the
ambient air and documented cases of CBD in the community. They made a quantitative risk assessment based on collected exposure data, concluding that the risk of contracting CBD to the members of the proposed class represented by Zimmerman was 3 per 10,000, and for those
individuals who have lived near the plant for at least ten years, the risk allegedly increased to 1 per 500.

The Third Circuit noted that the intermediate appellate court in Pennsylvania had addressed analogous medical monitoring claims in Pohl v. NGK Metals Corp., 936 A.2d 43 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2007). The Pennsylvania Superior Court concluded there that the record provided no support for plaintiffs’ contention that they were sensitized to beryllium and thus that they faced a significantly increased risk of contracting CBD. Plaintiffs in federal court contended that Pohl was neither controlling nor persuasive, because it was a fact-specific decision in which the state court dismissed the three plaintiffs’ claims based on their individual failure of proof.

The court of appeals, however, concluded that the state court drew a line along the exposure-to-disease continuum -- at sensitization. The Third Circuit held that unlike its role in interpreting federal law, it may not "act like a judicial pioneer" in a diversity case. Contrary to both Anthony’s and Zimmerman’s contentions, Pohl was not based only on a simple lack of proof; it was based on plaintiffs’ failure to meet the requisite threshold for establishing significantly increased risk due to (1) the undisputed facts about beryllium exposure, BeS, and CBD, and (2) plaintiffs’ inability to demonstrate a significant increase in risk of disease before sensitization. Although the disparate data on how many people have the marker shows the gaping holes in the current state of scientific research, as well as the substantial factual disagreements between scientists, it was not material to this appeal. The parties stipulated that Anthony had not developed BeS, and there was no proof that he has the genetic marker associated with CBD. This background data did not prove his individual significantly increased risk.

As to the Zimmerman class (all persons who resided within a one-mile radius of the Reading Plant for at least six months during the time period between 1950 and 2000), the court noted that plaintiffs tried to make a different showing, including by presenting data on specific exposure levels around the Reading Plant and the number of documented cases of CBD in the community there. From Zimmerman’s perspective, exposure to beryllium is analogous to exposure to other toxins, such as asbestos and PCBs. Defendants contended CBD’s immunological nature distinguishes beryllium from other toxins, which do not invoke an allergic response in only a subset of susceptible persons and instead have a more linear exposure-to-disease relationship.

The state of the art is that only a small subset of an exposed population (those who carry the genetic marker) is at risk of developing CBD; the relationship between beryllium exposure and CBD is relatively non-linear, making generalized risk assessments inappropriate. Thus, there was a failure of proof on the risk element, given the current state of scientific knowledge on the
relationship between beryllium exposure and disease. Plaintiff failed to present sufficient evidence that as a proximate result of the exposure, he had a significantly increased risk of contracting
CBD.

The failure of the class reps to show they could meet a necessary element of the claim meant that the class actions could not proceed. (Sheridan's claim was barred.)

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Plaintiffs have sued the Procter & Gamble Co. in a proposed national class action, alleging that  new Pampers diapers containing “Dry Max” technology is causing rashes and "chemical burns" in some infants. See Clark, et al. v. Procter & Gamble Co., No. 10-301 (S.D. Ohio, 5/11/10). Plaintiffs seek reimbursement for the cost of diapers, as well as for alleged medical expenses and treatment.  The plaintiffs allege that P&G knew or should have known that the diapers with Dry Max technology could harm kids' bottoms. They assert causes of action for breach of implied warranty of merchantability, breach of  implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose, violation of consumer fraud acts, negligence, unjust enrichment, and strict liability.  Then came word that the Consumer Product Safety Commission would review consumer complaints regarding Pampers with the new Dry Max technology.

P&G notes that the Dry Max technology is a significant innovation in diapers. The Dry Max technology allows the diapers to be thinner and lighter, but still absorbent.  The Proctor & Gamble website notes the safety of the diapers  for babies, and the heavy testing -- the product is one of the most tested diapers in the company's history. To date, there have been in excess of two billion diaper changes using the new product, with only a handful of rash complaints, none of which were shown to be caused by the type of materials in the product. In fact, the company has received fewer than two complaints about diaper rash for every one million diapers sold, which apparently is average for the diaper business and does not deviate from the number of calls received prior to Dry Max.

It is hard to imagine that common issues will predominate over the individual issues arising from causation and injury, in the putative class action. Diaper rash is very common, and sometimes severe, regardless of the diaper used. At any given moment, more than 250,000 babies will experience a serious rash. Disposable diapers in fact have helped reduce the incidence of rash by more than 50 percent since they were first introduced in the 1960s because they pull wetness away from a baby's skin. It is very common for long-time consumers of child care or personal care products to correlate a change in product style or design with an adverse effect.

What is most interesting for our readers, perhaps, is the fact that this litigation was apparently spurred by the social networking site, Facebook, where some parents have been blaming the new diapers for rashes.  This has spread not only word of the incidence of a possible problem, but also the non-scientific, non-expert attribution of causation.  Here, for example, there have actually been very few complaints to the CPSC, but the CPSC said the on-line activism was part of what has prompted them to examine the alleged diaper issues.

Sites like Facebook give consumers a bigger platform to voice their opinions and find other similarly situated individuals, and product sellers need to realize how that can spur litigation. Social media alone do not produce litigation, of course.  But from a potential liability standpoint, the social networking sites are becoming a new resource for plaintiff product liability  attorneys.   Facebook provided plaintiff attorneys potential access to thousands of product users documenting their experiences with the product.  Some even have posted relevant photographs. The diaper Facebook group apparently grew to more than 10,000 members. Such Internet activity can include product users talking about the possibility of litigation and searching for attorneys. Some members of the plaintiff bar have used on-line media to communicate with potential clients, and identify ideal class representatives.  

Defense lawyers need to recognize they can research and learn from plaintiffs' on-line activities, as well, particularly before the involvement of plaintiff attorneys. Discovery requests for
Facebook profiles, forensic examinations of computers, or, at proper times, third-party requests directly to the social networking site, may be part of their arsenal.  There may be information about named class representatives, or the class in general. After litigation is filed, some class members continue to participate in Facebook groups.  People will say things in that informal environment that they might not say in a deposition.

Of course, several advisory ethics opinions remind litigators that rules of professional responsibility apply when accessing social networks for case purposes. Contacting parties or witnesses through a “friend request” must be done in accordance with the applicable Rule of Professional Conduct.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Readers know that the Class Action Fairness Act expanded federal jurisdiction over certain class actions.  An interesting set of issues has arisen over whether and when federal jurisdiction remains after class proceedings take a turn. In a recent decision, the Seventh Circuit held that CAFA jurisdiction survives even after class allegations are removed from the complaint.  In re Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Corp., 2010 WL 1980172 (7th Cir., 5/19/10).

Plaintiffs were a class of local property owners who filed a complaint in Wisconsin state court against Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company. They alleged that BNSF's failure to inspect and maintain a railroad trestle caused their town to flood in July 2007, damaging their property. Defendants removed. After the district court denied a remand motion, plaintiffs asked for leave to amend their complaint to omit the class allegations. The district court allowed the amendment, noting that it would streamline the litigation. The court also construed the plaintiffs' motion as an implied motion to remand the case, which it granted. The district court explained that its revised jurisdictional analysis was based on the amended complaint, and that since the new complaint did not contain class allegations, it did not provide jurisdiction under CAFA.

The Seventh Circuit disagreed: jurisdiction under CAFA is secure, even though, after removal, the plaintiffs amend their complaint to eliminate the class allegations. The well-established general rule is that jurisdiction is determined at the time of removal, and nothing filed after removal affects jurisdiction. CAFA is, at base, an extension of diversity jurisdiction. Even in cases filed originally in federal court, later changes that compromise diversity do not destroy jurisdiction.

The court also analogized to its recent conclusion in Cunningham Charter Corp. v. Learjet, Inc., 592 F.3d 805 (7th Cir.2010). The court there held that in a case removed under CAFA, jurisdiction survives even if the district court denies class certification. Id. at 806-07; see also United Steel, Paper & Forestry, Rubber, Mfg., Energy, Allied Indus. & Serv. Workers Int'l Union, AFL-CIO, CLC v. Shell Oil Co., 2010 WL 1571190, at *3-4 (9th Cir. Apr.21, 2010).  CAFA jurisdiction attaches when a case is filed as a class action; keeping the case in federal court after removal minimizes the expense and delay caused by shuttling a case from court to court and furthers CAFA's purpose of allowing putative class actions to be litigated in federal court.

When the post-removal change is not the district court's denial of class certification but is instead the plaintiffs' decision not to pursue class certification, the same considerations of expense and delay apply, said the court.  In addition, allowing plaintiffs to "amend away" CAFA jurisdiction after removal would present a significant risk of forum manipulation. CAFA's legislative history reflects an awareness of the latter concern, citing the existing rule that jurisdiction cannot be ousted by later events.  Otherwise plaintiffs who believed the tide was turning against them could simply  amend their complaint months (or even years) into the litigation to require remand to state court.  See S.Rep. No. 109-14, at 70-71 (2005).

  

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The federal judge in the multidistrict litigation concerning the heart drug Digitek has denied class certification in the MDL's six remaining class actions.  In re: Digitek Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 1968 (S.D. W. Va.).

Quick history. Digitek® is a trade-name for a drug called digoxin. Digoxin was approved by the FDA to treat various heart problems. At some point, a handful of non-conforming dose tablets were found in a lot of 4.8 million tablets.  Defendant initiated a voluntary Class I nationwide product recall.  A flood of civil actions were instituted in state and federal courts across the country. The plaintiffs claimed a variety of injuries and losses resulting from the recalled Digitek®. In 2008, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation established an MDL proceeding.

The MDL court addressed several overlapping motions for class certification. The class representatives each sought some kind of economic loss class certified pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. Two of the class complaints sought only a single-state class. Others sought a nationwide class of all persons residing in the United States who purchased Digitek® pursuant to prescription, during the time period when the recalled Digitek® was manufactured, or sold, who suffered economic losses, including, but not limited to, payments for recalled Digitek®, out-of-pocket expenses for diagnostic testing, medical visits, and/or new prescriptions, as a result of having received recalled Digitek®.

Generally, the plaintiffs focused not on the distinct and highly individualized alleged injuries to the class, but -- as is typical -- on defendants’ alleged misconduct that led to the recall.  In doing so, the plaintiffs tried to paint New Jersey as the nerve center for certification purposes. In fact, they said New Jersey law should control all of the potentially hundreds of thousands of class members’ claims and recoveries throughout the United States. They thus downplayed the individual issues that would arise, including choice of law. They stressed instead that the damages  allegedly suffered by each individual class member were modest and, absent a certified class, millions of consumers would be left without remedy.

The court first addressed the choice of law issues in a nationwide class, as the state in which each claimant was injured has an overriding interest in having its laws applied to redress any wrong done to its citizens.  For example, state consumer protection laws vary considerably, and courts must respect these differences rather than just apply one state's law to sales in other states with different rules.  In re St. Jude Medical, Inc., 425 F.3d 1116, 1120 (8th Cir. 2005).  See generally Kanner, Consumer Class Actions After CAFA, 56 Drake L. Rev. 303, 334 (2008).  Unjust enrichment law varies considerably throughout the United States as well.  Tyler v. Alltel Corp., 265 F.R.D. 415, 422 (E.D. Ark. 2010).  The court reached the same conclusion with the express and implied warranty claims.  See, e.g., Walsh v. Ford Motor Co., 807 F.2d 1000, 1016-17 (D.C. Cir.1986).  The differences impact the class certification factors of typicality, predominance, and manageability.

Putting aside the choice of law issue (that is, assuming a class of New Jersey residents alone and applying only New Jersey law to their claims), the court found that common issues still did not predominate. Violation of the NJ Consumer Fraud Act is subject to proof of a number of
elements, including that plaintiff suffered an ascertainable loss as a result of the unlawful conduct; and a causal relationship between the unlawful practice and the loss sustained.  That is, the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act affords a right to monetary relief only if there has been an  ascertainable loss in consequence of the consumer receiving something other than what he bargained for, and losing the benefits of the product which he was led to believe he had purchased.  Plaintiffs' contention here that everyone in the class sustained an ascertainable loss presumes that the drug was worthless. But the drug was enormously beneficial to many patients; most got the right dose. Those patients presumably got their money's worth and suffered no economic injury. And the question whether an individual class member got his or her money's worth is inherently individual. Indeed, it involves very much the same questions as would a claim for money damages for personal injury.

This was seen in the differences between the class representatives: one returned Digitek® following the recall. But he received, in return, replacement digoxin at no charge. Another wanted a co-payment for a doctor visit that he had post-recall. He admitted, though, that the appointment was scheduled pre-recall. If certification were granted, this type of fact-intensive investigation and specific explanation would likely be necessary for all claimants to assure that their claims were compensation worthy.

The individual questions also proliferate to the extent the jury is ultimately required to determine which class members received defective Digitek® and which did not. In other words, it may ultimately be inappropriate, said the court, to treat all the recalled Digitek® as a single “defective” product for purposes of making the determination of whether it was unsafe.  Thus product identification would have individual, as opposed to collective, hallmarks.

Another individual issue was the vast array of individualized damages the representatives were seeking. The plaintiffs tried to sweep this concern aside. But even if not controlling,  individualized damage determinations cut against class certification under Rule 23(b)(3).  Ward v.
Dixie Nat. Life Ins. Co., 595 F.3d 164, 180 (4th Cir. 2010).

Finally, the court confronted the individualized process of sorting out those potential class members who were already fully compensated by the defendants' refund process. Mitigation was  another highly individualized matter.  Certification appropriately denied. 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Consumer Product Safety Commission last week announced the results of testing performed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on allegedly defective drywall samples.  Among the findings, most of the drywall that has allegedly caused personal injury and corroded electrical components in various homes throughout the U.S. was indeed manufactured in China;  specifically,  the most reactive sulfur-emitting drywall samples were all produced in China, according to the CPSC.  The worst-testing samples of the Chinese drywall showed emission rates of hydrogen sulfide 100 times greater than non-Chinese drywall samples.

CPSC released the names of the 10 worst-performing samples, including those of Knauf Plasterboard (Tianjin) Co. Ltd. for drywall manufactured in 2005, Taian Taishan Plasterboard Co. Ltd. for drywall manufactured in 2006, Shandong Taihe Dongxin Co. for drywall manufactured in 2005, Beijing New Building Materials for drywall manufactured in 2009.  Drywall samples manufactured in the United States in the same period contained low or no detectable emissions of hydrogen sulfide, according to the agency. 

At the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue meetings in Beijing May 24-25, U.S. officials reportedly pressed the Chinese government to facilitate a meeting between CPSC and the Chinese drywall companies whose products were used in U.S. homes, and which exhibit the emissions identified during the testing procedures. The Strategic and Economic Dialogue represents the highest-level bilateral forum to discuss a broad range of issues between the two nations.

Federal cases concerning the drywall products are coordinated in multidistrict litigation pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. More than 7,000 plaintiffs have claimed that Chinese-made drywall in their homes emits sulfide gases that corrode electrical wiring and/or cause personal injury such as nasal damage and other respiratory problems.  In the first trial, the court ordered Taishan Gypsum to pay $2.6 million to seven plaintiffs last April. In the second trial, the court ordered Knauf Plasterboard to pay a plaintiff family $164,000.  In re: Chinese-Manufactured Drywall Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2047 (E.D. La.).

Cases are also pending in state court, and a state trial court in Miami recently certified a class in this litigation. Harrell v. South Kendall Construction Corp. et al., No. 09-008401 (11th Judicial Circuit, Fla.). Following a hearing last Thursday, Judge Farina granted class certification, the first Chinese drywall case to be certified. The class consists of approximately 150 claimants who were purchasers of homes in three subdivisions of the Keys Gate community there. The class alleged that those homes were built using Chinese drywall. Defendants are home builder Kendall Construction Corp., Palm Isles Holdings LLC, broker Keys Gates Realty Inc, and supplier Banner Supply Co.

The court found that a predominating common issue in each class member's case is whether the drywall installed in his or her house was defective. The trial court found that the alleged defect, the potential to emit sulfur gases that can cause damage, is inherent in the physical characteristics of the product and thus has a uniform nature. With one supplier and one builder allegedly involved, the court distinguished the case from other product defect cases in which individual issues are typically found to predominate.

The opinion noted that differences among proof of damages has typically not defeated class certification. The court stressed that if individual class member homeowners were to file their own separate actions, the court would be confronted with a multiplicity of lawsuits that would unnecessarily burden the court system and create the risk of inconsistent rulings and contradictory judgments.

While the court was clearly influenced by the belief that the issues surrounding the allegedly defective product were "unaffected by outside variables," like the way the product was used, its analysis of predominance is quite questionable.  For example, it concluded that a common issue was whether the defective drywall damaged the homes of the putative class members, and thus that the issue of injury (whether the drywall damaged all the homes) could be proved with class-wide evidence.  The fact is that enough of the drywall was imported to damage more than 50,000 homes; yet only a small percentage of that has been observed. Thus, it may be that any number of factors may be impacting the damage drywall is or is not causing in a particular house. Moreover, it is far too simplistic to talk about the injury or "damage" being caused, when there are hotly debated issues about whether there is injury to, or the need for remediation of, non-problem drywall, insulation, flex duct, molding, encapsulated wiring, counter tops, and a whole host of house components. Similar issues will relate to the causation of corrosion of a home’s electrical wiring or AC system.  

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

More than 100 federal and state court actions have been filed against BP PLC, Transocean Ltd., and other companies in connection with the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig accident in the Gulf of Mexico.  (The API has a Q&A on the accident, and the Unified Command on the incident offers updates.)  Like many mass accident scenarios, the spill has generated a variety of kinds of actions. The claims so far fall into several main categories, including personal injury/wrongful death, maritime torts, property damage/lost profits, shareholder claims, and environmental law actions.

The wrongful death actions arise from the 11 workers missing and presumed dead in the accident.  These cases were filed in federal and state courts in Louisiana and Texas.  Gulf-front property owners, fishermen, shrimpers, harvesters, seafood processors, and restaurants in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida are among the entities suing over alleged harm to their businesses and their economic livelihoods. Many of these suits are class actions with overlapping class definitions.  The plaintiffs typically allege that defendants knew of the dangers associated with deepwater drilling and failed to take appropriate safety measures to prevent damage to marine or coastal environments, where they work and earn their income.

These claims potentially implicate caps on damages under the Limitation of Liability Act, and the Oil Pollution Act, which currently caps certain oil spill liability at approximately $75 million.  Plaintiffs have asserted that there are various exemptions from this reach of the Oil Pollution Act, for gross negligence and certain cleanup costs.  Also, the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress have advocated raising the caps retroactively. Bills S. 3305  (the so-called Big Oil Bailout Prevention Liability Act of 2010) and H.R. 5214 would raise the liability for economic damages to $10 billion per spill from the current $75 million. In a Senate hearing, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar warned that raising the trust fund's liability cap to $10 billion would prevent smaller and mid-sized energy companies from operating offshore. Perhaps most importantly, there is some case law suggesting that the Oil Pollution Act will not preempt state common law tort liability.

The administration is also proposing a tax increase, to support the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, of a further 1 cent per barrel on petroleum. It is interesting that the administration has been criticized for the slowness of some of its responses to the spill, but is very quick to propose tax hikes, without an opportunity for all stakeholders to be heard and without careful consideration of the availability of the fund for future incidents. A White House summary of its proposals for legislation on oil spill response is available.

Some plaintiffs have proposed that the federal cases be coordinated in an MDL proceeding in the Eastern District of Louisiana.  In Re Oil Spill by the Oil Rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, MDL No. 2179 (filed 4/30/10). Certain defendants have suggested instead that the Southern District of Texas host the MDL. A large group of plaintiffs' attorneys had met in New Orleans early in the month to plot out litigation strategy.  Interestingly, the Mississippi Bar issued a statement advising potentially affected parties of the risk of improper solicitation by plaintiff attorneys.It will be fascinating to see if the defendants can remain similarly coordinated and avoid unnecessary finger-pointing.  The testimony of various executives for BP Plc, Transocean Ltd., and Halliburton in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that pointed out the responsibilities of the other companies, raises this issue. 

Another type of pending action is by various shareholders alleging securities fraud in a class action that asserts that defendants made false and misleading statements about their safety procedures. Allegedly as a result of the statements and the company's supposed failure to disclose prior safety issues, the stock prices had been inflated, tumbling after the accident.  Several shareholder derivative lawsuits were also filed against certain officers and directors of the defendants, claiming that they breached their fiduciary duties by supposedly ignoring critical safety issues. The suits also allege that defendants lobbied governmental authorities to reduce the extent of safety  regulation of the companies' gulf operations. (one would think that was protected speech)

Some litigation has named Interior Secretary Salazar and the U.S. Department of the Interior for their oversight of off-shore drilling operations. These case point to the rules regulating the oil companies' blowout and worst-case oil spill preparations.  Some have gone so far as to seek a halt to BP's operations at other oil drilling platforms.  Still others have focused on the oil companies' environmental impact statement posture as in violation of  the National Environmental Policy Act, and their seismic surveys and drilling operations as in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.

Democratic Senators are pressuring the Justice Department to to open a criminal probe into the accident, and BP's statements to the federal government regarding its ability to respond to oil spills. Earlier this month, Florida Gov. Crist appointed two former Florida state attorneys general to head a newly formed legal team that will represent the state on issues related to the spill.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) announced last week that she would seek to ban the chemical bisphenol-A in food and drink containers as part of an amendment to the proposed Food Safety Modernization Act (S.510). That move has the double distinction of lacking in scientific merit and threatening to undermine the bipartisan support for the good parts of the pending bill.  The Grocery Manufacturers of America and the Chamber of Commerce had expressed support for the food safety bill, but may oppose it if the bill contains language banning the chemical. The food safety bill is expected to come up after Congress returns from its Memorial Day break.

The Senator's ill-supported approach by-passes the safety review that belongs with the FDA, and is ongoing, with a re-review assessment due in 2011. NIH has also launched a study on the safety of low level exposure to BPA.  World-wide regulatory agencies who have reviewed BPA have thus far concluded that BPA is safe for use in canned products.  The European Food Safety Authority has announced a delay in delivering its own latest BPA report, needing more time to review the body of research on the chemical.

Clearly, an abrupt and unnecessary ban on packaging containing BPA would affect consumer ability to find nutritious, valuable, and shelf stable foods and beverages.  The proposed ban runs counter to the fact that BPA has been used for over 30 years to improve the safety and quality of food and beverages, including by providing protective coating for cans. The overwhelming scientific evidence points to the conclusion that at current human exposure levels, BPA is not toxic.  What is in fact occurring is that anti-chemical activists are simply manipulating consumers’ fears, and opportunistic politicians are jumping in.

Even though there is no persuasive scientific evidence that BPA causes the type of harm the politicians speculate about, litigation is well underway in both the Western District of Missouri (MDL 1967) and the Western District of Kentucky (MDL 2137). The former involves class action suits against manufacturers of baby bottles and sippy cups. The claims include alleged violation of state consumer protection acts, fraud, breach of warranty, unjust enrichment, strict product liability, and negligence. MDL 2137, on the other hand, involves suits against an aluminum bottle manufacturer claiming that the manufacturer marketed its product as an alternative to BPA-containing plastic even though its metal bottles were allegedly lined with an epoxy resin containing BPA.  

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Readers may recall my post about the Fifth Circuit granting the petition for rehearing en banc in Comer v. Murphy Oil.  The case involves a lawsuit by property owners against some three dozen oil, coal, and chemical companies, alleging that the defendants' activities contributed to climate change and magnified the effects of Hurricane Katrina, and thus exacerbated the damage from the storm. The trial court dismissed the suit on political question and standing grounds.  On appeal, a panel of the 5th Circuit reversed last Fall, finding that the plaintiffs did have standing and that the political question doctrine did not apply.

The defendants filed a petition for rehearing en banc, which was granted, and set the case for oral argument next week.  But, the clerk recently sent a letter noting the cancellation of en banc oral arguments.  Apparently, since the en banc court was constituted, new circumstances have arisen that make it necessary for another judge to recuse, leaving only eight members of the court able to participate in the case. Consequently, said the clerk, the en banc court has lost its quorum. Seven members of the court had previously recused themselves from the case.

Several defendants have filed a motion arguing for a different reading of the rule regarding a quorum, and/or raising the argument that the district court's opinion ought to remain the controlling law of the case, rather than the panel's decision which was vacated by the en banc decision. The court has responded by asking for supplemental briefing on these issues. Specifically, the order invited the parties to address the matter “as they think appropriate” but specifically directed them to analyze the interplay between the following rules and statute in resolving the disposition of the appeal: Fed. R. App. P. 35(a), 28 U.S.C. §46 (c) and (d), Fed. R. App. P. 41 (a) and (d) (1), 5th Cir. Local Rule 41.3, and Fed. R. App. P. 2. The court also instructed the parties that they may consider the rulings of Chrysler Corp. v. United States, 314 U.S. 583 (1941) and North American Co. v. Securities & Exchange Comm’n, 320 U.S. 708 (1943) and the Rule of Necessity.

Presumably, three outcomes are possible:the court decides it actually does have a quorum and thus oral argument is rescheduled; the panel decision is reinstated by default (with an ensuing cert petition to the Supreme Court); or, the district court is affirmed without opinion.

Many observers had predicted that the en banc decision by the 5th Circuit would create a circuit split  with the 2d Circuit decision in Connecticut v. American Electric Power. There, a two-judge panel reversed the lower court dismissing the case on political question grounds, and finding the plaintiffs had standing to assert nuisance claims (with a similar attenuated causation theory).  This presumably would have paved the way for Supreme Court cert review.  Of course, Justice Alito has recused himself in cases involving ExxonMobil due to his ownership of its stock, and  Justice Breyer has recused himself from cases involving BP.  Perhaps Justice Sotomayor would also recuse herself due to her participation in the Connecticut v. American Electric Power case when she was on the Second Circuit.  So any possible Supreme Court review may be complicated also by the recusal and quorum issues.

Stay tuned.  This one is getting even more interesting, if thatis possible.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal court recently certified a class of Minnesota building owners in litigation over issues with plumbing systems. See In re: Zurn Pex Plumbing Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 08-1958, 2010 WL 1839278 (D.Minn. 5/6/10).

The issue for our readers is not so much what happened, but what should have happened but did not.  I recently posted about the7th Circuit decision in American Honda Motor Co., Inc. v. Allen, 2010 WL 1332781 (7th Cir., April 7, 2010), mandating that trial courts rule on the admissibility of expert testimony at the certification stage of litigation when the testimony is critical to certification.  That is the only approach that makes any sense. Otherwise, the court risks certifying a class -- and engaging the parties in  the massive discovery and notice process that accompanies it  -- based on testimony that fails the Daubert test, is unreliable, and eventually inadmissible under the Federal Rules.  Here, the court refused to exclude the testimony of two plaintiff experts at the certification stage.  The court noted that the 8th Circuit had not yet adopted the approach of the 7th Circuit. 

Historically, potable water plumbing systems used copper pipes. In the 1990's, some companies designed plumbing systems using polybutylene plastic. After a wave of litigation involving allegedly failed polybutylene plumbing systems, defendant Zurn designed a cross-linked polyethylene plumbing system, commonly referred to as “pex,” as an alternative to polybutylene systems and copper plumbing systems. Plaintiffs were individuals who owned a home with a Zurn pex plumbing system. in several lawsuits, plaintiffs alleged that defective fittings used in the pex system caused their plumbing systems to leak resulting in damage to their properties. Plaintiffs also alleged that Zurn failed to adequately test the brass crimp fittings in their anticipated environments before marketing its product. In 2008, the Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation determined that the pex plumbing cases met the MDL test, and that centralization of the cases in Minnesota was appropriate.

Plaintiffs moved for certification of a class of all persons and entities that own a structure located within the State of Minnesota that contains a Zurn Pex plumbing system with brass crimp fittings.  Defendants, in turn, moved to exclude portions of the testimony of plaintiffs' experts, Dr. Wallace Blischke and Dr. Roger Staehle.  

Dr. Blischke, a statistician, performed an analysis of Zurn's warranty claims data and estimated that millions of Zurn's brass fittings will fail within the twenty-five year warranty period; he concluded that the fittings have a mean time to failure of 40 years.  Defendants offered evidence that the 40 years was based on unsupported assumption, not data.  The court admitted that as merits discovery unfolded and more information becomes available, Dr. Blischke's 40 year estimate for the mean time to failure "may or may not be admissible," but it would consider the expert testimony in support of class certification anyway and "has given such testimony proper weight."

Dr. Staehle then conducted a round of testing known as the U-bend test of brass specimens from Zurn's fittings. Defendants offered evidence that the reliability of Dr. Staehle's U-bend testing was undermined by his use of an artificially inflated level of strain, and they challenged the correctness of Dr. Staehle's calculation of the strain. The court concluded that "at this point" it would not exclude the testimony, which could be the subject of cross examination.

The certification battleground was 23(b)(3) predominance.  Defendants stressed that there were lots of possible causes of the failure of any particular plumbing system, and thus individual issues predominated.  Plaintiffs -- and here we see where the denial of a Daubert inquiry has its pernicious effect -- responded that the brass crimp fittings used in the pex plumbing system suffer from an inherent design and manufacturing defect, and that the parts were substantially certain to fail within the 25 year express warranty provided by Zurn and/or the useful life of the fittings.  And this was a set of predominating common issues, they said.  But they only get there through the testimony of the experts, not only on the merits, but on the presentation that the defects and useful life were demonstrable on a common basis through expert testimony about testing and time-to-failure.  So, for example, in certifying a warranty class for those plaintiffs whose systems had not yet failed, the court readily acknowledged being influenced by the fact that plaintiffs "allege, and intend to prove by expert testimony, that Zurn's brass crimp fittings suffer from a uniform, inherent design and manufacturing defect...."

Similarly, with regard to a class relying on a negligence cause of action, the court concluded that if plaintiffs can prove that the crimp fittings suffer from a uniform, inherent design and manufacturing defect, and that the defect is the only cause of failure in the majority of the cases, then proximate cause will not involve predominately individual determinations, and resolution of that issue would be common the class. For class certification purposes, the court was "convinced that Plaintiffs have adduced sufficient evidence to support their theory of the case."  But, of course, that evidence was arguably inadmissible expert testimony.

Since proof of reliance will likely vary among class members, and since defendants are entitled to present individualized defenses to reliance under Minnesota law, plaintiffs failed to show that the reliance component of their consumer protection claims could be proven by common evidence. Accordingly, class certification as to plaintiffs' consumer protection claims was denied.

But imagine how easy it can be to show "predominance" of common issues when your proof is unreliable, inadmissible, unscientific, expert testimony that just doesn't get screened.  Why should the gatekeeper role not impact entrance to the expensive, protracted world of a class action as much as to trial?

 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The three attorneys serving as interim plaintiffs' counsel in the Toyota multidistrict litigation have filed a joint Preliminary Report, pursuant to the Court’s April 14, 2010 CMO No. 1. See  In re Toyota Motor Corp. Unintended Acceleration Marketing, Sales Practices, and Products Liability Litigation, No. 8:10-ml-02151-JVS-FMO (C.D. Cal.,  4/30/10).

Among the topics covered were many of the basic MDL structural issues, including the proposed structure and roles of designated counsel.  The parties recommended 18 attorneys to serve in leadership positions. More than 80 law firms and attorneys had filed applications by the May 3rd deadline to serve as lead counsel or in some other leadership role in this MDL.

The plaintiffs' attorneys also recommended establishment of a core discovery committee led by the co-lead counsel for the two types of cases, personal injury and economic loss.  Plaintiffs’ outlined their Core Discovery (types of information and documents, and types of discovery). Proposed core discovery  included: (i) Floor Mat,  (ii) Pedal, and (iii) Electronic Throttle systems issues. Plaintiffs' core discovery includes probing allegations of the existence of a defect in Toyota vehicles responsible for alleged sudden unintended acceleration; and the design and manufacture process for the engine throttle control system (including pedals, floor mats, electronic control systems, accelerator pedals, throttle bodies, etc.).  They also outlined proposed document discovery, as far back as the 1990s, claiming that design of that system began in the 1990s and that it was put in place in some vehicles as early as model year 1998.

Similarly, defendants outlined their proposed discovery in personal injury cases and economic loss cases. A key issue for them is the preservation of the vehicles in testable condition.

The parties offered a brief statement of the facts and legal issues, including class certification issues, standing issues, the application of the economic loss rule, choice of law, and the statute of limitations. Defendants’ specifically requested coordination with state court proceedings. There are now reportedly about 100 cases in 22 states.

Toyota has previously announced that it had retained an outside engineering and scientific consulting firm to conduct a comprehensive, independent analysis of Toyota and Lexus vehicles using the ETCS-i system (Electronic Throttle Control System with intelligence) for concerns related to unintended acceleration.

Toyota has provided members of Congress with an interim, first phase report from this expert on its evaluation of the ETCS-i system, consistent with the company’s commitment to transparency regarding the quality and safety of its vehicles

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Coca-Cola Co. has successfully obtained summary judgment in a case alleging that the company unfairly marketed its Coca-Cola Classic soft drink as “original formula” despite allegedly having substituted high-fructose corn syrup for the ordinary table sugar it used when the drink was introduced. Judge Patrick Murphy issued an order last week in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois.

Plaintiffs Amanda Kremers and Jason McCann, sued on behalf of themselves and a proposed class of Illinois citizens, alleging that Coca-Cola’s conduct in labeling cans and bottles of “Classic” Coke with the terms “Original Formula” constitutes a deceptive and unfair trade practice. This is because, plaintiffs contended, the “Original Formula” of Coke, which was invented in 1886, called for Coke to be sweetened using sucrose (ordinary table sugar, in essence), whereas “Classic” Coke currently is sweetened using high fructose corn syrup (“HFCS”). They alleged violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act (“ICFA”), and unjust enrichment.

Proposed class rep Kremers conceded at her deposition that she has known since the 1990's that “Classic” Coke contained HFCS and that “Classic” Coke is marketed as the “Original Formula” of Coke.  Kremers admitted also that she read the words “Original Formula” on a container of “Classic” Coke in the 1990s.  That was sufficient to put her on notice to inquire about her alleged claims, and that she knew or reasonably should have known of her so-called injury. Thus, her claim was barred by the statute of limitations, even with the discovery rule.

Turning to the merits of the case, the state statutory cause of action requires: (1) a deceptive act or practice by the defendant, (2) the defendant’s intent that the plaintiff rely on the deception, (3) the occurrence of the deception in the course of conduct involving trade or commerce, and (4) actual damage to the plaintiff (5) proximately caused by the deception.  To prove that element of proximate causation in a private cause of action brought under the ICFA, a plaintiff must allege that he was, in some manner, actually deceived. 

McCann’s testimony at his deposition was that he wasn't actually deceived.  He never read the key language until after he was approached by counsel for plaintiffs in this case about serving as the representative of the proposed class. Hence, he could not prove proximate causation for purposes of a claim for deceptive trade practices under the ICFA.

To establish a prima facie case of unfair trade practices under the ICFA, a plaintiff must prove that a defendant intentionally engaged in an unfair practice in the course of conduct involving trade or commerce, and that this practice proximately caused harm to the plaintiff. The court found that as a matter of law, the sales here were not unfair trade practices. The trade practices in dispute in this case were not deceptive acts (as above). No public policy of Illinois proscribed the use of HFCS as a sweetening agent in beverages and foodstuffs. The facts concerning plaintiffs' use hardly suggested they had been oppressed by Coca-Cola’s trade practices, or had been afforded the lack of meaningful choice necessary to establish unfairness.

Perhaps most importantly, McCann could not show the necessary substantial harm for an unfair trade practice, given the small amount of the product he purchased, the fact that he continued to purchase "Classic” Coke after the commencement of this suit and despite knowledge that the product contains HFCS, and because the alleged injury was one any consumer of “Classic” Coke quite easily could have avoided, by, for example, simply drinking a different soft drink or other beverage.

Although fraud is not an element of a claim for unjust enrichment under Illinois law, the Seventh Circuit nevertheless has made clear that where the plaintiff’s claim of unjust enrichment is predicated on the same allegations of fraudulent conduct that support an independent claim of fraud, resolution of the fraud claim against the plaintiff is dispositive of the unjust enrichment claim as well.

Class motion dismissed as moot.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Seventh Circuit has affirmed a district court's ruling which dismissed Taiwanese plaintiffs' claims against blood product manufacturers on statute of limitations and forum non conveniens grounds. Chang v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., 2010 WL 1136521 (7th Cir. 3/26/10).

Because my colleague Dave Walk was part of the winning defense team, just the facts here without alot of commentary. 

The case was filed originally in California by residents of Taiwan but transferred by the multidistrict panel to the district court in Illinois with the other suits in the clotting-factor mass tort for pretrial proceedings.  The main tort claim was that the defendants acquired blood from "high-risk" donors, processed it improperly in California where they manufactured clotting factors, and after discovering that the factors were contaminated by HIV nevertheless continued to distribute the product in foreign countries (while withdrawing them from distribution in the United States). Thus, plaintiffs in this case, or the hemophiliac decedents whom they represented, in fact resided, and obtained and injected the clotting factor, in a foreign country.

The court addressed first the claims that were dismissed as untimely. The critical issue so far as these dismissals on the merits were concerned, said the court, was choice of law. When a diversity case is transferred by the multidistrict litigation panel, the law applied is that of the jurisdiction from which the case was transferred, in this case California. The California statutes of limitations don't begin to run until the plaintiff discovers, or should in the exercise of reasonable diligence have discovered, that he has a claim against the defendant.  But this discovery rule, even if applicable, would not save the plaintiffs' tort claims from dismissal for untimeliness. Plaintiffs argued that they didn't have enough information on which to base a suit until a New York Times article about the contamination of clotting factors with HIV was published on May 22, 2003, and therefore that their suit, filed in 2004, was timely.  But as the district court found, the plaintiffs had a reasonable basis to suspect that they had a cause of action more than five years before the article appeared, when their counsel actually had begun negotiations with two of the defendants to settle negligence claims arising from the alleged contamination of the defendants' clotting factors with HIV. (These negotiations culminated in the settlement in 1998 on which the plaintiffs' breach of contract claim was based.)

The plaintiffs argued that the limitations period should have been tolled by defendants' “fraudulent concealment” because when entering into the settlement agreement they claimed that they had done nothing wrong and that they were offering financial aid purely as a humanitarian gesture. The plaintiffs were mistaken in this. Denial of liability when negotiating a settlement agreement is the norm; it is not evidence of fraudulent concealment of anything.

The district court was also correct in ruling in the alternative that a California court would apply the Taiwanese 10-year statute of repose, because the plaintiffs' tort claims arose under Taiwanese law. The hemophiliacs whom the plaintiffs represented were infected in the 1980s, more than a decade before these suits were brought. If the plaintiffs' tort claims arose in Taiwan, California law makes the Taiwanese statute of repose applicable to those claims. The reason is California's “borrowing” statute, which is sensibly designed to discourage forum shopping, would bar the action in California if it would have been barred in Taiwan. The plaintiffs tried to argue that their claims arose in California, not Taiwan, because it was in California that the defendants allegedly failed to process their clotting factors in a way that would prevent contamination by HIV. But generally there is no tort without an injury. That is the rule in California.  And the injury alleged occurred in Taiwan.

Turning to the claims that the district court dismissed not as untimely but on the basis, rather, of forum non conveniens, the court noted that the contract was negotiated and signed in Taiwan.  The key language at issue, the so-called scale-up clause, was ambiguous.  Evidence beyond the language of the settlement agreement would be necessary to "disambiguate the clause," said the court, and it seemed that most of the persons who are in a position to give such evidence live in Taiwan, including the plaintiffs' Taiwanese counsel who negotiated the settlement, a Taiwanese patient representative, members of the Taiwanese department of health, defendants' Taiwanese outside counsel, and an employee of defendants in Taiwan.

Taiwanese law makes it difficult to gather evidence for use in a trial in a foreign country because Taiwan is not a party to the Convention on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters; the alternative method of obtaining evidence in a foreign country, sending a letter rogatory to the foreign court, seemed to not be a very satisfactory means of obtaining evidence.  So this important factor pointed to Taiwan. The only circumstance that would favor holding the trial in California rather than in Taiwan would be the greater convenience for the defendants, since they are American companies. But as they didn't want the case to be tried in California, or indeed anywhere else in the United States, really there was nothing in favor of the American forum, said the court. When application of the doctrine of forum non conveniens would send the plaintiffs to their home court, the presumption in favor of giving plaintiffs their choice of court is little more than a tie breaker.  But, said the panel, "there is no tie here."

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Seventh Circuit issued a very interesting opinion on the interplay of class certification and Daubert issues. American Honda Motor Co., Inc. v. Allen, 2010 WL 1332781 (7th Cir., April 7, 2010).  Specifically, the defendant asked the court to resolve whether the district court  must conclusively rule on the admissibility of an expert opinion prior to class certification when that opinion is essential to the certification decision. Since this is the type of question that Rule 23(f) was designed to address, the court of appeals took the appeal -- and agreed with Honda. 

Plaintiffs were purchasers of Honda's Gold Wing GL1800 motorcycle; they alleged that the motorcycle has a design defect that prevents the adequate dampening of “wobble,” that is, side-to-side oscillation of the front steering assembly. Plaintiffs moved for class certification pursuant to Rule 23(b)(3). To demonstrate the predominance of common issues, they relied heavily on a report prepared by a motorcycle engineering expert, who opined about a "reasonable wobble decay" standard. Honda moved to strike the report pursuant to Daubert, arguing that this wobble decay standard was unreliable because it was not supported by empirical testing, was not developed through a recognized standard-setting procedure, was not generally accepted in the relevant scientific, technical, or professional community, and was not the product of independent research.

The district court said that it had "definite reservations" about the reliability of the expert's wobble decay standard. Nevertheless, the court declined to exclude the report in its entirety "at this early stage of the proceedings.”  The trial court denied Honda's motion to exclude “without prejudice,”  and granted plaintiffs' motion for class certification.

The 7th Circuit has already noted that a district judge may not duck hard questions by observing that each side has some support. Tough questions must be faced and squarely decided, if necessary by holding evidentiary hearings and choosing between competing perspectives. But the court had not yet specifically addressed whether a district court must resolve a Daubert challenge prior to ruling on class certification if the testimony challenged is integral to the plaintiffs' satisfaction of Rule 23' s requirements.  Here, it did hold that when an expert's report or testimony is critical to class certification, as it was in this case, a district court must conclusively rule on any challenge to the expert's qualifications or submissions prior to ruling on a class certification motion. That is, the district court must perform a full Daubert analysis before certifying the class if the situation warrants. If the challenge is to an individual's qualifications, a court must make that determination by comparing the area in which the witness has superior knowledge, skill, experience, or education with the subject matter of the witness's testimony. The court must also resolve any challenge to the reliability of information provided by an expert if that information is relevant to establishing any of the Rule 23 requirements for class certification.

Here, while the trial court began to ask the right questions, it never finished. The court's effective statement of admissibility left open the questions of what portions of the expert's testimony it may have decided (or will decide) to exclude, whether the expert reliably applied the standard to the facts of the case, and, ultimately, whether plaintiffs had actually satisfied Rule 23(b)(3)'s predominance requirement -- because they relied on the expert opinions. As a result, the district court never actually reached a conclusion about whether the expert report was reliable enough to support plaintiffs' class certification request.  This was not sufficient. Indeed, it was an abuse of discretion, according to the court of appeals.

The court went on to examine the record, which revealed to it that exclusion was the inescapable result when the Daubert analysis is carried to its conclusion. The expert originally developed the standard for use in a lawsuit in which he testified as an expert against Honda; despite its publication in one journal, there is no indication that this wobble decay standard had been generally accepted, or indeed, accepted by anyone other than this author. The expert never conducted any rider confidence studies to determine when motorcycle riders perceive wobble, or performed any tests to determine the minimal wobble amplitude at which riders detect oscillation.  He did test a single, used 2006 GL1800, ridden by a single test rider, but then extrapolated his conclusions to the entire fleet of GL1800s produced from 2001 to 2008 -- arguably too small a sample size from which reliable extrapolations can be made. 

The court therefore granted Honda's petition for leave to appeal, vacated the district court's denial of Honda's motion to strike and its order certifying a class, and remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The U.S. Supreme Court last week ruled that certain state laws barring class actions cannot be utilized to dismiss such class actions in federal court. Shady Grove Orthopedic Associates PA v. Allstate Insurance Co., 2010 WL 1222272 (3/31/10).

The appellant, Shady Grove Orthopedic Associates PA, had sought to bring a $5 million class action against Allstate Insurance seeking penalties for interest on claims under no-fault accident insurance policies that the insurer allegedly paid late. The policy was governed by New York state law. And the Eastern District of New York found that a New York state law prohibited Shady Grove from bringing a class action. The law prohibits plaintiffs from recovering state statutory penalties in class actions unless class proceedings are authorized in the statute.

State substantive (contract) law governed the case, but since the case was in federal court under diversity jurisdiction, Rule 23 applied to the procedural aspects of the class action.  So how to deal with the fact that New York law does not allow such a lawsuit to seek to recover a penalty as part of the remedy? The lower courts ruled that New York’s ban on such a remedy controlled in federal court, too, because Rule 23 is only a procedural rule, while the New York law limiting the remedy was substantive.  (Remember Erie from civil procedure class?) The district court found that the interest Shady Grove sought to recover was a “penalty” under the statute, precluding a class action in the federal court, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed.

In a majority opinion joined by four other justices, Justice Scalia wrote that F.R.C.P. 23, and not state law, is the controlling authority on whether this class action could be filed in federal court.  New York’s law and Rule 23, that opinion said, are directly contradictory in  that both purport to control whether the class action lawsuit could be pursued in federal court.  The Court rejected the Second Circuit's belief that § 901(b) and Rule 23 do not conflict because they address different issues: that is, the lower court thought Rule 23 concerned only the criteria for determining whether a given class can and should be certified; section 901(b), on the other hand, addresses an antecedent question, thought the lower court, whether the particular type of claim is eligible for potential class treatment in the first place.

But Rule 23 prevails if there is such a conflict.  Rule 23 provides a one-size-fits-all formula for deciding the class-action question, said Justice Scalia.  If Rule 23’s specific terms are met, the class action case may proceed, because the federal rules empower a federal court to certify a class in every case where the Rule 23 criteria are met. “Rule 23 unambiguously authorizes any plaintiff, in any federal civil proceeding, to maintain a class action if the Rules’ prerequisites are met. We cannot contort its text, even to avert a collision with state law that might render it invalid.”  By its terms ,this provision creates a categorical rule entitling a plaintiff whose suit meets the specified criteria to pursue his claim as a class action.

The Scalia group rejected Allstate's point that allowing Shady Grove to sue on behalf of a class transforms the dispute over a five hundred dollar penalty into a dispute over a five million dollar penalty. First, Allstate's aggregate liability, said the opinion, does not depend on whether the suit proceeds as a class action. Each of the 1,000-plus members of the putative class could (as Allstate acknowledged) bring a freestanding suit asserting his individual claim. More fundamentally, said Justice Scalia, the substantive nature of New York's law, or its substantive purpose, makes no difference. A Federal Rule of Procedure is not valid in some jurisdictions and invalid in others, or valid in some cases and invalid in others-depending upon whether its effect is to frustrate a state substantive law (or a state procedural law enacted for substantive purposes).

In her dissent, Justice Ginsburg worried that the majority ruling would frustrate the intent of
the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 by making it easier to file class actions. And the decision may give plaintiffs an incentive to file class actions in federal rather than state courts, at least where the latter may apply state laws limiting class actions. But the majority found that the short of the matter is that a federal rule governing procedure is valid whether or not it alters the outcome of the case in a way that induces forum shopping. The majority rejected the dissent's apparent approach of determining whether state and federal rules conflict based on the subjective intentions of the state legislature as an enterprise destined to produce “confusion worse confounded.”

The decision came on a 5-4 vote, but the complex of opinions means only that New York may not bar this particular class action lawsuit in federal court when a federal court procedural rule allowed it. Justice Stevens wrote that he was joining only for “this case.”  In the remainder of the Stevens’ concurring opinion, he made it clear that he disagreed with Justice Scalia on the general question of whether federal courts, applying what they considered to be federal procedural rules in a state-law case, would always trump a state rule.  In particular, Justice Stevens was worried about a situation in which a state law that is procedural is so intertwined with a state right or remedy that it actually defines the scope of the state-created right.  His reading of the Rules Enabling Act was that federal courts may not craft procedural rules that modify “any substantive right.” Of course, the mere chance that a federal rule would intrude on such a right or remedy, he said, is not sufficient.

Justice Scalia responded that the test the Court has applied has always been whether the federal rule really regulates procedure, the judicial process for enforcing rights and duties recognized by substantive law and for justly administering remedy and redress for disregard or infraction of them. The test is not whether the rule affects a litigant's substantive rights; most procedural rules do. What matters is what the rule itself regulates: If it governs only the manner and the means by which the litigants' rights are enforced, it is valid; if it alters the rules of decision by which the court will adjudicate those rights, it is not.

We probably haven't heard the last of this debate.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal court last month dimissed claims by plaintiffs concerning hip implants, with an analysis important for other consumer protection-type class action claims. Watkins v. Omni Life Science, Inc., 2010 WL 809820 (D.Mass. 2010).

Plaintiffs were recipients of the Apex Model Replacement Hip. Although neither plaintiff alleged an Apex Hip malfunction, they claimed that the allegedly relatively high rate of failure of the Apex Hip placed them and members of the proposed class at serious risk of future harm.  The failure rate was also alleged to have diminished the market value of their hip implants and those of the putative class members. Plaintiffs claimed that they would not have selected the model Hip over other alternative devices but for the representations made by the defendant manufacturer. Plaintiffs asserted claims for breach of implied warranty, breach of contract, unjust enrichment and constructive trust, violations of the Massachusetts consumer protection statute, and violations of the consumer protection laws of all other states (for the class).

Omni filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), arguing that no legally cognizable injury was pled in any of plaintiffs' claims. Plaintiffs' reply argument, as is typical, was a benefit of the bargain theory. Plaintiffs claimed that an accident-related injury or a manifested defect need not be shown as a predicate of recovery on their consumer claims. They claimed that their sufficient injuries consisted of: (1) the apprehension caused by the prospect of an increased risk of hip failure and (2) the extra money that they paid for an overvalued Apex Hip.

First, the court said, although plaintiffs' claims were styled as contract and breach of warranty claims, they actually were tort allegations. A plaintiff cannot disguise a tort claim with mere contract langauge. In Massachusetts, the economic loss doctrine applies, and purely economic losses cannot be recovered in tort or product liability actions in the absence of personal injury or property damage. The court added that the economic loss rule applied to the plaintiffs' consumer protection act claims as well.

As tort claims, plaintiffs failed to allege sufficient injury. Apprehension of a heightened risk stemming from an allegedly defective product that has not failed or caused harm to this plaintiff is insufficient as a matter of law to support a claim. See Anderson v. W.R. Grace & Co., 628 F.Supp. 1219, 1231 n. 6 (D.Mass.1986) (“The weight of authority would deny plaintiffs a cause of action solely for increased risk because no ‘injury’ has occurred.”). Plaintiffs' overpayment argument was also based on a theory of economic loss that has no place in a tort context. See Iannacchino v. Ford Motor Co., 451 Mass. 623, 633, 888 N.E.2d 879 (2008).

To the extent an allegation sounding in fraud was underlying some of the claims, read in the aggregate, the court found that Omni's alleged misrepresentations, as pled, lacked the capacity to mislead consumers, acting reasonably under the circumstances, to act differently from the way they otherwise would have acted. Under Rule 9b, in alleging fraud or mistake, a party must state with particularity the circumstances constituting fraud or mistake.  This was not done.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Seventh Circuit recently issued an interesting decision in two consolidated consumer cases. Dekoven v. Plaza Associates, Nos. 09-2016, 09-2249 (7th Cir. 3/17/10).  In the two closely related class action suits under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692-1692p, which the appeals court had consolidated for decision, the plaintiffs complained about dunning letters sent to them by the a debt collection agency.

What is most interesting to our readers is not the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act issues, perhaps, but the court's guidance on survey evidence. In both cases the district court had entered summary judgment in favor of defendant after rejecting the survey evidence prepared by the plaintiffs’ expert witness, Howard L. Gordon.   Indeed, while the court could see a potential for deception of the unsophisticated debtor in letters sent offering some kind of compromise of their debts, it had no way of determining whether a sufficiently large segment of the unsophisticated were likely to be deceived to enable the court to conclude that the statute had been violated.

For that conclusion, evidence is required, the most useful sort, observed the court, being the kind of consumer survey described in Johnson v. Revenue Management Corp., 169 F.3d 1057, 1060-61 (7th Cir. 1999); see also Hahn v. Triumph  Partnerships LLC, 557 F.3d 755, 757 (7th Cir. 2009); Williams v. OSI Educational Services, Inc., 505 F.3d 675, 678 (7th Cir. 2007). (But see, for criticism of the use of survey evidence, Judge Jolly’s dissenting opinion in Gonzalez v. Kay, 577 F.3d 600, 609-11 (5th Cir. 2009).)

Here, the plaintiffs’ expert did conduct a survey. But both trial court  judges considered it  inadmissible under the standards governing the admission of survey evidence (a form of expert evidence) in federal court. See, e.g., Muha v. Encore Receivable Management, Inc., 558 F.3d 623, 625-26 (7th Cir. 2009); Peaceable Planet, Inc. v. Ty, Inc., 362 F.3d 986, 992 (7th Cir. 2004); United States v. Curtin, 588 F.3d 993, 997-98 (9th Cir. 2009); Vail Associates, Inc. v. Vend-Tel-Co., Ltd., 516 F.3d 853, 864 n. 8 (10th Cir. 2008).

Judge Posner agreed.  One of the issues was the high percentage of people in the control group in the survey who answered "don't know/not sure."   The control approach was thus not adequate and may have confused respondents, maybe even others besides those who answered “don’t know/not sure.”  Therefore the entire survey was no good, as the judges below found.

It was no good for another reason: if the don’t know/not sure respondents were eliminated, the control group would shrink to 27 persons. Determining the minimum sample size from which reliable extrapolations can be made to the sampled population is tricky, said the court. See Fowler, Survey Research Methods 45 (4th ed. 2008). But 27 is too small a sample, concluded the appeals court.  Especially since the sample drawn by the plaintiffs’ expert was what is called a “convenience” sample — convenient to the sampler — as distinct from a “representative” sample —  representative of the population sampled.

A properly designed control group is vital in such a survey, including one intended to reveal whether a debt collector is confusing debtors. Cf. Free v. Peters, 12 F.3d 700, 705-06 (7th Cir. 1993); Penney v. Praxair, Inc., 116 F.3d 330, 333-34 (8th Cir. 1997); United States v. Aguilar, 883 F.2d 662, 706-08 (9th Cir. 1989). The debt collector can’t be blamed if consumers don’t understand his dunning letter unless he should have added or subtracted something to make it clearer. The plaintiff  thus has to show that the additional language of the letters unacceptably increased the level of confusion; many unsophisticated consumers would be confused even if the letters they received contained nothing more than a statement of the debt and the statutory bare bones notice.

Interestingly, the court said that district judges may want to consider exercising the clearly authorized but rarely exercised option of appointing their own expert to conduct a survey in FDCPA cases. Fed. R.Evid. 706(a); General Electric Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 149-50 (1997) (Breyer, J., concurring); In re High Fructose Corn Syrup Antitrust Litigation, 295 F.3d 651, 665 (7th Cir. 2002); Indianapolis Colts, Inc. v. Metropolitan Baltimore Football Club Ltd. Partnership, 34 F.3d 410, 414-15 (7th Cir. 1994).  Judges can assure themselves of the expert’s neutrality by (as in arbitration) asking the parties’ own experts to nominate a third expert to be the court-appointed expert.  The decision to appoint an expert is within the discretion of the trial judge, of course.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal district court recently denied class certification in toxic tort litigation alleging that a chemical plant's long-term airborne release of vinyl chloride had risked their health and lowered property values. Gates v. Rohm and Haas Co.,  2010 WL 774327 (E.D. Pa. 3/5/10).

Plaintiffs alleged that vinyl chloride released from Rohm & Haas’s specialty chemicals manufacturing facility in Ringwood, Illinois contaminated the groundwater in and around McCollum Lake Village, as well as the air in the Village. Plaintiffs allege that between 1968 and 2002, the vinyl chloride evaporating from the shallow plume blew over the Village, contaminating the air in the Village and causing some Village residents to breathe varying amounts of it. Plaintiffs claimed that the levels of vinyl chloride in the Village air are higher than the background level. 

They asked the court to certify two classes: (1) a medical monitoring class, and (2) a property damage class.  On the latter, although plaintiffs alleged that the Village’s water and air have been contaminated, plaintiffs sought class certification only on the “outdoor air” theory. On the former class, the parties disputed whether, and the extent to which, exposure to vinyl chloride is associated with brain cancer in humans. Plaintiffs alleged that exposure to vinyl chloride placed Village residents at a higher-than-normal risk of contracting brain cancer, requiring periodic monitoring. In support of the medical monitoring program, plaintiffs submitted the report of an expert who opined that a class-wide medical monitoring regime using MRI's was medically reasonable given the alleged exposure to vinyl chloride.

Plaintiffs moved for certification of their property class under Rule 23(b)(3) and for certification of their medical monitoring class under both Rule 23(b)(2) and (b)(3). Rule 23(b)(2) permits certification where “the party opposing the class has acted or refused to act on grounds generally applicable to the class, so that final injunctive relief or corresponding declaratory relief is appropriate respecting the class as a whole.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2). Rule 23(b)(3) permits class actions where “the court finds that the questions of law or fact common to class members predominate over any questions affecting only individual members, and that a class action is superior to other available methods for fairly and efficiently adjudicating the controversy.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(3).

The Third Circuit has clarified the legal standard for class certification and the district courts’ attendant duties in In re Hydrogen Peroxide Antitrust Litigation, 552 F.3d 305 (3d Cir. 2008).  The decision to certify a class calls for findings by the court, not merely a threshold showing by a party, that each requirement of Rule 23 is met.  Proper analysis under Rule 23 requires rigorous consideration of all the evidence and arguments offered by the parties.  Weighing conflicting expert testimony at the certification stage is not only permissible; it may be integral to the rigorous analysis Rule 23 demands. The court may not decline to resolve a genuine legal or factual dispute because of concern for an overlap with the merits. See also Hohinder v. United Parcel Service, Inc., 574 F.3d 169 (3d Cir. 2009).

As is typical, the battleground was the predominance and cohesiveness requirements of the rule.  (The court found that the individual issues that defeat the predominance requirement of Rule 23(b)(3) also defeat the cohesion requirement of Rule 23(b)(2)).

Regarding the elements of a medical monitoring claim, the court noted that whether vinyl chloride is a hazardous substance, whether a responsible monitoring procedure exists that makes the early detection of the disease possible, and whether the prescribed monitoring regime is different from that normally recommended in the absence of the exposure, did not here appear to present individualized questions in the context of this case.  (However, they can present individual issues in other cases depending on the substance, exposure, and risk.)

Next was the exposure element of the claim, with the key question being whether each plaintiff in the proposed class was exposed to a level greater than the normal background level. Plaintiffs must demonstrate that common proof may be used to determine whether each and every Class Member was exposed to a minimum level of vinyl chloride by Rohm and Hass that exceeds the applicable background levels.  While admitting individual exposure will vary depending on factors such as the time spent in the Village, plaintiffs asserted that class treatment is appropriate because there is a common minimum average daily exposure rate over time for any point within the Village. However, a rigorous analysis of plaintiffs’ expert evidence revealed that it does not reflect that all class members were exposed to vinyl chloride at a minimum level above  background, or that this determination could be made with common proof. Plaintiff's expert's  methodology  employed an averaging technique, making certification is inappropriate. Suffice it to say, an average is an average is an average. It is, in essence, a convenient fiction made up of numbers that are higher and lower than the average; it does not reflect whether every putative class member was exposed to vinyl chloride at a level above background, let alone at a level that carries a significantly increased risk of a latent disease. Exposures in the Village would vary  from year to year, such that a putative class member’s exposure would depend on the particular year or years in which he or she lived there. Individual class members’ locations and lifestyles potentially could result in significant differences in exposure, making Plaintiffs’ calculation of an “average exposure” even less useful. The time that each Village resident spent indoors, as opposed to outdoors, and the time that each individual spent away from the Village at work, away at school, on extended vacations, for example, are other factors that raise significant individual issues with respect to exposure levels. The evidence reflected that the putative class members’ habits, work schedules, and school schedules may have caused significant variations in the time that class members actually spent in the Village.

Of course, said the court, plaintiffs are not charged with the duty of calculating the precise exposure of any given individual, much less all of them, in order to secure class certification. However, plaintiffs must demonstrate that they can use common proof to demonstrate that each individual was exposed to a level above background levels. This, they had not done.

On the significant risk element, the court noted that it was impossible to tell from plaintiffs’ presentation of the average level of exposure to vinyl chloride - which itself is based on an average of certain vinyl chloride levels that were detected in certain test spots - whether every class member has a significantly increased risk of contracting a serious latent disease.  The first problem is that the level used by plaintiffs, derived from a regulatory figure, was not developed with an appropriate methodology for calculating a danger point for purposes of a medical monitoring claim. The value identified by plaintiffs only reflected the level of vinyl chloride at and below which a mixed population is safe, in the opinion of a public health agency. It did not, however, demonstrate the opposite, i.e., that any extra levels above the level are significantly harmful to necessitate medical monitoring.  Such a regulatory risk assessment cannot and does not support an opinion that each individual class member has experienced a significantly increased risk of disease.  The value may be appropriate as a prophylactic safety marker, perhaps for regulatory use, to minimize potential risks and protect the groundwater and air of a mixed population of individuals; however, it ought not be used as a predictive measure of actual risks for every individual in that population.  Precautionary measures to keep the general population safe are a fundamentally distinct form of relief from the medical monitoring cause of action. 

The court then turned to the question of whether the prescribed monitoring regime (that is, serial MRI exams) was reasonably necessary according to contemporary scientific principles. The court recognized that a medical monitoring program cannot be left open for the class members to fashion at will, but must consist of a specific form of monitoring different from what class members would ordinarily receive from regular physicals.  Plaintiffs argued  that serial MRIs are reasonable for the proposed class, but that in any event, the scheme could be modified after certification or allow individuals to tailor it to their particular circumstances (for example, a CAT scan for people who cannot tolerate MRIs).

The court had two problems with this argument.  One issue was what we may call the "more harm than good" calculus.  A blanket prescription for serial MRIs in asymptomatic individuals, coupled with the risks and drawbacks of serial MRI procedures, only strengthened the denial of class certification. For instance, the proposed class includes all residents of the Village, including children. The administration of MRIs to young children presents certain challenges because the children must lie still in the MRI machine for long periods of time. Conducting MRIs on children may require administering drugs to sedate or anesthetize them, a process that may prompt side effects of its own. The contrast agent used may pose risks for patients with kidney disease, for whom it can lead to nephrogenic systemic fibrosis, a potentially fatal condition; therefore, gadolinium is not recommended for use with such patients. In addition, medical monitoring in general, and MRIs in particular, can lead to stress and other adverse psychological consequences, and may induce claustrophobia in some patients.

The second problem with plaintiffs' flexible approach to their plan (i.e., that individual differences and medical needs can be accommodated through the use of CAT scans, open MRI machines, and other neurological exams. later), is that the determination of which accommodation, if any, is appropriate for which patient necessarily involves individual questions that cannot be determined on a class-wide basis. Moreover, the problems with the monitoring scheme can not be alleviated by a decision to just “deal with it later” at the summary judgment stage. Although the court may alter a monitoring scheme after the certification stage of the litigation has passed, that does not mean that problems with a monitoring plan can be ignored at the certification stage.

Turning to the property damage class, plaintiffs focused on "liability" as a common issue.  But the court found that even assuming that the fact of contamination was provable by common proof here, liability alone could not be proven with common proof. Common evidence may offer one potential source of the contaminants, but many other explanations may exist that are specific to a particular property. See Fisher v. Ciba Specialty Chems. Corp., 238 F.R.D. 273, 307 (S.D. Ala. 2006); see also Thomas v. FAG Bearings Corp., 846 F. Supp. 1400, 1404 (W.D. Mo. 1994).This can be especially true in this case, where differing levels of potential contamination over time affected different portions of the Village to different extents, depending on location, all of which must be compared to
the background level.

Finally, the court’s concerns about the number, complexity, and scope of issues that are plaintiff-by-plaintiff determinations also went to the superiority issue. Even if the court were to certify alleged common issues, the subsequent separate proceedings necessary for each plaintiff would undo whatever efficiencies such a class proceeding would have been intended to promote. Even more problematic, because a jury may be called upon to weigh the potential impact from Rohm and Haas’s actions on a particular property against those of another source of contamination, the “second” jury could well wind up re-considering the evidence of Rohm and Haas’s actions presented in the class proceeding.  

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

We have posted before about the interesting Human Tissue litigation.  The multidistrict litigation consolidated hundreds of cases filed either by plaintiffs who received allografts — transplants from cadavers — harvested by defendants allegedly without obtaining proper consent and following appropriate regulations, or by those plaintiffs who allegedly had allografts improperly taken from deceased relatives. The MDL court last week denied the latter plaintiffs' motion for class certification. In re: Human Tissue Products Liability Litigation, No. 06-135/MDL 1763 (D.N.J.).

According to the named representative plaintiffs, each of the class members had a deceased family member whose body went to one of the defendant funeral homes; plaintiffs claim that the funeral homes, after taking possession of the bodies, allowed another defendant to extract bones and tissue from the decedents. Following this, the harvested tissue then allegedly was given to other defendants, tissue banks. The purported class consisted of “all next of kin relatives of decedents whose bodies were desecrated by [defendants] for the harvesting and sale of human body parts."

Two parts of the opinion will be of the most interest to readers.  First, under the Rule 23(a) prerequisites, the court found that the typicality element was not established because of the highly individualized nature of the claims in this action.  Plaintiffs asserted emotional distress claims against the funeral homes that handled the donor decedents' remains and the tissue processors who allegedly received the harvested tissue. The Third Circuit has stated that class certification is inappropriate in mass tort claims, generally, because they often present questions of individualized issues of liability. In re Life USA Holding Inc., 242 F.3d 136, 145 (3d Cir. 2001). This observation is particularly true where the tort claims alleged are premised on emotional distress. The factual circumstances underlying each of the individual claims – including but not limited to plaintiffs' relationships with the decedents and the injuries allegedly suffered – were sufficiently personal and specific as to prevent any finding of similarity with regard to their claims.  

Also, plaintiffs were bringing contractual claims against the funeral home defendants, which again hinged on different factual circumstances that also might give rise to different defenses. There was no allegation that the individual contracts made with the funeral homes concerning final arrangements for the donor decedents were identical; in fact, since they were drafted and negotiated by different funeral home representatives and family members, they likely contained different representations, again subject to different defenses. For example, the meetings between funeral home personnel and the decedents' family members involved representations regarding the specific services requested and potential tissue donation. "These are all very personalized discussions," said the court.  All in all, the court found sufficient factual differences among the contracts negotiated with the different funeral homes to preclude a finding of typicality. See In re Schering Plough Corp. ERISA Litig., 589 F.3d 585, 598 (3d Cir. 2009)(“Ensuring that absent class members will be fairly protected required the claims and defenses of the representative to be sufficiently similar not just in terms of their legal form, but also in terms of their factual basis and support.”); see also In re Life USA Holding, Inc., 242 F.3d at 144-46 (vacating class certification in part because plaintiffs' claims of deceptive insurance sales practices arose from individual and non-standardized presentations by numerous independent agents).

It is significant that the court put some teeth into the 23(a) element. While the court acknowledged that factual differences will not automatically render a claim atypical if the claim arises from the same event or practice or course of conduct that gives rise to the claims of the class members, and if it is based on the same legal theory, here plaintiffs failed to demonstrate, other than through a bald assertion, that any practice or course of conduct existed among the funeral homes or among the tissue processors.

The same differences undermined a showing of predominance and superiority under Rule 23(b)(3), which provides for certification when the court finds that the questions of law or fact common to class members predominate over any questions affecting only individual members, and that a class action is superior to other available methods for fairly and efficiently adjudicating the controversy.

The individual factual circumstances, including contractual arrangements, personal relationships with the decedents, injuries suffered, etc. precluded a 23(b)(3) class.  The superiority inquiry compels a court to balance, in terms of fairness and efficiency, the merits of a class action device against those of alternative available methods of adjudication.  Here, the multitude of individualized issues presented in plaintiffs' claims would entail complicated mini-trials within the class action itself.  The claims presented by plaintiffs and their unique factual underpinnings would require such extensive individual consideration that it would be neither more fair nor more efficient to proceed with this matter as a class action.  Class rejected.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

An up and down class action proceeding involving Listerine has taken a new turn. Pfizer Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County, No.B188106 (Cal. App. 3/2/10).

Plaintiffs brought a proposed class action on behalf of California consumers who allegedly purchased Listerine on the claim that the mouthwash prevented plaque and gingivitis as effectively as dental floss, relying on the state's Unfair Competition Law (UCL) (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 17200 et seq.) and the False Advertising Law (FAL) (§ 17500 et seq.).  The trial court certified a California class consisting of all individuals who purchased Listerine between June, 2004 and January, 2005.  The appeals court initially ruled in 2006 that the trial court’s certification was overbroad, relying on Proposition 64 which amended standing requirements in such actions and requires proof that the proposed class suffered injury.  Following the decertification order, however, the California Supreme Court ordered the appeals court to revisit the issue in light of its intervening decision in In re: Tobacco II, 46 Cal.4th 298 (2009). 

Upon remand, the court of appeals vacated the prior opinion, received supplemental briefs from the
parties and amici curiae, and reconsidered. Upon reflection, the appeals court concluded that the circumstances of the case still did not warrant class certification.

The court noted that the causation requirement for purposes of establishing standing under the UCL, and in particular the meaning of the phrase "as a result of" in section 17204, holds that a class representative proceeding on a claim of misrepresentation as the basis of his or her UCL action must demonstrate actual reliance on the allegedly deceptive or misleading statements, in accordance with well-settled principles regarding the element of reliance in ordinary fraud actions. Those same principles, the state supreme court had said Tobacco II in an amazingly result-driven fashion, do not require the class representative to plead or prove with an "unrealistic degree of specificity" that the plaintiff relied on particular advertisements or statements when the unfair practice is a fraudulent advertising campaign. But Tobacco II does not stand for the proposition that a consumer who was never exposed to an alleged false or misleading advertising or promotional campaign is entitled to restitution.

The certified class, consisting of all purchasers of Listerine in California, was overbroad because it presumed there was a class-wide injury. However, the record reflected that of 34 different Listerine mouthwash bottles on sale, 19 never included any label that made any statement comparing Listerine mouthwash to floss. Further, even as to those flavors and sizes of Listerine mouthwash bottles to which defendant did affix the labels which were at issue, not every bottle shipped between in the class period bore such a label. Also, although Pfizer allegedly ran four different television commercials with the “as effective as floss” campaign, the commercials did not run continuously and there is no evidence that a majority of Listerine consumers viewed any of those commercials. Thus, many, perhaps the majority of, class members who purchased Listerine during the pertinent period did so not because of any exposure to any allegedly deceptive conduct, but rather, because they were brand-loyal customers or for other reasons. As to such consumers, there is absolutely no likelihood they were deceived by the alleged false or misleading advertising or promotional campaign. Such persons cannot meet the standard of having money restored to them because it “may have been acquired by means of” the unfair practice.

Finally, plaintiff testified he did not make his purchase based on any of the four television commercials or other ads, and that he bought Listerine due to the bottle’s red label (which differed from the other labels), which he recalled said “as effective as floss.”  Because the various commercials and labels contained different language, with some even expressly advising consumers to continue flossing, his testimony as to his reaction to the Listerine label is not probative of his, or absent class members’, reaction to different language contained in television commercials and other labels. Therefore, named plaintiff lacked standing to assert a UCL claim based on those television commercials or other labels.

 

 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

We have posted on the climate change litigation, including inexplicable decisions such as the putative class action alleging that -- follow the chain -- dozens of oil and chemical companies emitted greenhouse gasses which contributed to an impact on the atmosphere which contributed to a rise in temperature of some parts of the ocean which contributed to making Hurricane Katrina stronger which contributed to additional damages to plaintiffs' property. Such decisions represent a clear and dangerous trend within certain courts to usurp Congress, warp the traditional nuisance doctrine, and plunge the federal courts into what are essentially political questions.
 

Now comes the welcome news that the Fifth Circuit has ordered en banc rehearing of the case. Comer et al. v. Murphy Oil USA et al., No. 07-60756 (5th Cir.). The court issued an order last week granting the defendants' petition for a rehearing en banc, vacating the panel decision from last Fall. The Fifth Circuit panel had ruled that private property owners under Mississippi law may have standing to bring climate change-related nuisance and trespass claims for both property and punitive damages.

The defendants will re-brief the issues by the end of this month, and oral argument appears to be set for the end of May.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Your humble blogger will speak at the American Conference Institute's Chemical Products Liability and Environmental Litigation Conference (April 28-29, 2010).

On April 29, I will be joined by Gradient's Dr. Barbara Beck and Jerome Doak of Jones Day on a panel program entitled Presenting Effective Arguments to Courts Against Awarding Medical Monitoring Damages. Against the background of recent court decisions regarding medical monitoring, the program will address key legal and scientific issues often pivotal in medical monitoring cases. I will focus on medical monitoring class action issues.

More information here.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal court has dismissed a class action that accused Bayer Corp. of misrepresenting the cancer-preventing nature of its men's vitamin products. Johns v. Bayer Corp. et al., (S.D. Cal. Feb. 9, 2010).

Readers of MassTortDefense know how a government investigation or advocacy group's criticism of a product can spawn products liability and other class action litigation.  But can plaintiffs walk too closely in the footsteps of the government?

Plaintiff David Johns filed a putative class action alleging that defendants misrepresented on product packaging, commercial advertisements, their website, and in other marketing materials, that one of the product line's key ingredients, selenium, has the ability to reduce the risk of prostate cancer in men. Plaintiff alleges that, despite emerging evidence, selenium does not in fact prevent or reduce the risk of prostate cancer. Plaintiff alleged he purchased one bottle of Men’s Health in July 2009 for approximately $8.  He alleges he read the information regarding selenium on the product packaging and relied on those statements in making his purchasing decision.

Plaintiff then brought a proposed class action on behalf of all persons in the United States or, alternatively, all California residents, who since 2005 purchased the men's health vitamin products. Plaintiff alleged claims for: (1) violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law, California Business & Professions Code § 17200 (“UCL”), (2) violation of the Consumers Legal Remedies Act, California Civil Code § 1750 (“CLRA”), and (3) unjust enrichment.

Defendants moved to strike key aspects of the complaint because the allegations seemingly were simply borrowed from the language of an FTC investigation of the vitamin product line. Defendants argued that these allegations violated plaintiff’s duty under Rule 11 to conduct a reasonable factual investigation into the allegations to be made in a complaint. Attorneys have a duty to make a reasonable inquiry into whether the factual contentions made in a complaint have evidentiary support. Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 11(b).

That FTC lawsuit resulted in a settlement and consent decree; there was no adjudication on the merits and no admission of wrongdoing or fault on the part of Bayer.  Thus, quotes from the government pleadings were, at best, a repetition of mere allegations, including of a special interest advocacy group that had complained to the government.  The federal court thus struck these allegations. See also In re Connectics, 542 F. Supp. 2d 996, 1005-06 (N.D. Cal. 2008).  Because the court granted defendants’ motion to strike the various paragraphs of the complaint, there were no factual allegations remaining to support the claim that defendants’ advertising was deceptive. Accordingly, the motion to dismiss was granted without prejudice.

The court went on to address several issues "as guidance if Plaintiff chooses to file an amended
complaint."  The court noted that in two recent opinions, the Supreme Court had clarified the  standard of review for Rule 12(b)(6) motions. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. 1937 (2009); Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007). To survive a motion to dismiss under this standard, “a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim for relief that is plausible on its face.’” Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1949 (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570).  For example, the court pointed out a standing issue: plaintiff did not allege that he saw any advertisements for one of the products in the line, Men’s 50+, nor that he read the packaging on the product, nor that he even considered purchasing the product. Plaintiff cannot expand the scope of his claims to include a product he did not purchase or advertisements relating to a product that he did not rely upon. The statutory standing requirements of the UCL and CLRA are narrowly prescribed and do not permit such generalized allegations.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced this week that it will set new safeguards for medical imaging to reduce the amount of radiation to which patients may be exposed through increasingly common radiation-based diagnostic procedures.

Like all medical procedures, computed tomography (CT), fluoroscopy, and nuclear medicine imaging exams present both benefits and risks. These types of imaging procedures have led to improvements in the diagnosis and treatment of numerous medical conditions. At the same time, these types of exams expose patients to ionizing radiation, which may elevate a person’s lifetime risk of developing cancer.

Through the Initiative to Reduce Unnecessary Radiation Exposure from Medical Imaging, FDA is advocating the universal adoption of two principles of radiation protection: appropriate justification for ordering each procedure, and careful optimization of the radiation dose used during each procedure. In other words, each patient should get the right imaging exam, at the right time, with the right radiation dose.

According to a March 2009 report by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP), the U.S. population’s total exposure to ionizing radiation has nearly doubled over the past two decades. This rise is largely attributable to increased exposure from CT, nuclear medicine, and interventional fluoroscopy. NCRP estimates that 67 million CT scans, 18 million nuclear medicine procedures, and 17 million interventional fluoroscopy procedures, and 18 million nuclear medicine procedures were performed in the U.S. in 2006.

Concerns have been raised about the risks associated with patients’ exposure to radiation from medical imaging. Because ionizing radiation can cause damage to DNA, exposure can increase a person’s lifetime risk of developing cancer. Although the risk to an individual from a single exam may not itself be large, millions of exams are performed each year, making radiation exposure from medical imaging an important public health issue. Some experts have estimated recently that t approximately 29,000 future cancers could be related to CT scans performed in the U.S. in 2007. While estimates vary, most responsible public health officials agree that care should be taken to weigh the medical necessity of a given level of radiation exposure against the risks.

Against this backdrop, plaintiff lawyers continue to seek medical monitoring in the form of CT and other scans for millions of proposed class members around the country.  Plaintiffs' theory is that exposure to an alleged toxic substance has put the class at an increased risk of developing disease in the future, and thus they need medical monitoring to early detect the disease.  Most jurisdictions have not recognized this claim, but in those that do, defendants will want to pay close attention to the elements of the claim that require a plaintiff to prove that the testing is reasonably medically necessary or part of the standard of care.  The reason that treating physicians and public health agencies do NOT recommend monitoring in the form of CT scans for healthy, asymptomatic folks may increasingly include this issue of potential over-exposure.  While jurors may come to the court room with the pre-load that monitoring is great because early detection saves lives, the reality is that in many contexts, monitoring may do more harm than good.

Because CT, fluoroscopy, and nuclear medicine require the use of radiation, some level of radiation exposure is inherent in these types of procedures. Only when these procedures are conducted appropriately do the medical benefits they can provide generally outweigh the risks.  In the medical monitoring context, patients may be exposed to radiation without sufficient clinical need or benefit. Unnecessary radiation exposure, and thus cancer risk, results from the performance of a particular medical imaging procedure when it is not medically justified given a patient’s signs and symptoms, or when an alternative might be preferable given a patient’s lifetime history of radiation exposure.  That kind of needed individual assessment is one of the reasons why class-wide determination of medical monitoring is a bad idea. While plaintiffs trumpet the new technology, reports suggest that the radiation dose associated with one CT abdomen scan is the same as the dose from about 400 chest X-rays.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A recurring theme at MassTortDefense has been the risks associated with the plaintiffs' bar growing creativity in the use of state consumer fraud acts to substitute for traditional product liability claims.  In particular, plaintiffs assert that class actions pursuant to state unfair or deceptive trade practices acts ought to be more easily certifiable than traditional personal injury class actions. A recent case in this area is notable not only for its actual holding rejecting a nationwide class, but also for the philosophy expressed by the court on these kinds of proposed class actions. Schnall v. AT&T Wireless Inc., 2010 WL 185943 (Wash. Jan. 21, 2009).

Customers of AT&T Wireless Services filed a nationwide class action alleging the company misled consumers when it billed them for a charge that was not included in advertised monthly rates and was allegedly not described clearly in billing statements. An immediate issue loomed concerning choice of law, which can have a dramatic impact on several aspects of the certification process, including the elements of commonality, predominance, and manageability.  The parties initially disputed whether the choice of law clauses in the customers' contracts were enforceable. The choice of law clauses in this case required customers to litigate asserted violations of their contract in the respective jurisdiction where they signed the contract. (Such jurisdiction is often based on the customer's area code.)  The court concluded that AT&T should not  be forced to face the "enormous cost and complexity presented by a nationwide class action" when they conscionably included choice of law provisions in their customers' contracts and the choice of forum is, in any event, dictated by the consumer.

The choice of law clauses, along with the interpretation of the contract terms, the differences in the materials and information each potential class member received, and the availability of differing affirmative defenses created a predominance of individual issues over common ones.  But even where courts find that a nationwide, state law governed class otherwise meets Rule 23(a) and 23(b)(3) criteria, the court opined that “the choice-of-law inquiry will ordinarily make or break certification.”  This is because if the laws of 50 jurisdictions apply to plaintiffs' claims, the variations in the laws of the states may swamp any common issues and defeat predominance. (citing Castano, Georgine, and In re American Medical System.)

Of particular interest, the court found that the state of Washington has no interest in seeing contracts executed by AT&T representatives in other states with citizens of those states examined and adjudicated in Washington courts. Certified as a nationwide class action, this case would have presented an unwarranted and unnecessary burden on the state judicial system, all at a large cost to state taxpayers. See R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. Engle, 672 So.2d 39, 41 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1996) (“No doubt a tremendous number of retired judges, special masters, and general masters would have to be appointed by the court in order to complete this herculean task within a reasonable period of time--all at a staggering cost to the taxpayers.”)(of course, even the state-wide Engle class was a disastrous mistake by the Florida courts). The court concluded that there is no sound reason to force Washington trial courts to entertain the contract claims of citizens from around the nation. Their state courts are equally as prepared, if not better situated to apply the contract laws of their own states.

That conclusion was bolstered by the observation that nothing in Washington law indicates that Consumer Protection Act claims by nonresidents for acts occurring outside of Washington can even be entertained under the statute. Because the laws of each state are designed to regulate and protect the interest of that state's own residents and citizens, each state has a measurable, and usually predominant, interest in having its own substantive laws apply.  While it is true that Washington has a strong interest in regulating any behavior by Washington businesses which contravenes the CPA, the CPA indicates the legislature's intent to limit its application to deceptive acts that affect the citizens and residents of Washington. To state a CPA claim, a person must show that the unfair or deceptive act affected the people of the state of Washington. This geographic and jurisdictional limitation originates in the CPA's history as a tool used by the State attorney general to protect the citizens of Washington. (as is the situation with many such state statutes.)

The court remanded the case for consideration of a state-wide class claim, but note the better view that where, as here, the plaintiffs allege that their damages were caused by deceptive, misleading, or fraudulent statements or conduct, as a practical matter it is not possible that the damages could be caused by a violation of the Act without proof of reliance on the statements or conduct alleged to violate the statutes. Cf. Group Health Plan, Inc. v. Philip Morris, Inc., 621 N.W.2d 2, 13 (Minn.2001); Hageman v. Twin City Chrysler-Plymouth Inc., 681 F.Supp. 303, 308 (M.D.N.C.1988) (“To prove actual causation, a plaintiff must prove that he or she detrimentally relied on the defendant's deceptive statement or misrepresentation.”); Feitler v. Animation Celection, Inc., 170 Or.App. 702, 13 P.3d 1044, 1047 (2000) (holding causal element of misrepresentation claim requires reliance by the consumer); cf. Siemer v. Assocs. First Capital Corp., 2001 WL 35948712, at *4 (D.Ariz. Mar.30, 2001) (“The injury element of the [state consumer protection statute] claim occurs when the consumer relies on the misrepresentations.”); see generally S. Scheuerman, The Consumer Fraud Class Action: Reining in Abuse by Requiring Plaintiffs to Allege Reliance as an Essential Element, 43 Harv. J. on Leg. 1 (2006).
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Seventh Circuit recently issued a decision clarifying an issue under the Class Action Fairness Act:  when the federal court denies class certification in a case in federal court because of CAFA, does that divest the court of jurisdiction?  The court of appeals reversed an Illinois district court ruling that a failed class action lost jurisdiction, ruling that the lower court misinterpreted CAFA. Cunningham Charter Corp., et al. v. LearJet Inc., No 09-8042 (7th Cir., Jan. 22, 2010).

Cunningham sued Learjet in an Illinois state court asserting claims for breach of warranty and products liability on behalf of itself and all other buyers of Learjets who had received the same warranty from the manufacturer that Cunningham had received. The defendant removed the
case to federal district court under CAFA. Eventually, the district judge denied the motion on the ground that neither proposed class satisfied the criteria for certification set forth in Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The judge then ruled that the denial of class certification
eliminated subject-matter jurisdiction under the Act, and so he remanded the case to the state court.

The 7th Circuit, per Judge Posner, disagreed.  the court offered some context, a textual explanation, and policy reasons. The general principle that jurisdiction once properly invoked is not lost by developments after a suit is filed, such as a change in the state of which a party is a citizen that destroys diversity. E.g., St. Paul Mercury Indemnity Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U.S. 283, 293-95 (1938). That general principle was applicable to this case because no one suggests that a class action must be certified before it can be removed to federal court under the Act.  Cases should not be shunted between court systems; "itigation is not ping-pong."

Text: The Act defines class action as “any civil action filed under rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure or similar State statute or rule of judicial procedure authorizing an action to be brought by 1 or more representative persons as a class action.” § 1332(d)(1)(B). No requirement of certification.

Policy: If a state happened to have different criteria for certifying a class from those of Rule 23, the result of a remand because of the federal court’s refusal to certify the class could be that the case would continue as a class action in state court. That result would be contrary to the Act’s purpose of relaxing the requirement of complete diversity of citizenship so that class actions involving
incomplete diversity can be litigated in federal court.

In finding that federal jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act does not depend on certification, the court joined Vega v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., 564 F.3d 1256, 1268 n. 12 (11th Cir. 2009).

Judge Posner concluded, that  is the better interpretation." See Richardson, “Class Dismissed, Now What? Exploring the Exercise of CAFA Jurisdiction After the Denial of Class Certification,” 39
New Mex. L. Rev. 121, 135 (2009); Clermont, “Jurisdictional Fact,” 91 Cornell L. Rev. 973, 1015-17
(2006).

 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Alabama Supreme Court has recently reversed a lower court's certification of a class of third-party payers of health care services who complained about damages allegedly flowing from the recall of a drug from the market.  Wyeth, Inc. v. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama, 2010 WL 152123 (Ala. Jan. 15, 2010).

Defendant Wyeth voluntarily withdrew Duract from the market, notifying the public of its decision to do so through a press release.  As part of the process of withdrawing Duract from the market, Wyeth voluntarily instituted a customer refund program for customers who still had Duract capsules in their possession. The third-party payers sued Wyeth solely on a theory of unjust enrichment, alleging that their payment for the drug had conferred an inappropriate benefit on Wyeth in light of the withdrawal.

After a hearing on the class certification motion, the trial court entered an order certifying a nationwide class of TPPs who paid for the prescription drug Duract that was not used as of the date of its withdrawal from the market.  On appeal, the defendant argued that predominance of common issues had not been established, a requirement of Alabama Rule 23 analogous to FRCP 23 (b)(3).

As in many states, Alabama recognizes that unjust enrichment claims are particularly unsuitable for class treatment. Funliner of Alabama, L.L.C. v. Pickard, 873 So.2d 198, 211 (Ala.2003) (unjust enrichment claims based on allegations of mistake or fraud require an individualized inquiry into the state of mind of each plaintiff).  The trial court distinguished this body of law, finding that this particular enrichment claim was not based on fraud or mistake, but on the somehow different theory that “equity and good conscience” required the defendant to disgorge money that belongs to the plaintiff.

The court observed that Wyeth probably had the better of the argument on this, meaning that the trial court had fashioned on a distinction without a difference.  But the state high court did not need to resolve the unjust enrichment issue under Alabama law, because the plaintiffs sought a nationwide class. Regardless of what Alabama law was, there had been no adequate showing, either to the trial court or to the Supreme Court, that the laws of all (or even most of) the 49 other states would allow unjust enrichment claims to proceed on such a "good conscience" basis somehow distinct from a traditional claim. 

Even a cursory examination showed that variances exist in state common laws of unjust enrichment. The actual definition of unjust enrichment varies from state to state. Some states do not specify the misconduct necessary to proceed, while others require that the misconduct include dishonesty or fraud. See Clay v. American Tobacco Co., 188 F.R.D. 483, 501 (S.D.Ill.1999).

Accordingly, common issues could not predominate.  Certification was vacated.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal judge has granted defendant's summary judgment motion in a putative consumer class action over contact lens solution. Degelmann, et al. v. Advanced Medical Optics Inc., No.07-0317 (N.D. Calif. 1/4/10).

Defendant, in 2007, issued a recall notice for their contact lens solution product, following an announcement by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that a small number of users of the contact lens solution might have developed a rare, but potentially serious, corneal infection, due to contamination.  The CDC report indicated that the epidemiological evidence showed that the product may be less effective than other solutions in disinfecting against the particular contamination. [Epidemiology, sometimes termed the "science of long division" or the "science of making the obvious obscure" is crucial to most toxic tort claims.]

Plaintiff brought a proposed nationwide class action under California Business & Professions Code § 17200 (Unfair Competition Law) and  § 17500 (False Advertising Law), and alleged that defendant AMO made false statements concerning its contact lens solution, and concealed certain known risks of using the solution. Plaintiffs did not allege that they suffered any physical injury from their use of the product.  Rather, the focus of the complaint was on AMO’s allegedly false representation that the product was a “disinfecting solution” or was a solution that “disinfects.”

AMO argued that the name plaintiffs had suffered no legally cognizable injury, and therefore lack both Article III standing and statutory standing under the UCL/FAL, among other summary judgment theories.  The court found that plaintiffs lack Article III standing, and granted the motion (without reaching the other issues).

The Constitution limits the federal judicial power to designated “cases” and “controversies.” U.S. Const., Art. III, § 2. Standing is an “essential and unchanging part of the case-or-controversy requirement of Article III.”  Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). Article III standing requires a plaintiff to show an “injury in fact,” a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of, and a likelihood that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision. Id. at 560-61; see also Sprint Communications Co., L.P. v. APCC Services, Inc., 128 S.Ct. 2531, 2535 (2008). In order to establish standing, plaintiffs must show that they have suffered actual loss, damage, or injury, or are threatened with impairment of their own interests. The “injury in fact” requirement must involve an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.  Lujan, 504 U.S. at 559-60

The court found that named plaintiffs could not show injury in fact because they  never contracted the infection at issue, and were never harmed by their use of the product. Because they stopped using the solution long before the recall, they could not allege that the recall caused them to discard unused solution, which is a typical "economic" harm argument plaintiffs try to make.  Moreover, they could not claim to have lost the money they spent purchasing the product in the first place, as they would have bought another, comparably priced, contact lens solution if they had not bought this one.  As plaintiffs sustained no damage and no injury, and made no showing of any sufficient  threatened injury that was likely to occur, they did not have standing under Article III.  Motion granted.

Defendants will want to not overlook the standing argument , especially when confronted with the concocted class claims of plaintiffs who were never really injured, and seek to recover for alleged bad conduct without showing any causal link between the conduct and an injury suffered.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Readers of MassTortDefense know how significant the earliest few trials in any mass tort can be, influencing later trials and shaping settlement strategies.  Accordingly, which cases go first, from among the hundreds or thousands in the mass tort, and how they are tried, can be extremely significant.  The federal court overseeing the MDL concerning the antibiotic Levaquin recently denied plaintiffs' motion to consolidate three bellwether cases for the first trial. In re Levaquin Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 08-1943, (D. Minn.). 

In the Order, the court noted that it had initially selected fifteen cases for evaluation and initial case-specific fact discovery in the bellwether-selection process. Directed by the court to meet and confer on an ordering of these cases for the first trials, the parties narrowed the field to seven remaining bellwether cases for selection for trial. Plaintiffs then moved to consolidate three of the cases for the first trial.  They asserted that the cases share similar characteristics that are central to this litigation and that consolidation would promote judicial efficiency and the interests of justice, while testing the merits of plaintiffs’ arguments. Defendants opposed the motion, arguing that plaintiffs had not met their burden of showing that a consolidated trial’s benefits would outweigh individual
issues in the case. Specifically, defendants argued that individual issues – including each
plaintiff’s unique medical history, each prescribing physician’s knowledge of warnings in the Levaquin package insert, and each plaintiff’s alleged injuries – precluded consolidation.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 42(a)(2) affords a court broad discretion to consolidate for trial actions involving common questions of law or fact. The party seeking consolidation bears the burden of showing that consolidation would promote judicial convenience and economy. Consolidation is inappropriate, however, if it leads to inefficiency, inconvenience, or unfair prejudice to a party.

Plaintiffs also argued that judicial economy would be served by consolidation because common sources of evidence established the supposedly common facts. For example, the same generic
expert witnesses would testify on behalf of each individual plaintiff, and the regulatory and
corporate history of the drug is the same for each plaintiff. Because of these alleged commonalities and claimed efficiencies, plaintiffs argued that consolidation of the three cases would save the court twenty trial days, not insignificant.
 
In opposition, defendants argued that individual issues, including what dose of Levaquin each physician prescribed to treat each plaintiff’s infection, and each individual plaintiff’s medical history, including their various risk factors for the injury alleged such as age, concomitant medication use including corticosteroids, prior injury, and other factors, all made consolidation inappropriate.

Moreover, defendants argued that consolidation would be prejudicial to them because there are complicated causation issues in each case, and multiple plaintiffs would testify regarding similar injuries, which could cause jury confusion. See In re Consol. Parlodel Litig., 182 F.R.D. 441, 447 (D.N.J. 1999) (“A consolidated trial . . . would compress critical evidence of specific causation and
marketing to a level which would deprive [the defendant] of a fair opportunity to defend itself.”).

At this stage of the MDL, the court concluded, consolidation was not merited. With respect to
the consolidation of cases, the Manual for Complex Litigation notes, “If there are few prior verdicts, judgments, or settlements, additional information may be needed to determine whether aggregation is appropriate. The need for such information may lead a judge to require a number of single-plaintiff, single-defendant trials, or other small trials.” Manual for Complex Litigation § 22.314, at 359 (4th ed. 2004). In the mass tort involving breast implants, the courts noted that that “[u]ntil enough trials have occurred so that the contours of various types of claims within the . . .
litigation are known, courts should proceed with extreme caution in consolidating claims.” In re Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., 975 S.W.2d 601, 603 (Tex. 1998).

To date, there are over 240 federal court cases in this MDL and just under 100 state court cases addressing claims similar to those brought by the bellwether plaintiffs. Indeed, this is a still growing MDL, found the court, the exact factual and legal contours of which are still undefined. The parties continue to conduct critical discovery, including deposing plaintiffs’ prescribing physicians. The merits of the parties’ arguments have not been tested at trial or in dispositive motions.

The court recognized that "the stakes are high" because the initial bellwether trials in this MDL may serve as the basis for the parties’ resolution of remaining, pending cases. Thus, although plaintiffs
appear to have demonstrated some commonalities in fact and law among the three
individual plaintiffs’ cases, this motion was denied at this time. 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Recent developments in the Digitek MDL.  The presiding judge in the federal Digitek multidistrict litigation has selected five bellwether cases to be tried.  Readers of MassTortDefense know that an increasingly common case management technique in consolidated or coordinated litigation is the use of bellwether trials, with the hope that early verdicts will impact the resolution of cases down the line.  Judge Goodwin issued Pretrial Order (PTO) No. 47, which assigned the following five cases for trial, in this order:

 • David Kelch, et al. v. Actavis Totowa, LLC, et al., 2:08-cv-01282

 • William J. Young, et al. v. Actavis Totowa, LLC, et al., 2:09-cv-00498

 • Jacquelyn K. Fox, et al. v. Actavis Totowa, LLC, et al., 2:09-cv-00389

 • Karen Sheahan, et al. v. Actavis Group, et al., 2:08-cv-01051

 • Scottie Vega, et al. v. Actavis Group hf., et al., 2:09-cv-00768

Readers may recall that the federal Digitek product liability cases, alleging that Actavis Totowa LLC, Actavis Inc. and Actavis Elizabeth LLC released Digitek tablets containing more than the appropriate dosage to the public in 2008, were transferred to an MDL  last August. The plaintiffs allege that the tablets can cause digitalis toxicity in patients with renal failure. This condition can cause nausea, vomiting, dizziness, low blood pressure, cardiac instability, bradycardia and death.

The MDL court also recently ordered the plaintiffs to file their class certification motion and brief in support of their "economic loss" class by Jan. 20, 2010.  Defendants’ response brief shall be filed and served thirty days after the filing of such class certification motion and accompanying brief, said the order.

The court also entered amended PTO #48 (Joint Hearing to Address Challenges to Scientific and Technical Evidence). In the spirit of cooperation and collegiality evident since the inception of this MDL, said the court, several distinguished state judicial officers presiding over certain consolidated Digitek actions have graciously agreed to conduct a joint hearing to address the scientific and technical issues presented in this litigation for resolution pursuant to Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), and its federal and state progeny. Those issues are best addressed, said the MDL court,  through coordinated proceedings, albeit with each presiding judicial officer giving separate and individualized attention, and disposition, to the evidence and arguments as they relate to his or her assigned consolidated civil actions. The court recognized that each state may have its own standards and procedures for expert testimony designed to ensure the reliability and relevance of evidence based upon scientific, technical and other specialized knowledge.  That joint hearing is scheduled for October, 2010.

This is just the latest step in efforts for such coordination. Pretrial Order (PTO) No. 11 concerned state and federal coordination. It ordered lead and liaison counsel for the plaintiffs and defense to endeavor to coordinate activities between the federal and state litigation. It also ordered the creation of a joint document depository for use by parties in the federal-state litigation. The Order provided a mechanism for cross-noticing depositions. The next status conference is scheduled for Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 9:00 a.m.
 

 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A quick update on the Chinese Drywall MDL.  With the recent filing of an omnibus complaint, approximately 3,000 plaintiffs are now involved in the product liability litigation over Chinese-made drywall, against approximately 600 defendants. In re: Chinese-Manufactured Drywall Products Liability Litigation, MDL No, 2047 (E.D. La.).  Plaintiffs allege generally that sulfur levels in the Chinese-made products are abnormally high, causing problems with air conditioning systems, appliances, internal wiring and other electrical systems, as well as personal injuries.  

The drywall imported from China could have been used throughout the United States in as many as an estimated 300,000 recently built or renovated homes. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reported on studies linking Chinese drywall installed in homes to elevated levels of hydrogen sulfide and the potential corrosion of metals.

Recently, the MDL court appointed Michael K. Rozen of Feinberg Rozen, LLP as a Special Master in this proceeding under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 53. Pursuant to the order of the Court, Special Master Rozen shall carry out those tasks he deems appropriate to fully explore opportunities for an ultimate resolution between the various parties. 

At the December status conference, the court explored issues relating to the various profile forms: Plaintiff Profile Form, a Defendant Manufacturers’ Profile Form, a Contractor/Installer Profile Form, a Builder Defendant Profile Form and a Defendant Distributor Profile Form, and the Importer/Exporter/Broker Profile Form. And how to handle a party's failure to complete the required form. Another agenda item was prioritizing the many pending motions. The parties addressed some discovery disputes, including ESI.

An important issue also discussed was the the Court's general plan to establish initial  “bellwether” trials. The Court has further advised the parties that any such trials will be limited to property damage only. The parties have been discussing the protocol and procedure for selecting bellwether trial candidates. The Plaintiff Steering Committee has suggested a sufficient representative sample of cases be selected with regard to geography, concentration of properties, distinctive facts and certain legal issues. The defendants suggest that the selection of bellwether plaintiffs must be limited to the plaintiffs that have submitted profile forms where personal injuries are not claimed. A list of these plaintiff properties has been made available to the PSC and the Court. The parties were directed to continue to discuss the selection of bellwether trials.

It is already clear that the drywall litigation will be complicated. Homeowners are suing builders, installers, distributors and manufacturers. There are multiple levels of insurance litigation, as in some states plaintiffs may also bring direct actions against the insurers for any of those categories of defendants; some homeowners are also in dispute with their carriers as to coverage. Several defendants have sued their carriers. In some cases, insurance companies have already filed declaratory judgment actions on these issues. Moreover, there are cross-claims among categories of defendants, as builders are suing distributors, manufacturers, and their insurers.

As noted here before , a major issue is product identification, i.e., the identification of the maker and seller of the drywall in each plaintiff's building. Plaintiffs in the MDL have already identified 28 foreign labels that they allege may be involved.  Class action motions remain pending, among the difficult case management issues.  Indeed, some of the cases may end up being resolved as part of bankruptcy proceedings.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

To date, CPSC has received more than 2000 reports from 32 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, from consumers and homeowners concerned about alleged problem drywall from China in their homes. The majority of consumer complaints on allegedly defective drywall have come from Florida and Louisiana.

The CPSC last week released a study of Hydrogen Sulfide Gas in connection with its Chinese drywall investigation.  Specifically, CPSC released results from a major indoor air study of 51 homes, and initial reports from two studies of alleged corrosion in homes with Chinese drywall. The 51 home study was actually contracted by CPSC and done by Environmental Health & Engineering (EH&E). The  two preliminary reports on corrosion safety issues are from the Sandia National Laboratories’ (SNL) Materials and Engineering Center concerning the long-term electrical safety hazards of conductor metal components, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), studying the corrosion effects on fire safety components taken from complaint homes.

EH&E compared 41 “complaint” homes in five states selected from CPSC’s consumer
incident report database, with 10 non-complaint homes built around the same time in the
same areas as the complaint homes. Homes were sampled between July and September
2009. The EH&E findings were that hydrogen sulfide gas appears to be the essential component that causes copper and silver sulfide corrosion found in the complaint homes. Other factors,
including air exchange rates, formaldehyde and other air contaminants appear to contribute to the
reported problems.  The reports do not explain how the hydrogen sulfide gas is being created in homes built with Chinese drywall. (Earlier studies found varying amounts of elemental sulfur in the Chinese drywall.)

In terms of method, EH&E exposed copper and silver test strips, known as coupons, in homes for a period of about two weeks. The coupons showed significantly higher rates of corrosion in complaint homes than in the control homes. The dominant species of corrosion on the coupons were copper sulfide and silver sulfide, as determined by additional laboratory tests. Visual inspection and evaluation of ground wire corrosion also revealed statistically significant greater ground wire corrosion in complaint homes compared to non-complaint homes. The EH&E study also found that by using hand-held x-ray fluorescence and Fourier Transform Infrared instruments, they were able to detect markers that could identify Chinese-made dry wall at a sheet-by-sheet level.

The study did not link the corrosion with any long term safety effects, which are still under investigation. The levels reported, however, are well below the amount associated with long term health effects in the literature.

Like the EH&E study, initial reports from SNL and NIST show copper and silver sulfide corrosion on samples of metal taken from homes with problem drywall.

In terms of next steps, CPSC continues to search for homes exhibiting the alleged corrosion and health effects under study. Second, the federal Interagency Task Force has established an Identification and Remediation Protocol Team of scientists and engineers. This Team will try to use the results of the EH&E study and other information to design a screening protocol to identify homes with this problem.  Because professional air sample testing, and destructive testing of drywall both are costly, the Protocol Team is trying to develop quick, cost-efficient evaluation methods to identify homes with these problems. The Protocol Team will also look at remediation protocols, to see what cost-efficiency improvements to current remediation practices, if any, may be available, and what guidance should be issued on doing the work safely.

CPSC believes it has secured the cooperation of the Chinese Government to help identify the sources and causes of this problem. The agency believes that no new Chinese drywall has entered the United States in 2009. CPSC is also working with an ASTM committee that has just initiated discussions on the formulation of a proposed new standard on inspection of drywall for air quality issues.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal court last week denied class certification in a case arising from alleged damage to boats allegedly caused by ethanol blended gasoline. Kelecseny v. Chevron U.S.A., Inc., et al., No. 08-61294-CIV-ALTONAGA/Brown (S.D. Fla. Nov. 25 2009).

Recent federal and state legislation requires that ethanol usage be expanded and that gasoline contain 9 to10% ethanol by December 31, 2010. Plaintiff sued several defendant gasoline manufacturers who have produced and/or marketed the ethanol blended gasoline (E10) used by the proposed class members for use in boats and watercraft in Florida allegedly without adequate warnings to consumers. The plaintiff asserted that E10 can cause difficulty starting the engine or rough engine operation, engine overheating, engine fires,  corrosion of aluminum tanks, degradation of fiberglass tanks and resins, and other damages.

The court noted the evidence that some defendants have, in other countries, posted warning signs that E10 may not be suitable for use in boats. Numerous articles have appeared in boating magazines, some boat manufacturers provide E10 warnings in their owners’ manuals, and many marine mechanics are aware that E10 may cause problems in certain types of boats.

 

The class sought relief against all defendants under a “market share” theory of negligence, based on Conley v. Boyle Drug Co., 570 So. 2d 275, 286 (Fla. 1990), alleging that because of the general methods for the use and distribution of gasoline used to fuel boats, plaintiffs did not know the identity of each of the named defendants that sold the ethanol blended gasoline that they purchased for use in their boats.

 

Our review focuses on the damages class, defined as owners of boats in the state of Florida whose fuel tanks are composed of polyester of vinyl ester resin fiberglass fuel tanks. The court noted first that even to determine whether certain individuals may be in the class, a detailed individual inquiry would be required. Because it would be impossible to definitively identify class members prior to individualized fact-finding and litigation, the proposed class fails to satisfy the most basic requirements for a class action under Rule 23, ascertainability.

 

Turning to the Rule 23(a) factors, while it is possible that the proposed class could satisfy the numerosity requirement, plaintiff had not made a clear showing that the number of actual class members will be so high that joinder of all members is impracticable. Plaintiff argued that his starting number (680) was so large that defense attempts to carve certain boats out of the total number would never work to defeat numerosity. However, courts have made it abundantly clear that the burden to satisfy numerosity is on the plaintiff seeking to certify a class, and a plaintiff is not permitted to make a purely speculative showing that numerosity has been met.

 

Next, although typicality “does not require identical claims or defenses,” a factual difference in the representative’s claims will render those claims atypical if the factual position of the class representative “markedly differs from that of other members of the class.” Named plaintiff’s damages claims and the defenses to those claims differed markedly from those of other potential class members, said the court. The uncontroverted expert testimony at the certification stage established that the type of fiberglass tanks at issue are found in relatively large boats that are not suitable to be transported or carried by trailer.  Owners whose boats are equipped with fiberglass fuel tanks, therefore, are most likely to purchase their fuel at marinas, where their boats are kept or to which they travel on water for fueling. In contrast, plaintiff purchased fuel for his boat at numerous gas stations by use of a fuel caddy that he carried in his pick-up truck. Expert witnesses and the parties agree that this behavior was atypical. This difference in behavior between named plaintiff and other potential class members “jeopardizes Plaintiff’s ability to sue Defendants collectively under a market share theory.”

 

Importantly, the court noted that plaintiff cited no case in which market share liability has been applied in a class action, “and there appears to be good reason why no such case exists.” It is simply untenable to apply market share liability [in those few states that recognize it], with its requirement of the narrowest possible geographic market, to a class action consisting of members whose activities cover an entire state.  The requirement of a narrowly tailored geographic market is particularly important in market share liability cases because only with a narrow geographic market may a defendant avail itself of the defenses afforded by the market share theory.

 

On the Rule 23(b) factors, plaintiff’s argument disregarded the many individualized inquiries that would be required in the proposed class action and which clearly outweighed the asserted common issues. As to each individual plaintiff, a fact finder would have to determine where that particular plaintiff purchased fuel, and what, if any, warnings were in place at that station at that time or at different times. Also, plaintiffs had to show that defendants’ failure to warn of the dangers of E10 was the proximate cause of the damage to the boats. This requisite showing raised two issues of individualized inquiry. First, each proposed class member must demonstrate that had warnings of the danger of E10 existed, he or she would have heeded those warnings and not used E10 in his or her boat. Non-ethanol blended fuel is more difficult to find than E10 and is generally more expensive than E10. It is conceivable that some boat owners, even if warned that E10 might damage their fuel tanks, would opt for the convenience and lower cost of E10, and assume the risk of damage. Indeed, plaintiff himself apparently continued to use E10 in his boat despite his knowledge of the risks.

 

The proximate cause requirement also mandates an individualized inquiry into whether each proposed class member had personal knowledge that E10 could damage fiberglass fuel tanks. As noted above, some information was available from other sources that E10 may not be appropriate.

Finally, the court noted something that is extremely important to readers of MassTortDefense, and which some courts ignore: fact issues can be created by defenses and by a defendant’s response to plaintiff’s claims. If those fact issues are individual, that is every bit as important to the class certification decision as individual issues raised by plaintiff’s own affirmative proof. While plaintiff’s experts asserted that no individual examination of fiberglass fuel tanks was necessary, defendants’ experts disagreed. Thus, inspection of the fuel tank of each proposed class member was a reasonable request to determine whether any existing damage was actually caused by E10.

Similarly, defendants have the right to assert the comparative fault defense, and its assertion would involve individual inquiries concerning each proposed class member’s knowledge and behavior. Inquiry would be necessary as to whether each boat owner received an owner’s manual that warned against the use of E10; whether any had ever been told by a mechanic not to use E10; whether any had ever seen a warning sign at a marina or researched E10 on the internet; and whether, despite personal knowledge, the boat owner nonetheless chose to fuel the boat with E10 based on convenience and cost savings.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The court overseeing the MDL concerning panacryl sutures declined last week to certify a proposed national class action. In re Panacryl Sutures Products Liability Cases, 2009 WL 3874347 (E.D.N.C. 11/13/09).

Panacryl Sutures are synthetic, braided, un-dyed, absorbable surgical sutures, designed to remain in the body for 24-36 months after surgery to provide wound support. Various plaintiffs alleged that Panacryl Sutures were defective in that they allegedly caused a high rate of foreign body reactions when used as directed. Plaintiffs alleged also that defendants failed to provide adequate warning of the dangers associated with the devices. Plaintiffs eventually filed a Motion to Certify a National Class Action.

The court first addressed the difficult choice of law issue -- a central, overarching issue in a proposed national class.  The court analyzed the choice of law factors -- interests of interstate comity, the interests underlying the field of tort law, the interests of the parties, the interests of judicial administration, and the competing interests of the various states, and concluded that under New Jersey's choice of law rules it should apply the substantive laws of each class member's home jurisdiction to his or her claims.  Again, a not unusual result, and is one which directly impacts the class certification elements.

Turning to the Rule 23(a) requirements, the court first focused on Rule 23(a)(3), commonly referred to as the “typicality” requirement, which states that the claims and defenses of the class representatives must be typical of the claims of the other class members.  Here, because plaintiffs had not shown that the prospective class representatives' claims can encompass or would take into account the varying substantive laws governing every class member, this element was not met.

Similarly, although the named plaintiffs interests are in some ways similar to the interests of class, the “adequate representation requirement overlaps with the typicality requirement because in the absence of typical claims, the class representative has no incentive to pursue the claims of the other class members.” In re American Med. Sys., 75 F.3d 1069, 1083 (6th Cir., 1996). Plaintiffs here did not meet their burden of showing that the claims of the prospective class representatives would take into account the variations in state law. The court found that therefore the prospective class representatives here did not satisfy Rule 23(a)(4).

Turning to Rule 23(b), the court observed that in class actions governed by the laws of several states, variations in state law will often overwhelm any common issues. See Ward v. Dixie Nat'l. Life Ins. Co., 257 F. App'x 620, 628-29 (4th Cir. 2007), cert denied, 128 S.Ct. 82 (2008), Castano v. Am. Tobacco, 84 F.3d 741 (5th Cir.1996).  To have any shot here, plaintiffs must provide an “extensive analysis” of the laws of the interested jurisdictions showing that variations among the applicable state laws do not pose “insuperable obstacles” to class certification. Walsh v. Ford Motor Co., 807 F.2d 1000, 1017 (D.C.Cir.1986); Gariety v. Grant Thornton, LLP, 368 F.3d 356, 370 (4th Cir.2004). Plaintiffs did not carry this burden.

Moreover, courts have generally founds that common questions of fact do not predominate in medical products liability cases. See In re American Med. Sys., 75 F.3d at 1074 (decertifying class of users of penile implants because “complications ... may be due to a variety of factors, including surgical error, improper use of the device, anatomical incompatibility, infection, device malfunction, or psychological problems.”); Zinser v. Accufix Research Inst., Inc., 253 F.3d 1180 (9th Cir.2001) (affirming denial of class certification in an action involving allegedly defective pacemakers). Here, plaintiffs alleged a variety of complications from the product, each of which has potential other causes. And Panacryl Sutures were used in a variety of surgical procedures which require different skills and techniques on the part of the surgeon and present different risks of post-surgical complications. These individual facts would have to be weighed against the alleged defects of Panacryl Sutures in light of the normal background rate of the various post-surgical complications identified by plaintiffs.  So no predominance of common issues.

This in turn led the court to conclude that the difficulties in managing the class proposed here would undermine the theoretical efficiencies that might be obtained through class certification.

Perhaps most importantly to readers of MassTortDefense, plaintiffs' last-ditch effort turned to the "issue class." But, noted the court, Rule 23(c)(4) may not be used to manufacture predominance for the purposes of Rule 23(b)(3). See Castano v. Am. Tobacco Co., 84 F.3d 734, 745 n.21 (5th Cir.1996) (“A district court cannot manufacture predominance through the nimble use of subdivision (c)(4).”); Peoples v. Wendover Funding, Inc., 179 F.R.D. 492, 501 n.4 (D.Md.1998) (“Rule 23(c)(4) does not permit a federal district court to certify a class under Rule 23(b)(3) by splitting a class action to create predominance.”). Plaintiffs' proposed issues trial plan did not eliminate the necessity of applying the laws of several jurisdictions or the individualized inquiry into whether Panacryl Sutures caused each plaintiff's injuries. And even under plaintiffs' proposed c4 trial plan, the difficulty of applying the laws of several states to the issues of liability and general causation would remain.  Lots of reasons to deny class certification.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal court has granted defendant CSX Transportation, Inc.’s Motion for Summary Judgment in a medical monitoring case arising from a train accident. See Mann v. CSX Transportation, et al., NO. 1:07-cv-3512 (N.D. Ohio Nov. 10, 2009).

The case arises from the derailment of 31 rail cars, nine of which contained hazardous materials, and the subsequent fire that burned for around sixty hours. Ohio emergency personnel oversaw an
evacuation of a one half mile radius. The next day, plaintiffs filed a putative class action complaint in state court, which was removed to the Northern District of Ohio. Plaintiffs’ complaint, under
theories of strict liability and negligence, primarily sought the establishment of a judicially administered medical monitoring program.

After discovery had been completed, defendant filed its motion for summary judgment. The court began by noting that Ohio law recognizes medical monitoring as a form of remedy for an underlying tort. See Wilson v. Brush Wellman, 817 N.E.2d 59, 63 (Ohio 2004). (Readers will note some states consider it a separate cause of action.) Therefore, medical monitoring is only granted if a plaintiff is able to prove all the elements of the underlying tort and the elements of medical monitoring. On the first part, in order to avoid summary judgment, plaintiffs thus must make a showing of a genuine issue of material fact as to the elements of a negligence claim under Ohio law: (1) defendant had a duty to plaintiffs, (2) defendant breached that duty, and (3) plaintiffs suffered damages directly and proximately caused by defendant’s breach. See, e.g., Menifee v. Ohio Welding Products, 15 Ohio St. 3d 75, 77 (Ohio 1984).

The first two issues were not contested for purposes of the motion. On injury and causation, the court noted the overlap with typical medical monitoring requirements, such that to meet this aspect of their negligence claim plaintiffs must demonstrate a genuine issue of material fact that: (1) the chemicals (dioxins) released into the air by the fire are known causes of human disease; and (2) that the plaintiffs were exposed to the dioxins in an amount sufficient to cause a significantly increased risk of disease such that a reasonable physician would order medical monitoring.

Plaintiff experts relied on classifications of the chemicals as carcinogens as their only evidence that dioxins cause the various endpoint diseases for which they seek medical monitoring.  Plaintiffs’ experts also failed to provide an independent assessment of the causal link between dioxins and disease.  Instead they "parroted" the conclusions of other experts and cited to EPA, IARC and NTP documents labeling dioxins as known carcinogens. This was an insufficient showing, said the court.

But even if plaintiffs could demonstrate a causal relationship between dioxins and cancer, plaintiffs had failed to establish that they were exposed to dioxins in an amount warranting a reasonable physician to order medical monitoring. See Day v. NLO, 851 F.Supp.869, 881 (S.D. Ohio 1994).

Plaintiffs’ theory was that they were at an increased risk of disease because they lived for eighteen months with alleged contamination from the fire inside and around their homes. However, none of the named plaintiffs presented evidence that a physician has examined them or their medical records and opined that they are at an increased risk of disease. Similarly, plaintiffs’ experts had not conducted any measurement of dioxin inside or outside of the homes of five of the seven named plaintiffs. At least three of the seven had not even lived in their air dispersion modeling expert's "impact zone" long enough to qualify for his proposed medical monitoring program. Even for those that did, mere residence in the so-called impact zone is insufficient evidence of sufficient contamination and increased risk because it ignores any individual variables, including other sources, and most notably, at what level each of the named plaintiffs was actually exposed to dioxins. The Sixth Circuit has stated “generalized proofs will not suffice to prove individual damages.”  Sterling v. Velsicol Chem. Corp., 855 F.2d 1188, 1200 (6th Cir. 1988).

Again, even if plaintiffs had presented sufficient evidence of the amount of named plaintiffs’ dioxin exposure, plaintiffs did not demonstrate that a reasonable physician would order medical monitoring based on this exposure. Plaintiffs attempted to rely upon the EPA soil cleanup level after the accident as a basis for justifying medical monitoring. The court found two fatal defects in using this EPA soil cleanup level. First, demonstrating why regulatory guidelines are often not useful in the tort litigation context, see Rowe v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 2008 WL 5412912 (D.N.J. Dec. 23, 2008); Redland Soccer Club, Inc. v. Dep’t of the Army, 55 F.3d 827 (3d Cir. 1995), the EPA soil cleanup level represented a threshold for the cleanup of contaminated soil, not a danger point
above which individuals would require medical monitoring. And even if government regulations were relevant to showing increased risk, a conservative soil cleanup level should not be used in place of a medically based risk assessment or evidence of the actual dose level at which dioxin truly causes cancer – the danger point critical to a medical monitoring determination.  Second, the EPA’s threshold soil cleanup level represents an increase in the risk of developing cancer from the baseline level for the general population of one in a million. Thus, even assuming there were a million members in this class who had been exposed to this level of dioxin over their entire lives, and assuming causation, only one of them would develop cancer because of the exposure. Plaintiffs thus sought to commence medical monitoring based on this one-in-a-million risk, but this risk and indeed risks higher, have been found insignificant as a matter of law.  Medical monitoring typically requires a significantly increased risk. Plaintiffs' expert opinion to the contrary was a legal conclusion, and thus it did not create a genuine issue of material fact.

In sum, the court concluded that the plaintiffs had not presented a genuine issue of material fact that the circumstances would warrant a reasonable physician to order medical monitoring. Medical monitoring in Ohio is a form of relief which should only be granted "with prudence."  Interestingly, the court concluded that plaintiffs’ proposed program would likely be extremely expensive, said the court, and inconvenience thousands of people for many years in the future. (Note to readers, the potential down-sides of medical monitoring must be explored in each case.) Plaintiffs had not presented enough evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude that such a burdensome program is warranted.

 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

In the BPA MDL, Judge Ortrie D. Smith granted in part and denied in part defendants’ motions to dismiss various claims. In re: Bispehnol-A Polycarbonate Plastic Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 1967 (W.D. Mo.).

Readers of MassTortDefense will recall that last year the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation centralized fourteen cases; since then, the Panel has continued to transfer cases from around the country, so now about thirty-eight cases have been transferred. In addition, approximately ten cases have been filed in the MDL District and have become part of the consolidation. Defendants roughly fall into two categories: the Bottle Defendants and the Formula Defendants. Generally, the Bottle Defendants make baby bottles, sippy cups and similar products for infants and toddlers, and/or sport bottles. The Formula Defendants sell infant formula packaged in metal cans.

Most of the complaints assert, on behalf of consumers, various causes of action including: (1) violation of state consumer protection laws, (2) breach of express warranty, (3) breach of the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, (4) intentional misrepresentation, (5) negligent misrepresentation, and (6) unjust enrichment.

In one Order the court began by addressing the motions to dismiss claims for fraud, misrepresentation and breach of express warranties. The MDL court had previously, mindful of Rule 9, required plaintiffs to identify defendants’ alleged statements that form the basis for their claims of fraud, misrepresentation, and breach of express warranties. Plaintiffs’ continued failure to do so was, said the court, now fatal to these claims. Likely because they were unable to comply, and perhaps because they recognized what compliance would do to their already slim chances for class certification (because of the individual issues that a response would highlight), plaintiffs responded to the aforementioned requirement by saying that they had not identified any advertisements or other media because the allegations are not based on any particular representations. A misrepresentation claim not based on any misrepresentation. Rather, plaintiffs’ allegations are based on defendants’ supposed “overall course of conduct” in marketing and selling the products at issue. Taken as a whole, defendants’ alleged “overall course of conduct” somehow deceptively conveyed the impression or message that the products at issue are safe and healthy for use by infants and children.

By disclaiming reference to any particular fraudulent act, plaintiffs had disclaimed one of the essential elements of a fraud or misrepresentation claim. All states require proof of reliance and causation. For a statement to be relied upon and thus cause a purchaser’s injury, the statement must have been heard by the purchaser. Plaintiffs’ theory – that the placement of a product in a stream of commerce alone somehow conveys a sufficient representation about the product’s safety that can serve as grounds for fraud liability – is a rule that has not been demonstrated to exist in any of the fifty states.

Allowing the mere sale of products to convey an affirmative representation regarding safety would eviscerate the law of warranty and be contrary to the rationale supporting the limited circumstances in which actions constitute representations, noted the court.  Plaintiffs’ failure to identify any expressions made by defendants to them about their products precludes any claim that an express warranty was made, let alone violated. Given the absence of any “affirmation of fact or promise,” (see UCC Article 2-313), plaintiffs cannot allege an express warranty was made. The Supreme Court’s decision in Iqbal requires a plaintiff to identify the basis for, if not the content of, the alleged warranty. And, in a related issue, plaintiffs’ were thus unable to allege how the supposed, non-existent, warranties became “part of the basis of the bargain.”  A representation cannot be part of the “bargain” if the other party to the bargain did not know the representation was made! Merely alleging a representation became part of the bargain does not satisfy Iqbal. If one party (here, the buyer) is not aware of the statement, that party cannot claim the statement became a part of the parties’ bargain.

The court declined to dismiss the claims for fraudulent omissions, based on what it called a “common-sense” view of Rule 9 under which it was unnecessary to require plaintiffs to specifically identify who failed to disclose information and each occasion upon which they failed to disclose it. Rule 9 is satisfied, said the court, with respect to a claim of fraudulent omissions if the omitted information is identified and “how or when” the concealment occurred.

The claim for breach of implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose was dismissed because while the ordinary purpose for baby bottles can be described as to allow babies and toddlers to drink liquids, a plaintiff cannot rely on this ordinary purpose to support a claim that there was a warranty of fitness for a particular purpose; they must point to some other purpose that is not “ordinary” in order to support their claim.

The court put off ruling on the claims for breach of the implied warranty of merchantability because defendants’ arguments (including lack of privity, untimeliness, and failure to provide notice), seemed premised on the unique characteristics of various states’ laws. Thus, they seemed more amenable to analysis at the time of any class certification decision, which will inevitably raise choice of law issues. A similar deferral was applied to dismissal of all unjust enrichment claims. Many of defendants’ arguments seemed to depend on unique aspects of various states’ laws, found the court.

Defendants also made a strong argument that the claims, at bottom, were improper “no injury” claims. The court agreed as to the category of plaintiffs who disposed of or used up the products before learning about BPA. They received all the benefits they desired and were unaffected by defendants’ alleged concealment. Importantly, the court recognized that while they may contend they would not have purchased the goods had they known more about BPA, these plaintiffs received 100% use (and benefit) from the products and have no quantifiable damages. In this instance, plaintiffs’ position “leads to absurd results.”  These buyers obtained the full anticipated benefit of the bargain. While they may not have paid the asking price, had they allegedly known, offset against this is the fact that they received the full benefits paid for – leaving them with no damages. Plaintiffs here may allege they would not have purchased those products had they supposedly known the true facts, but, again, they obtained full use of those products before learning the truth: the formula was consumed or the children grew to an age where they did not use bottles and sippy cups, so they were discarded. These consumers thus obtained full value from their purchase and have not suffered any damage. These plaintiffs are relegated to the unjust enrichment claim.

The court distinguished, however, those plaintiffs who learned about BPA’s presence and potential effects and either still have the goods or subsequently replaced or disposed of them. Defendants’ argument does not apply to this category, found the court.

That left before the court only plaintiffs’ claims that defendants made fraudulent omissions, violated various state consumer protection statutes, breached the implied warranty of merchantability, and that defendants were unjustly enriched. With these remaining claims pending, the court, in a second order, granted in part defendants’ motion to dismiss on the basis of preemption and denied their motion to dismiss on the ground of primary jurisdiction.

Defendants’ preemption and primary jurisdiction arguments were generally alike in that they both contend their use of BPA should only be subject to regulation by the FDA. Indeed, FDA has issued regulations prescribing the conditions for “safe” use of resinous and polymeric coatings, allowing the coatings to be formulated from “optional substances” that may include “[e]poxy resins” containing BPA. Thus, BPA’s presence in some resinous and polymeric coatings and in polycarbonate resins is subject to regulation by the FDA. It is also a fair reading of FDA’s regulations authorizing BPA’s use that the FDA thinks that food additives containing BPA could be used safely without labeling requirements.

The doctrine of primary jurisdiction applies when enforcement of a claim that is originally cognizable in the courts requires the resolution of issues which, under a regulatory scheme, have been placed within the special competence of an administrative body. The FDA clearly has specialized expertise and experience to determine whether BPA is “safe.” However, said the court, the ultimate issues in these cases, as alleged by plaintiffs, are whether defendants failed to disclose material facts to plaintiffs and thus, for example, whether defendants breached the implied warranty of merchantability through the sale of products containing BPA. FDA’s decision that BPA is “safe” is not determinative of any of those issues, said the court. This conclusion seemed to give insufficient attention, in our view, to the argument that plaintiffs have predicated their claims on proof that BPA is allegedly unsafe: the undisclosed facts are not material unless BPA is not safe. The products are not unmerchantable unless BPA is unsafe, Since plaintiffs base their claims on such evidence, the claims seemed to fall within the primary jurisdiction of the FDA.  The MDL court did not agree.

Turning to the preemption issue, the court first rejected the claim of implied preemption. While noting that FDA has approved BPA use in food additives and noting the agency’s decision not to require labeling, the court concluded that the FDA’s approval of BPA as safe without labeling requirements establishes only a regulatory minimum; nothing in these regulations either required or prohibited defendants from providing the disclosures sought. The court cited Wyeth v. Levine for the proposition that that there is no preemption when federal law did not prevent the drug manufacturer from strengthening its drug label as necessary to comply with the standard to be imposed by state law.

However, the Formula Defendants also raised express preemption; they asserted that the FDA regulations exempt Formula Defendants from having to disclose the presence of BPA in their products. Express preemption exists when a federal law explicitly prohibits state regulation in a particular field. With respect to food labeling, federal law generally prohibits states from establishing any differing requirements for the labeling of food. Thus, plaintiffs’ claims are expressly preempted because they would impose disclosure requirements concerning BPA, the exact opposite of the exemption. Now, here is the interesting twist: plaintiffs asserted that Congress also provided an exception to express preemption under the law for “any requirement respecting a statement in the labeling of food that provides for a warning concerning the safety of the food or component of the food.”  But, the court noted, plaintiffs cannot have it both ways.  If their claims are based on warnings about the safety of food, then their claims would have been subject to dismissal under the primary jurisdiction doctrine because the determination whether BPA is “safe” is solely the province of the FDA, and the FDA has concluded that the use of BPA in epoxy liners is “safe” so long as the manufacturer abides by the FDA’s prescribed conditions. See 21 C.F.R. § 175.300 (2009).  If the claims against the Formula Defendants are not subject to primary jurisdiction, as plaintiffs argued, then they are subject to express preemption analysis.

It may seem clear to readers of MassTortDefense that even with respect to those claims the court concluded should not be dismissed on the pleadings, the court's analysis highlights several issues that may make it difficult for the plaintiffs to proceed as a viable class action. 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The  California appeals court has affirmed a trial court's decision to deny plaintiff's motion for class certification in a case involving high definition (HD) television services. See Cohen v. DIRECTV, Inc., No. B204986, 2009 WL 3069116 (Cal. Ct. App. 2d Dist. 10/28/09).

A subscriber to services delivered by a satellite television company filed a proposed class action complaint alleging the company had disseminated false advertising to induce him and other subscribers to purchase more expensive HD services.  The complaint alleged that DIRECTV switched its HDTV channels to a lower resolution, reducing the quality of the television images it transmits to its subscribers.

Importantly, the complaint did not allege that DIRECTV breached its subscribers' contracts for satellite television services by allegedly transmitting a lower resolution television image than it was contract-bound to deliver. Instead, plaintiff alleged a species of fraud in the inducement, alleging that subscribers to DIRECTV's HD services purchased those services in reliance on the company's supposedly false advertising. In that vein, Cohen alleged that he and the other putative class members subscribed to the HD service package based upon DIRECTV's national advertising and marketing.  Thus, plaintiff  asserted two causes of action: (1) violation of the Consumer Legal Remedies Act or “CLRA” (see Civ. Code, § 1750 et seq.), and (2) violation of the Unfair Competition Law or “UCL” (see Bus. & Prof. Code, § 17200).

Plaintiff requested the trial court to certify a class defined as follows:  “Residents of the United States of America who subscribed to DIRECTV's High Definition Programming Package.”  The motion to certify the class was supported in significant part with evidence seeking to show DIRECTV's print advertising and promotional materials for its HD Package; DIRECTV's opposition to the motion for class certification was supported in large part by a number of declarations from subscribers to the company's HD Package, each of whom explained that their individual decisions to buy the upgraded service had not been precipitated by any printed advertising or other promotional materials disseminated by DIRECTV.

California's Code of Civil Procedure section 382 authorizes a representative plaintiff to pursue a class action “when the question [in the action] is one of a common or general interest, of many persons, or when the parties are numerous, and it is impracticable to bring them all before the court . . . .” A plaintiff moving for class certification must establish the existence of (1) an “ascertainable” class and (2) a “commonality” of interests among the members of the class. E.g., Lockheed Martin Corp. v. Superior Court, 29 Cal.4th 1096, 1103-1104 (2003).

The appeals court, first, disagreed with trial court which had found the proffered defined class not ascertainable. The defined class of all HD Package subscribers was sufficiently precise, with objective characteristics and transactional parameters which could be determined by DIRECTV's own account records.

However, the class did fail on the issues surrounding commonality.  In this proposed national class, subscribers' legal rights would vary from one state to another state, and subscribers outside of California may well not be protected by the CLRA and UCL.

Beyond legal issues, the record supported the trial court's finding that common issues of fact do not predominate in the proposed class because the class would clearly include subscribers who never saw DIRECTV advertisements or representations of any kind before deciding to purchase the company's HD services.  The proposed class would include subscribers who only saw and/or relied upon advertisements that contained no mention of technical terms regarding bandwidth or pixels, and also subscribers who purchased DIRECTV HD primarily based on word of mouth or because they saw DIRECTV's HD in a store or at a friend's or family member's home.

Interestingly, the court of appeals distinguished the state's supreme court's recent decision in In re Tobacco II Cases,  46 Cal.4th 298 (2009).  The opinion suggests that Tobacco II held that, for purposes of standing in context of the class certification issue in a “false advertising” case involving the UCL, the absent class members need not be assessed for the element of reliance. Or, in other words, class certification may not automatically be defeated on the ground of lack of standing upon a showing that class members did not all rely on common false advertising. The court of appeals found that Tobacco II essentially ruled that, for purposes of standing, as long as a named plaintiff is able to establish that he or she relied on a defendant's false advertising, a absent class members may also be deemed to have standing, regardless of whether any of those class members have in any way relied upon the defendant's allegedly improper conduct.

MassTortDefense readers will likely find that notion ridiculous, particularly when the courts typically do not enforce the ostensible requirement that named plaintiffs should be typical and adequate class representatives.  In the contextual setting presented by the present case, however, Tobacco II was seen to be irrelevant because the issue of “standing” simply is not the same thing as the issue of “commonality.” Standing, generally speaking, is a matter addressed to the trial court's jurisdiction because a plaintiff who lacks standing cannot state a valid cause of action. Commonality, on the other hand, in the context of the class certification issue, is a matter addressed to the practicalities and utilities of litigating a class action in the trial court. The court saw nothing in the language in Tobacco II which suggests that the state supreme court intended California trial courts to dispatch with an examination of commonality when addressing a motion for class certification.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

In the Chinese Drywall  MDL, certain plaintiffs recently moved for leave to amend their Class Action Complaint to expand the class definition as to defendant Taishan Gypsum, from a Virginia state-wide class to a national class of all persons allegedly impacted by defective drywall made by that defendant. Plaintiffs assert that there will be no undue delay nor prejudice to defendants from the change; the amendment does not alter the proposed sub-classes as to other defendants who are the builders and installation contractors who allegedly installed the product. The amendment would also include new assertion of a violation of the consumer fraud acts of the various states. In re: Chinese-Manufactured Drywall Products Liability Litigation, No. 09-md-02047 (E.D. La.).

An Omnibus [Proposed] Class Action Complaint is to be filed in the MDL on or before December 9, 2009 by the plaintiffs against another defendant, Knauf Plasterboard (Tianjin) Co., Ltd (“KPT”) and other defendants who were involved in the manufacture, sale, importation, brokerage, distribution, construction and installation of homes containing KPT drywall, and any others who were involved in the stream of commerce for the KPT drywall. In order to assist in the consolidation and efficient handling of claims by affected homeowners, defendant KPT has apparently agreed to accept service of process for homeowner plaintiffs who are to be named in an Omnibus Amended Complaint, and waive its right to demand service of process through the Hague Convention. (We have posted about the issues related to suits against foreign defendants before.) However, to be eligible for inclusion in this Omnibus [Proposed] Class Action Complaint and the service waiver, homeowners must provide, by no later than December 2, 2009, sufficient indicia that the homes in question contain KPT drywall (e.g., photographs, samples, visual inspections or reports identifying KPT markings on drywall in the home), and must also submit by December 14, 2009, a fully completed and executed Plaintiff Profile Form, in accordance with PTO #11. The complaint will not be amended to include additional named plaintiffs after it is filed, the court has indicated.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal court has dismissed (with prejudice) a variety of consumer fraud and unjust enrichment claims in litigation alleging issues with front-loading washers. Butler, et al. v. Sears, Roebuck and Co., No. 06 C 7023 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 4, 2009).

In their Consolidated Complaint, plaintiffs alleged that the washing machines they bought
from Sears suffered from electronic control board failure and an alleged design defect that prevented adequate water drainage and proper self-cleaning. The water drainage and
cleaning defect allegedly resulted in odors on clothes. Plaintiffs contended that the electronic control board failure is manifested by the washing machines prematurely and repeatedly failing mechanically. 

Defendant was alleged to have known about the defects because of allegedly similar problems with other washing machines, and customer complaints of mold problems. As a result, plaintiffs contended that Sears violated their respective home states’ consumer fraud statutes.

The case has a bit of a history, as prior versions of these allegations had been the subject of three motions to dismiss. Although the court did allow plaintiffs to file this consolidated amended complaint (these cases were consolidated for purposes of discovery and pretrial proceedings on January 6, 2009), plaintiffs did not request leave to re-allege the claims that were dismissed with prejudice in the prior rulings, including consumer fraud claims under the laws of California, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Washington. See 2008 WL 4450307, at *8. Plaintiffs. however, re-alleged these claims in substantially the same form in their Consolidated Complaint.  Without leave to do so, and new details, these claims could not survive.

In order to survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the complaint must not only provide the defendant with fair notice of the claim’s basis, but must also establish that the requested relief is plausible on its
face. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949, (2009); see also Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). Allegations of fraud are subject to the heightened pleading standard of Rule 9(b), which requires a plaintiff to state with particularity the circumstances constituting fraud. Fed. R. Civ. P. 9(b). This means that the plaintiff must plead the “who, what, when, where, and how" of the alleged fraud.

The court found that the new allegations  were insufficient to meet Rule 9(b)’s pleading requirements. Plaintiffs adequately averred defendant's knowledge, but they did not adequately allege the other required elements. For example, plaintiffs had not indicated how the alleged reported failure rate compares with the failure rates of comparable machines produced by comparable manufacturers. Plaintiffs also failed to specify how often design or manufacturing defects related to self-cleaning features of washers occur. No meaningful engineering explanation had been alleged. The language reproduced in the Consolidated Complaint offered far from a meaningful engineering explanation for the defects; the allegations were vague and indeterminate.

The alleged violation of California’s Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, Cal. Civil Code § 1790 et seq., survived the motion to dismiss.  But, overall, product manufacturers can appreciate the court's application of the Twombly doctrine, the fraud pleading requirements, and its reluctance to give plaintiffs many, many bites of the apple.  Federal court litigation should not be "if at first you do not succeed, try, try again," with the trial court offering plaintiff's counsel a road map how to construct a proper pleading.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Supreme Court heard oral argument earlier this week in Shady Grove Orthopedic Assocs. v. Allstate Ins. Co. (No. 08-1008), a case which considers whether a state law (here, New York's) prohibiting class actions for certain statutory damages claims can preclude class certification in a federal court diversity action. (The Second Circuit's decision is at 549 F.3d 137 (2d Cir. 2008).)

The case takes your humble blogger back to Civil Procedure class in law school and Prof. Steve Burbank who was, and is, a leading authority on the Rules Enabling Act, because the case potentially implicates the Act's command that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure "shall not abridge, enlarge or modify any substantive right."  28 U.S.C. 2072(b). But for readers of MassTortDefense, the import is the ability of state legislatures to restrict the availability of class actions in federal court.

Plaintiff brought a case pursuant to a New York insurance law that provides for interest penalties on claims that are paid late. However, New York Civil Practice Law and Rules §901(b), prohibits plaintiffs from recovering state statutory penalties in class actions unless class proceedings are authorized in the statute (which they were not). The District Court found Section 901(b) applied, which meant the case could not proceed as a class action in federal court.

Civil procedure mavens will note that the case depends in part on whether the state law at issue is substantive or procedural. Plaintiff, Shady Grove, argued that the law is procedural and thus cannot displace the federal rules; class action Rule 23 would trump any contrary procedural state statute or rule. Shady Grove argued that Section 901(b) does not create a substantive right not to face a class action, but rather provides a mere procedural entitlement not to be subject to a class action seeking certain forms of relief in the New York state courts. Justice Ginsburg, at oral argument, however, wondered why the ban was not akin to a restriction on remedies, such as a ceiling on the amount of damages that could be recovered under  state law (and was thus substantive).

Allstate took the view that the statute is substantive, that while Rule 23 sets forth the criteria governing class action certification in federal court, it does not address the initial question of whether a claim is eligible for class certification. Applying Rule 23 would overrule substantive policy decisions that certain claims are categorically ineligible for class certification, and that would venture beyond the bounds of the Rules Enabling Act. Their defense brief included a list of various federal and state laws that represent substantive policy choices curbing class action remedies or ruling out class action claims in specific contexts. At argument, Shady Grove conceded that at least some of them would be invalid under plaintiff's theory.

Allstate also raised the specter of forum shopping: plaintiffs would be drawn to federal court, thwarting a state's efforts to limit liability for those claims. The Second Circuit agreed that the New York law barred the plaintiff from bringing its claim against Allstate as a class action under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23.  And at oral argument, Allstate asserted that New York State made the substantive policy decision that class actions seeking monetary penalties for misconduct defined by this state law would unduly magnify those penalties, and thus barred lawsuits combining such claims, forcing plaintiffs to sue for them one at a time. Justice Sotomayer seemed skeptical, wondering if under Allstate's theory, states could pass a law stating that no cause of action under state law can be brought as a class action, ever.

The Partnership for New York City Inc. joined with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and some other  groups to support Allstate, while Public Justice, a Washington-based liberal pro-plaintiff interest law firm, filed an amicus brief in support of Shady Grove. The plaintiff amicus argued that the controlling doctrine is not Erie, but the decision in Hanna v. Plumer, which, they argued, requires that a valid federal procedural rule must be applied by a federal court in a case involving citizens of different states regardless of contrary state law.

For readers of MassTortDefense, who recognize the overwhelming trend in federal courts not to certify personal injury product liability class actions, there is the countervailing concern that states could choose to expand the availability of class actions, and whether the Supreme Court might adopt an approach that would later force federal courts to certify actions that would seem uncertifiable under Rule 23. And much of the questioning by the Court related to one "slippery slope" or another.

One final thought: given the Court’s recent emphasis on federalism and state’s rights (underlying, in part, recent questionable preemption decisions), a respect for state legislative prerogatives could favor Allstate here.  Indeed, at oral argument Allstate counsel argued that if a state has created a legal claim, it is only appropriate that it be allowed to define its terms and limits. And Justice Ginsburg remarked that this Court has been sensitive to state limitations.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The federal inter-agency task force investigating alleged problems with Chinese-made drywall released initial results of three studies last week, which may impact the MDL litigation. The CPSC, the EPA, HUD, the CDC, and the Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry are members of the task force. Health departments in Florida, Louisiana, and Virginia have also participated in the task force. An executive summary of the studies, and the draft studies themselves are available here.

To date, close to 2000 consumers have contacted the CPSC to report alleged problems in their homes. The primary issues reported are: 1) corrosion, or blackening, of indoor metals, such as electrical components and central air conditioning system evaporator coils; and 2) various health symptoms, including persistent cough, bloody and runny noses, headaches, difficulty in breathing and irritated and itchy eyes and skin. Imported drywall from China came into more widespread use after hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 led to a surge in home reconstruction and caused shortages of North American-made drywall.

In sum, the three studies involved:
(1) Elemental and Chemical Testing: The study of the elemental and chemical composition of drywall samples showed higher concentrations of elemental sulfur and strontium in Chinese drywall than in non-Chinese drywall. The elemental and chemical testing of Chinese and non-Chinese drywall samples was undertaken to characterize the specific chemical composition of the drywall. The results were expected to identify differences between the two sets of drywall that might account for the reported corrosion and health issues. While the studies have discovered certain differences between Chinese and non-Chinese drywall, further studies must be completed, said the report, to determine any nexus between the drywall and the reported health and corrosion issues. The analysis was conducted on 17 samples of drywall collected from warehouses, suppliers and manufacturers. These samples were unpainted and uninstalled.

(2) Chamber Studies: Preliminary results of ongoing testing to detect gases emitted from drywall in laboratory chambers showed higher emissions of total volatile sulfur gases from Chinese than from non-Chinese drywall. The chamber studies, conducted by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, were intended to isolate the chemicals emitted from drywall. From these chamber studies, said the task force, it was possible to isolate the drywall emissions from the interferences of other materials or furnishings in a house that might emit or absorb such emissions. No comprehensive exposure and risk assessment has yet been carried out.

(3) Indoor Air Studies: Indoor air testing of 10 homes in Florida and Louisiana was conducted to identify and measure contaminants and to inform a drywall home indoor air testing protocol. The tests did not detect the presence or found only very limited or occasional indications of sulfur compounds of particular interest to the task force – hydrogen sulfide, carbon disulfide, and carbonyl sulfide. Concentrations of two known irritant compounds, acetaldehyde and
formaldehyde, were detected at concentrations that could exacerbate conditions such as asthma in sensitive populations, but were found in both homes with and without Chinese drywall. The levels of formaldehyde were not unusual for new homes, however, said the report. The results of the air testing in this very small sample of homes was being reported to offer a very preliminary indication of what compounds may be present in the indoor environments of homes in Florida and Louisiana with and without Chinese drywall.

The agencies expect the results of an air-sampling study of 50 homes in late November. An engineering analysis of electrical and fire safety issues is also forthcoming. .A study of long-term corrosion issues, that seeks to simulate decades of exposure and corrosion, will not be completed until June of 2010.

The study follows in the wake of the four-day U.S.-China summit that aimed to reinforce the notion that the United States—specifically the CPSC—will hold accountable importers of products into the United States if their products pose hazards or violate safety standards. The CPSC delegation reportedly discussed drywall safety concerns with Chinese government officials.

The CPSC stressed that this report was preliminary; the findings of each report released today must be considered within the limitations of each study and viewed in the context of the overall drywall investigation, which is still ongoing. While the studies have discovered certain differences between Chinese and non-Chinese drywall, further studies must be completed to determine any nexus between the drywall and the reported health and corrosion issues.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

In the Digitek MDL, the parties have been wrangling over the defense motion for a Lone Pine order. See generally Lore v. Lone Pine, No. L-336006-85, 1986 WL 637507 (N.J. Super. Ct. Nov. 18, 1986).

Dozens of product liability cases alleging that defendants Actavis Totowa LLC, Actavis Inc. and Actavis Elizabeth LLC marketed Digitek tablets containing double the appropriate dosage were transferred to an MDL assigned to Chief Judge Goodwin of the Southern District of West Virginia last summer. In Re: Digitek Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 1968 (S.D. W.Va.).
 

Defendants recently moved for a Lone Pine order under which each plaintiff must submit an "affidavit from a medical expert in each case establishing that there is medical evidence of digoxin toxicity." Readers of MassTortDefense recognize this important and logical procedural tool for management of mass toxic tort litigation.  When the major factual battles will be over injury and causation, it may make sense to focus discovery on these issues, and prior to resorting to expensive and time-consuming discovery, to require plaintiffs to come forward with some prima facie showing of injury and specific causation, or as the court put it, "some evidence of certain elements of their claims, e.g. medical causation, to support a credible claim."

The plaintiffs in the federal Digitek multidistrict litigation filed a brief opposing the motion, arguing that the discovery in the MDL is still in its "incipient stages."  As they typically do, the plaintiffs argued that such orders "effectively function as untimely and unjust summary judgment devices and violate the discovery rules for expert witness disclosures and reports." They also argued that they have provided significant case-specific discovery in the form of Plaintiffs' Fact Sheets and records authorizations.

The court entered PTO #43 (Order re Request for Lone Pine Order), saying the motion is taken under advisement pending completion of basic fact discovery of Group 1 cases. Under the latest schedule, Plaintiff shall serve their reports from liability experts no later than March 15, 2010.  The parties shall complete their depositions of Plaintiffs’ liability experts no later than May 28, 2010.  Defendants shall serve their reports from liability experts no later than June 15, 2010. The parties shall complete their depositions of Defendants’ liability experts no later than August 31, 2010. 

At the November 20, 2009, conference each party is to present to the court their choice of five cases that they believe to be representative plaintiffs for trial in accordance with PTO #38, governing the creation of a trial pool upon completion of basic fact discovery, including but not limited to the depositions of plaintiffs, plaintiffs’ physicians who prescribed Digitek® to them, physicians who treated Plaintiffs for alleged digoxin toxicity, and pharmacists who filled plaintiffs’ prescriptions for Digitek®.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Part two of our update on recent climate change litigation.  In our last post, we discussed the well reasoned decision in Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp., 2009 WL 3326113 (N.D.Cal. 9/30/09).  We contrasted it with the somewhat startling (2-judge) Second Circuit panel decision in Connecticut v. American Electric Power Co., allowing a group of states and land trusts to proceed with a so-called global warming tort suit.

In another noteworthy recent case, the Fifth Circuit recently held that a group of property owners in Mississippi can proceed with global warming-related claims. See Comer v. Murphy Oil Co., 2009 WL 3321493 (5th Cir. 10/16/09).  A proposed class of thousands of property owners alleged that damage to their Mississippi coastal properties from Hurricane Katrina would not have been as serious had not defendants' climate change conduct intensified the storm. Along with the Second Circuit decision, this opinion represents a clear and dangerous trend within the court of appeals to usurp Congress, warp the traditional nuisance doctrine, and plunge the federal courts into what are essentially political questions.

In Comer, the district court correctly held that tort suits against electric power companies and other alleged large greenhouse gas emitters should not proceed in federal court because climate change, and tort claims based on alleged climate change, is fraught with national political and policy considerations.  The Fifth Circuit reversed, asserting that until Congress, the executive branch, or a federal agency acts more directly on global warming, Mississippi common law tort rules questions posed by the case are justiciable because there is no commitment of those issues exclusively to the political branches of the federal government.  Thus, plaintiffs had demonstrated standing for public and private nuisance, trespass, and negligence claims; the claims were justiciable and did not present a political question. 

The Fifth Circuit in some ways went  further than the Second Circuit, ruling in essence that climate change-related claims are not limited to injunctions being brought by governmental entities or even quasi-public groups like nonprofit land trusts. The Fifth Circuit ruled that private property owners under Mississippi law also may have standing to bring climate change-related nuisance and trespass claims for both property and punitive damages. That holding may propel additional climate change litigation -- if the ruling stands following likely rehearing motions.

The causation allegation here was arguably even more attenuated than the long, convoluted causation chain in other global warming cases; plaintiffs asserted that defendants' greenhouse gases didn't cause but contributed to global warming, which made the waters in the Gulf of Mexico warmer, which didn't create but then made Hurricane Katrina more intense, which then caused their alleged property damage to be worse.  That stands as perhaps the most attenuated, least supportable, causal link in tort history -- the absence of proximate cause as a matter of law.  The concurrence noted this issue, and would have affirmed a dismissal on this basis.  With class certification, expert discovery, Daubert, and summary judgment hurdles to be crossed, it is clear that this causation issue will not soon disappear.

Ironically, the rash of global warming opinions in cases that had been argued long ago may reflect a recognition of the new administration and a changing emissions policy... in turn, reflecting the political nature of the issues. All readers ought to have profound reservations about the notion, inherent in all private climate change litigation, that the tort system is capable of adjudicating rights and responsibilities on the subject of global warming.

The decisions potentially present business interests with difficult choices: proposed regulations from the administration may be onerous and not grounded in good science; but absent federal action, defendants may risk public nuisance liability in the courts on issues that juries cannot begin to handle well.  

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Today, the first of a couple of posts on the so-called global warming litigation.  We have posted on the climate change litigation before, and here, and we note first that a  federal trial court recently dismissed a global climate change suit filed by Inupiat Eskimos from Kivalina, Alaska against dozens of oil and energy companies. Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp., 2009 WL 3326113 (N.D.Cal. 9/30/09).

The suit was brought by the village of about 400 people, who alleged that as a result of global warming, the Arctic sea ice that protects the Kivalina coast from storms has been diminished, and that resulting erosion will require relocation of the residents to another village.  (The town of Kivalina is located at the tip of a six-mile-long barrier reef, about 70 miles north of the Arctic Circle on Alaska's northwest coast.) Plaintiffs sought damages under federal common law nuisance, state nuisance, and civil conspiracy theories. They alleged that defendants were a major part of the cause of excessive emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which plaintiffs claimed are causing global warming.

The defendants properly noted that many of the questions raised by the plaintiffs in this suit were inherently political; there are no traditional judicial standards available to adjudicate such political issues. They also argued that plaintiffs lacked standing under Article III because the injury to the plaintiffs was not “fairly traceable” to the conduct of the defendants. 

Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California agreed, finding global warming to be a political issue not appropriate for a federal court to decide. The courts have long indicated that disputes involving political questions lie outside of the Article III jurisdiction of federal courts.  Corrie v. Caterpillar, Inc., 503 F.3d 974, 980 (9th Cir.2007). The political question doctrine serves to prevent the federal courts from intruding unduly on certain policy choices and value judgments that are constitutionally committed to Congress or the executive branch.  Koohi v. United States, 976 F.2d 1328, 1331 (9th Cir.1992).  A non-justiciable political question exists when, to resolve a dispute, the court must make a policy judgment of a legislative nature, rather than resolving the dispute through legal and factual analysis. Courts typically look at three broad factors: (i) Does the issue involve resolution of questions committed by the text of the Constitution to a coordinate branch of Government? (ii) Would resolution of the question demand that a court move beyond areas of judicial expertise? (iii) Do prudential considerations counsel against judicial intervention?

Under the second factor, which was key here, the court concluded that a factfinder would have to weigh, inter alia, the energy-producing alternatives that were available in the past and consider their respective impact on far ranging issues such as their reliability as an energy source, safety considerations and the impact of the different alternatives on consumers and business at every level. The factfinder would then have to weigh the benefits derived from those choices against the risk that increasing greenhouse gases would in turn increase the risk of causing flooding along the coast of a remote Alaskan locale. Plaintiffs ignored this aspect of their claim and otherwise failed to articulate any particular judicially discoverable and manageable standards that would guide a factfinder in rendering a decision that is principled, rational, and based upon reasoned distinctions.

Secondly, plaintiffs conceded they were unable to trace their alleged injuries to any particular defendant.  While they sought to rely on, by analogy, injury concepts under the Clean Water Act, the court concluded that even if the theory were applicable outside the context of a statutory water pollution claim, it is simply inapposite where, as here, plaintiffs have not alleged that even the “seed” of their injury can be traced to any of the defendants. Plaintiffs acknowledged that the genesis of the global warming phenomenon dates back centuries and is a result of the emission of greenhouse gases by a multitude of sources other than the defendants. The complaint further alleges that the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide -- “the most significant greenhouse gas emitted by human activity” -- has been increasing steadily “since the dawn of the industrial revolution in the 18th century, and more than one-third of the increase has occurred since 1980.”  Significantly, the source of the greenhouse gases are undifferentiated and cannot be traced to any particular source, let alone a defendant, given that they rapidly mix in the atmosphere. 

The court thus dismissed the suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, both because of the political question, and because the plaintiffs could not prove the companies caused the alleged injury.

The decision is consistent with most prior decisions coming out of the district courts, which generally have viewed these climate change cases as raising fundamentally political judgments.  The decision is a more coherent analysis than the recent, ostensibly conflicting, ruling of the Second Circuit allowing plaintiffs to sue over climate change under federal common law, in Connecticut v. American Electric Power Co., No. 05-5104-cv (2d Cir. 9/21/09).  (It also will be contrasted in our next post with the Fifth Circuit's recent ruling in Comer v. Murphy Oil Co.

The Second Circuit case involved a suit by states and environmental groups against various electric power companies; these plaintiffs made allegations similar to those in the Alaska case, and that defendants were thus harming the environment, the states' economies, and public health.  The appeals court overturned a well-reasoned trial court ruling that the case represented a non-justiciable political question.  

Unlike the Second Circuit, the California district court recognized major distinctions between ordinary pollution cases and planet-wide climate change allegations;  the court was wisely unwilling to confront -- and could not ignore the existence of -- the myriad legal and policy issues relating to imposing liability on a planetary scale. Judge Armstrong disagreed with the appeals court conclusion that traditional water pollution and air pollution nuisance cases provide appropriate guidance in assessing global warming "nuisance" cases.  While a water pollution claim typically involves a discrete, geographically definable waterway, plaintiffs’ global warming claim is based on the emission of greenhouse gases over decades from innumerable sources located throughout the world and supposedly affecting the entire planet.

Fundamentally, such a nuisance claim would require the judiciary to make a policy decision about who should bear the cost of global warming, if it turns out to be a real climatic phenomenon. Though alleging that defendants are responsible for a "substantial portion" of greenhouse gas emissions, plaintiffs also acknowledge in these cases that virtually everyone on Earth is responsible at some level for contributing to such emissions (even you readers). Thus, plaintiffs are in effect asking the courts to make a political judgment that the two dozen defendants named in this action should be the only ones to bear the cost of contributing to global warming.  The Second Circuit, in contrast, in American Electric, tried to draw a highly dubious distinction between a claim seeking a comprehensive solution to global climate change, a task that arguably falls within the purview of the political branches, and a claim "merely" to limit emissions that allegedly constitute a public nuisance -- because the emissions (part of the highly controversial political debate about global warming) are greenhouse gasses and the source of alleged climate change caused by human activity.    

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

On the eve of the 3rd biennial United States--China Consumer Product Safety Summit, to be held in China, the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission reported she will press Chinese officials on whether new regulatory standards need to be set for drywall composition. CPSC Chairwoman Inez Tenenbaum said she also would inquire whether the Chinese were willing to provide compensation for the damage from tainted drywall.

In its latest status report on the Chinese drywall issues, the CPSC noted that it had received 1192 consumer complaints, from 24 different states. The majority of the reports continue to be from Florida, Louisiana, and Virginia. The focus of the federal drywall team has remained pursuing the scientific bases of the possible problems, and tracing the chain of commerce of the drywall.

CPSC reports it has completed principal field work for a 50 home indoor air sampling program, coordinated the state and federal response to allegations of radioactive phosphogypsum in Chinese drywall, and completed 75 in-depth site investigations, with another 20 in progress. Long-term air sampling tests will be completed later this month. The evaluation of the results is expected to be complete before November. (Phosphogypsum is a gypsum that has elevated levels of naturally occurring potassium, thorium and uranium radionuclides and decay products.) The CPSC coordinated testing and reporting results for radioactive phosphogypsum contamination in drywall with the Florida Department of Health and the EPA National Air and Radiation Environmental Laboratory. The results of the technical review showed that no radiological hazard was present. EPA is conducting elemental analyses of 15 drywall samples. EPA expects to complete its analyses of drywall samples in the next few weeks.

CPSC continues to analyze the information received from consumers, builders, importers, manufacturers, and suppliers of drywall to determine how much imported drywall may be affected and where that drywall has been installed. To date, CPSC staff has confirmed that during 2006, 6,997,456 sheets of Chinese drywall were imported into the U.S.

As readers of MassTortDefense know, litigation has been filed over the drywall issues, alleging that sulfur levels in the Chinese-made products are abnormally high, causing problems with air conditioning systems, appliances, internal wiring and other electrical systems.  Approximately 200 cases are pending in the MDL. In re: Chinese-Manufactured Drywall Products Liability Litigation, No. 09-md-02047 (E.D. La.).

In the MDL , the next status conference is scheduled for Thursday, November 19, 2009. Recently, the court  issued an order regarding a "Revised Exporter, Importer, or Broker Defendant Profile Form.”  All defendant drywall exporters, importers, or brokers must complete this Profile Form.  The form, inter alia, requires information on exemplar transactions concerning the exportation/importation/brokering of Chinese Drywall for import/export to the United States between 2001 and 2009, including but not limited to purchases, sales, consignments, shipments, transfers, deliveries, receipts, or other distributions.  The form requires information to identify any markings on the Chinese Drywall product (e.g., lot number, batch number, serial number, color markings, UPC codes, etc.) involved in this transaction; a list all trademarks of the product, and any markings or means of identification employed to track or identify the Chinese Drywall.

The issue of linking the specific product that allegedly harmed a plaintiff to the defendants who made and sold that particular product -- often termed "product identification" -- is an essential aspect of the cause in fact inquiry and is often problematic in toxic tort litigation.

 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation has decided to consolidate multiple federal cases arising from the Zicam product line.  IN RE: ZICAM COLD REMEDY MARKETING AND SALES PRACTICES LITIGATION, MDL No. 2096.  Plaintiffs moved, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1407, for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings of multiple proposed class actions.  By the time the Panel issued its Order, there were 40 related actions pending in 26 federal districts.

Many of the pending cases were consumer fraud class actions against Matrixx Initiatives, Inc., and its subsidiaries Zicam, LLC, and Zicam Swab, LLC.  Plaintiffs opposed centralization of any actions alleging personal injury claims. But the Panel found that both kinds of actions involved sufficient common questions of fact, and that centralization of the actions under Section 1407 would serve the convenience of the parties and witnesses and promote the just and efficient conduct of this litigation. The actions share factual questions regarding, inter alia, the marketing and sale of three Zicam nasal cold remedy products, and alleged injuries sustained by the use and/or purchase of those products, particularly whether the products cause anosmia (the loss of sense of smell). Centralization under Section 1407, the court found, would eliminate duplicative discovery, prevent inconsistent pretrial rulings (particularly with respect to class certification), and conserve the resources of the parties, their counsel and the judiciary.

The Panel declined to separate purported consumer class actions from other actions alleging personal injury. Centralization of all actions in this docket would, said the court, allow a single judge to structure pretrial proceedings to accommodate all parties’ discovery needs while ensuring that the common parties and witnesses are not subjected to discovery demands that duplicate activity that will or has occurred in other actions.

The court chose the District of Arizona as the appropriate transferee forum. The defendants are based within the District of Arizona, and relevant documents and witnesses are likely found there, observed the Panel. In addition, centralization in the District of Arizona will allow for coordination of the federal actions with related litigation pending in Arizona state court.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal court has dismissed a putative class action alleging that Sears Roebuck & Co. and Whirlpool Corp. engaged in unfair business practices and misleadingly marketed thousands of supposedly defective washing machines. Tietsworth et al. v. Sears, Roebuck & Co. et al., No. 09-cv-288 (N.D. Calif.)(dismissal without prejudice).

Plaintiffs alleged that  Whirlpool manufactured top-loading Kenmore Elite Oasis automatic washing machines, and Sears marketed, advertised, distributed, warranted, and offered repair services for the machines. Plaintiffs alleged that thousands of the machines contained a defect that causes them to stop in mid-cycle and display a variety of error codes.  Plaintiffs claimed that these electrical control system problems began within the first year after they purchased their washers. Plaintiffs alleged that virtually everything the defendants said about the machines in marketing was false because all such statements related directly to the functioning and performance of the Machine’s Electronic Control Board and, in turn, the Electronic Control Board controls the laundry cycles, the water levels and spin speed.

Defendants moved to dismiss. A complaint may be dismissed for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted if a plaintiff fails to proffer enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). Allegations of material fact must be taken as true and construed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, but the court need not accept as true allegations that are conclusory, unwarranted deductions of fact, or unreasonable inferences. Here, although their claims arose under state law, plaintiffs' allegations were subject to the pleading requirements of the Federal Rules. Accordingly, the claims alleging fraud were subject to the heightened pleading requirements of Fed. R. Civ. P. 9(b). See Vess v. Ciba-Geigy Corp. USA, 317 F.3d 1097, 1103-04 (9th Cir. 2003) (if “the claim is said to be “grounded in fraud” or to “sound in fraud,” [then] the pleading of that claim as a whole must satisfy the particularity requirement of Rule 9(b).”)

The principal element of fraudulent concealment at issue here was whether plaintiffs pled with sufficient particularity that defendants had a duty of disclosure with respect to the allegedly defective Electronic Control Boards. Plaintiffs argue that defendants had such a duty because they allegedly made "partial disclosures" about the Machines,and  were in a “superior
position" to know the truth.  These arguments were not persuasive to the court. There was no allegation at all, let alone an allegation with Rule 9 specificity, that defendants made any representations directly about the allegedly defective Electronic Control Boards. Nor could plaintiffs establish a duty by pleading, in purely conclusory fashion, that defendants were in a “superior position to know the truth;"  plaintiffs’ general allegations of “exclusive knowledge as the
manufacturer” and active concealment of a defect, if accepted, would mean that any unsatisfied customer could make a similar claim every time any product malfunctioned.

The district court then confirmed that Rule 9(b)’s heightened pleading standards apply to claims for violations of this state consumer act (CLRA ) and unfair competition act (UCL),  where such claims are based on a fraudulent course of conduct.  It was clear that the claims were entirely dependent upon allegations that defendants made misrepresentations, failed to disclose material facts, and concealed known information regarding the allegedly defective Electronic Control Boards.  So such claims failed for the same reasons.

Next, plaintiffs claimed that defendants  violated California’s Business and Professions Code by making misleading representations in informational placards on the floor models of the machines and in owners’ manuals. However, the court held that statements that the machines are “designed and manufactured for years of dependable operation” and that the machines “save you time by allowing you to do fewer, larger loads” are not statements about specific or absolute characteristics of a product, and properly are considered non-actionable puffery. See Anunziato v. eMachines Inc., 402 F. Supp. 2d 1133, 1139 (C.D. Cal. 2005) (holding that the representations concerning the “outstanding quality, reliability, and performance” of a product were non-actionable puffery”).

Regarding the unfair business act claim, an act or practice is unfair if the consumer injury is substantial, is not outweighed by any countervailing benefit to consumers or to competition, and is not an injury the consumers themselves could reasonably have avoided. Plaintiffs failed to plead adequately the second and third elements of their claim.  Plaintiffs failed to allege that they could not reasonably have avoided their claimed injuries, for example by purchasing an extended warranty. To the extent that plaintiffs based their claim on defendants’ alleged failure to disclose a
known defect in the machines, a mere failure to disclose a latent defect does not constitute a
fraudulent business practice.

One other highlight.  Plaintiffs contended that defendants’ warranties were procedurally and substantively unconscionable because defendants limited the warranties and allegedly actively concealed a known defect. However, any such claim of oppression may be defeated if the
complaining party had reasonably available alternative sources of supply from which to obtain
the desired goods or services free of the terms claimed to be unconscionable.  Here, plaintiffs failed to allege facts demonstrating that there were no alternative manufacturers of washers, and thus failed to allege the absence of an “available alternative source of supply from which to obtain the desired goods or services free of the terms claimed to be unconscionable.”  Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc. v. Superior Court, 211 Cal. App.3d 758, 768 (1989). Plaintiffs' emphasis that  any material alternative product or choice was curtailed or eliminated by the suggestions of Sears’ sales representatives that defendants’ machines were “the best” and superior to other washers, far from showing the absence of alternatives, merely highlighted the fact that alternatives apparently existed. 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The federal court has dismissed a putative class action brought by a group of municipal benefit funds over a pharmaceutical company's alleged efforts to market drugs for uses that did not have regulatory approval. Central Regional Employees Benefit Fund, et al. v. Cephalon Inc., No. 09-cv-03418 (D.N.J. Oct. 15, 2009).

Plaintiffs commenced this putative class action against defendants alleging violations of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act (“NJCFA”), and for fraudulent concealment, and “illegal fraud.”  The plaintiffs defined their putative class as including “all governmental entities in the United States of
America who have been caused to expend monies" for certain drugs as a "result of the off label promotion by the defendants.”  They alleged that defendant Cephalon promoted drugs for uses other than those approved by the FDA, and that as part of its “off label” marketing efforts, Cephalon allegedly made false representations regarding the use and application of several in particular, Provigil, Gabitril, Actiq and Fentora.

The case, thus, falls in the growing body of cases by governmental third-party payors searching for a windfall in revenue by challenging the marketing practices of pharmaceutical companies over drugs that are effective, are safe, are prescribed by physicians, and are often affirmatively recommended by other branches of the entity bringing suit.  As many courts have held, off-label use is an accepted and necessary corollary of the FDA’s mission to regulate in this area without directly interfering with the practice of medicine. E.g., Southard v. Temple University Hospital, 566 Pa. 335, 340 781 A.2d 101, 104 (2001) (quoting Buckman Co. v. Plaintiffs’ Legal Committee, 531 U.S. 341, 350 (2001)). Such use, necessary because medical practice inevitably runs ahead of the slower pace of governmental regulation, is generally accepted, widespread in the medical community, and often is essential to giving patients optimal medical care. Buckman, 531 U.S. at 351 & n.5 (citation omitted).  Thus, a physician, using his or her best medical judgment for the benefit of his patient, generally is free to use an approved product in a manner different from that for which the FDA has approved. Cabiroy v. Scipione, 767 A.2d 1078, 1082 (Pa. Super. 2001).

The FDA has accepted off-label use for decades:

• Accepted medical practice often includes drug use that is not reflected in approved drug labeling. . . . a physician may prescribe a drug for. . .patient populations that are not included in approved labeling. Such. . .‘unlabeled’ uses may be appropriate and rational in certain circumstances, and may, in fact, reflect approaches to drug therapy that have been extensively reported in medical literature. . . . Valid new uses for drugs already on the market are often first discovered through serendipitous observations and therapeutic innovations.

FDA, “Use of Approved Drugs for Unlabeled Indications,” 12 FDA Drug Bulletin 4, 5 (1982). 

It is clear that physicians may prescribe a drug off-label for an unapproved population without FDA knowledge or approval.  Blain v. Smithkline Beecham Corp., 240 F.R.D. 179, 182 (E.D. Pa. 2007). And courts are “not willing to accept that a plaintiff could somehow be injured by purchasing a drug that is as effective, or more effective, than alternative treatments simply because the drug is marketed off-label.”  In re Schering-Plough Corp. Intron/Temodar Consumer Class Action, 2009 WL 2043604, at *10 (D.N.J. July 10, 2009). Absent some “adverse effects,” a “theory under which [plaintiffs] would be entitled to reimbursement for some or all of the purchase price of [a drug] whose benefits they clearly enjoyed. . . is patently absurd.”  Heindel v. Pfizer, Inc., 381 F. Supp.2d 364, 380 (D.N.J. 2004).  

Cephalon moved to dismiss the NJCFA and common law fraud claims, contending that the plaintiffs failed to plead specific acts of fraud to support the legal conclusions contained in the Complaint. The plaintiff’s factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555-56 (2007). Also, the plaintiffs’ common law fraud claims were subject to the heightened pleading standards of Rule 9(b), which requires that in all averments of fraud or mistake, the circumstances constituting fraud or mistake shall be stated with particularity. Fed.R.Civ.P. 9(b).

Cephalon argued that the plaintiffs, as third-party payors of prescription medication benefits, are not “consumers” under the NJCFA. The court said that the nature of the transaction, not the identity of the purchaser, determines whether the NJCFA is applicable. J & R Ice Cream Corp. v. Cal. Smoothie Lic. Corp., 31 F.3d 1259, 1273 (3d Cir. 1994).  For a NJCFA plaintiff to be a consumer respecting the transaction in question, the business entity must be one who uses economic goods, and so diminishes or destroys their utilities. However, third-party payors essentially serve as middlemen or insurers, paying all or part of the cost of a beneficiary’s drugs in return for a stream of payments from the beneficiary.  Because third-party payors do not use or consume prescription medications themselves, they are not “consumers” within the meaning of the NJCFA, and that statute was therefore inapplicable to the circumstances alleged in the Complaint.

Next, the court found that the plaintiffs’ common law fraud claims failed to meet the pleading requirements of Twombly, Iqbal, and Rule 9(b). Count II of the Complaint, fraudulent concealment, referred merely to an unspecified “transaction and/or providing of the prescription drugs Provigil,
Gabitril, Actiq and Fentora.” The court was at a loss to discern to what transaction the plaintiffs were
referring, as the Complaint fails to identify or explain the who,what, where, why, and how of any “transaction.”  Mere allegations that Cephalon provided prescription drugs, without saying to whom or under what circumstances, wholly failed to state a claim for fraud. 

The plaintiffs attempted to rely on a reference in the Complaint to a proceeding in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in 2003, brought pursuant to the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. § 3729 et seq., wherein Cephalon was alleged to have engaged in “misbranding” of its products. However, referring to a plea agreement and civil settlement in another action does not satisfy the plaintiffs’ burden; it is well-established that off-label marketing of an approved drug is itself not inherently fraudulent. Merely alleging that Cephalon marketed the drugs at issue for off-label purposes did not state a claim for fraud.

The court thus also dismissed the claims for fraudulent concealment and illegal fraud, but without prejudice.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Sixth Circuit has approved a class action settlement in an interesting toxic tort case. Moulton v. U.S. Steel Corp., 2009 WL 2997921 (6th Cir., 9/22/09).

This class action was filed in 2004 by neighbors of a steel mill operated by defendant U.S. Steel, and alleged various claims arising from “metal-like dust and flakes” allegedly falling on plaintiffs' property. The district court in Michigan certified the class in 2006, and the parties eventually agreed on a settlement for $4.45 million in 2008.

As is not unheard of, some class members and at least one plaintiffs' lawyer objected to the settlement. They argued that the settlement agreement was not “fair, reasonable, and adequate” under Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(e)(2).  Specifically, they argued (1) that the agreement dis-serves the “public interest” due to the broad scope of the release, (2) that alleged “collusion” between Class Counsel and U.S. Steel tarnished the agreement and (3) that the agreement improperly prioritizes the distribution of the settlement proceeds. The district court rejected all such objections, and the court of appeals reviewed the district court's conclusions for abuse of discretion.

To determine whether a settlement agreement satisfies Rule 23's fairness standard,  courts consider:  (1) the risk of fraud or collusion;  (2) the complexity, expense and likely duration of the litigation;  (3) the amount of discovery engaged in by the parties;  (4) the likelihood of success on the merits;  (5) the opinions of class counsel and class representatives;  (6) the reaction of absent class members; and (7) the public interest. UAW v. Gen. Motors Corp., 497 F.3d 615, 631 (6th Cir.2007). 

On the issue of the scope of the release, the release of the continuing nuisance claims was held not unfair, because, contrary to the objections, it did not go“well beyond the claims plead in the complaint."  Since 2005, every version of the plaintiffs' complaint included a claim for “continuing private nuisance.”  As class members, the objectors are the last individuals in a position to claim lack of notice that this claim was on the table at the settlement talks. And the bar on future continuing nuisance claims applies only to claims arising out of conditions that existed prior to the settlement. It does not preclude future continuing nuisance claims based on emissions from new equipment installed after the date of settlement. Nor does it bar future claims based on old equipment, so long as the continuing nuisance is a “new” one.

Neither did the objectors make the case that the agreement was a product of collusion. See Williams v. Vukovich, 720 F.2d 909, 921 (6th Cir.1983). The duration and complexity of the litigation undermined the objectors' suspicions. The parties litigated for almost four years before reaching a settlement agreement. The court fielded numerous contested pretrial motions. Class Counsel pursued multiple avenues to gather evidence; and the agreement itself was a product of months of supervised negotiations, two facilitated mediations and a settlement conference with the court.

Third, there was the challenge to the $4.45 million settlement, which the agreement distributed as follows: $300 to each covered member of the class, limited to one award per household; $10,000 to the seven class representatives; and $1.335 million in attorney's fees (30%) and $622,279.86 in costs to class counsel. Any residual goes to local public schools. Because class counsel received 4,026 class-member claims, roughly $1.21 million will go to the claimants and roughly $1.28 million will go to the schools. The appeals court noted that the district court should have been more expansive in its explanation of the approval of the award as reasonable.  However, that claimants will in the aggregate receive less than Class Counsel does not automatically invalidate the agreement. That the public schools will receive $1.28 million in unclaimed funds does not reflect on the settlement's fairness.

Finally, a plaintiffs' lawyer purporting to represent multiple class members insisted that the court improperly shut him out of the case. In what the appeals court called a “sideshow” to the main case, the attorney reportedly contacted an unknown number of class members after the class certification advising them to opt out because those who opt out “always get a much higher settlement than … the general population.”  The 6th Circuit found that the district court also did not err by corralling the extent of this counsel's involvement in the case. Rule 23 gives the district court broad discretion in handling class actions, authorizing orders that impose conditions on the representative parties or on intervenors. Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(d)(1)(C).  In view of the questionable communications with litigants, unannounced solicitation of opt outs, and apparent guarantee to individuals who opted out, the district court appropriately exercised its discretion, said the Circuit.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal court has dismissed a proposed class action accusing General Mills Inc. of somehow misleading consumers by labeling granola bars that contained high fructose corn syrup as “100 percent natural.”  Wright v. General Mills Inc., No. 08-cv-01532, 2009 WL 3247148 (S.D. Calif. Sept. 30, 2009). The dismissal turned on the complaint’s sparse allegations of injury-in-fact, which did not meet the pleading standards mandated in Twombly/Iqbal.

General Mills markets, advertises, promotes, and sells “Nature Valley” crunchy granola bar products and “Nature Valley” chewy-trail-mix bar products. Plaintiff alleged that the Nature Valley products were sold as “100% Natural” even though the products allegedly contained one or more non-natural or artificial ingredients, such as high fructose corn syrup. Plaintiff asserted because HFCS does not occur in nature and is a man-made sweetener, the use of “100% Natural” on the package and in the advertising for the Nature Valley products is false, misleading and deceptive. The complaint alleged violations of California Business and Professions Code, Unfair Competition Law; and False Advertising Law. The suit was purportedly filed on behalf of a putative class of all California residents who bought Nature Valley granola bars.

Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint on two bases: preemption and the Rule 8 pleading standards. Regarding the former, defendant argued that plaintiff’s claims are impliedly preempted by regulations promulgated by the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) pursuant to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, 21 U.S.C. § 301, et seq. The FDCA gives the FDA the authority to regulate certain aspects of food and beverage safety and labeling. 21 U.S.C. § 371. General Mills first asserted that plaintiff’s claims are impliedly preempted because Congress intended the federal government to occupy the field of food and beverage labeling. Defendant based this argument on the FDA’s enactment of what it called a detailed, rigorous, and comprehensive system for labeling food products through the FDCA and related regulations. Readers of MassTortDefense know that field preemption may be implied from a scheme of federal regulation so pervasive as to make reasonable the inference that Congress left no room for the states to
supplement it, or where an Act of Congress touches a field in which federal interest is so
dominant that the federal system will be assumed to preclude enforcement of state laws on the same subject. The court here ruled, however, that although the FDA has promulgated several food-labeling requirements, Congress has specifically indicated that it does not intend to occupy the field of food and beverage nutritional labeling, and states are permitted to regulate matters covered by the NLEA and its regulations, provided that such state laws do not fall within the FDCA’s express preemption provisions.

Next, conflict preemption analysis examines the federal statute as a whole to determine whether a party’s compliance with both federal and state requirements is impossible or whether, in light of the federal statute’s purpose and intended effects, state law poses an obstacle to the accomplishment of Congress’s objectives. The court found that the FDA has generally deferred taking regulatory action with respect to the term “natural,” and thus plaintiff’s state law claims do not stand as an obstacle to accomplishing Congress’s objectives of uniformity and consistency in regulating labeling.

Although the FDA has addressed the use of the term “natural” in depicting food and beverage products, its policy with respect to the use of the term “natural” is unrestrictive, said the court. The FDA follows a policy of not taking enforcement action charging that a product labeled as “natural” is misbranded, so long as the product has no “added color, synthetic substances, and flavors.” Thus, state law claims based upon the use of the term “natural” do not require technical expertise within the special competence of the FDA, and the primary jurisdiction doctrine does not apply either.

However, a motion to dismiss should be granted if plaintiffs have not pleaded enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face. Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 127 S. Ct. 1955, 1974 (2007). Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level. A plaintiff’s obligation to provide the grounds of his entitlement to relief requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do. Here, the complaint was based on little more than conclusory and speculative factual content. For example, the causes of action which plaintiff asserts require an injury in fact, an injury based upon
defendant’s use of “100% Natural” on its product labeling and advertising. The plaintiff’s sparse allegation of injury-in-fact did not meet the Twombley and Iqbal pleading standard.

Similarly, plaintiff failed to adequately assert an untrue or misleading advertising claim or a fraudulent business practice because all she alleged was that members of the public were likely to have been deceived and likely made their purchases on the basis that “100% Natural” would not include a highly processed ingredient. A claim for unfair or fraudulent business practices is an averment of fraud which must be accompanied by the who, what, when, where, and how of the misconduct charged. And, on the issue of injunctive relief, it was undisputed that by the time plaintiff filed her complaint defendant’s products no longer contained HFCS. As a result, there was no basis for injunctive relief.

In sum, plaintiff’s complaint did not meet the pleading standard of Twombly or Iqbal, or
Rule 9(b) where the state law claims are based on fraudulent acts. The court dismissed the claims without prejudice, giving plaintiff an opportunity to cure.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Last week a federal jury in Louisiana returned a defense verdict in a plaintiffs' suit over alleged exposure to formaldehyde fumes while living for several months in a FEMA-provided trailer. In Re: FEMA Trailer Formaldehyde Products Liability Litigation, Age v. Gulf Stream Coach Inc., No. 09-02892, E.D. La.). The government had made the trailer available after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the plaintiffs' home in 2005.

Plaintiffs sued manufacturer Gulf Stream Coach Inc. and installer Fluor Enterprises Inc., alleging that elevated levels of formaldehyde aggravated family members' asthma and increased their risk for getting cancer.  (FEMA was dismissed as a defendant in the lawsuit because of the two-year statute of limitations in cases brought against the federal government.)  They argued that Gulf Stream Coach, in expediting production of the housing units following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, used substandard materials and/or unsafe practices during the manufacturing process, which allegedly resulted in the temporary housing units containing higher than normal levels of formaldehyde. Plaintiffs alleged that Fluor's installation methods contributed to greater formaldehyde exposure.  They further charged that the FEMA trailer deviated from government safety specifications and that Gulf Stream failed to warn the government about the dangers of formaldehyde, which is found in construction materials as well as in glues and adhesives used in the manufacture of the units.

The claim is one of many hundreds of suits filed that are now part of the MDL, and one of the first five bellwether cases selected for trial. Readers of MassTortDefense will recall how Hurricane Katrina devastated much of the Gulf Coast in 2005. The total damage of Hurricane Katrina has been estimated at $75 billion, while not-much-later Hurricane Rita caused $10 billion in damage. The government, through FEMA, moved individuals whose homes were lost or deemed uninhabitable into makeshift housing provided by the agency. Plaintiffs generally allege that the trailers had components that exposed them to dangerous and excessive levels of formaldehyde.

The defense here presented alternative causation evidence on the alleged respiratory issues, and noted that formaldehyde is found in safe levels in many products, including cosmetics, foods and shampoo. The defendants sold this trailer to the most sophisticated purchaser in the world, the United States government, argued the defense, and there is no duty to warn someone about something they know about already. The defense argued that Gulf Stream wasn't obligated to build a "perfect product."

The jury of five men and three women, after 8 days of testimony, decided that the trailer made by Gulf Stream Coach Inc. was not an “unreasonably dangerous” product under Louisiana law. Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt presided over the trial.  A likely issue on appeal will be the MDL court's decision to allow certain defendants to assert the government contractor defense.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

We posted here recently about proposed "climate change" legislation and how it may affect litigation. Now comes a  federal appeals court ruling allowing certain nuisance claims against major greenhouse gas emitters, a decision that may provide an impetus to more so-called climate change litigation.   See Connecticut v. American Electric Power Co., 2009 WL 2996729 (2nd Cir. Sept. 21, 2009). Interestingly, this is a two-judge decision as original panel member Judge is now Justice Sotomayor.

In 2004, two groups of plaintiffs, one consisting of eight states and New York City, and the other consisting of three land trusts, sued six electric power corporations that own and operate fossil-fuel-fired power plants, seeking abatement of defendants' alleged ongoing contributions to the "public nuisance of global warming." Plaintiffs claimed that global warming, to which the defendants allegedly contributed as large emitters of carbon dioxide,  is causing and will continue to cause serious harm affecting human health and natural resources. The plaintiffs' theory is that carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the earth's atmosphere, and that as a result of this trapped heat, the earth's temperature has risen over the years and will continue to rise in the future. Pointing to an alleged  “clear scientific consensus” that global warming has already begun to alter the natural world, plaintiffs predicted that it “will accelerate over the coming decades unless action is taken to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.”

Because of the procedural posture (motion to dismiss), the court did not really describe the other side of the story, but readers of MassTortDefense know that change is what the climate is always doing as a result of the planet's orbital eccentricities, axial wobbles, solar brightness changes, cosmic ray flux, and multiple other factors. There are numerous plausible terrestrial drivers of climate changes too.  While global warming is a serious topic worthy of scientific study and political discussion, plaintiffs' "consensus" ignores that global mean temperature is only one part of climate, and may not be the best metric.  Moreover, the most important driver of the greenhouse effect are water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide is about 0.038% of the atmosphere, while water in its various forms ranges up to 4% of the atmosphere.  Scientists estimate that water accounts for about 90% of the Earth's greenhouse effect.  And humans are responsible for only about 3.4% of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere annually, the rest of it being natural.  When plaintiffs talk about the consensus, another major issue is that the "warming" numbers come not from measurements but from computer models -- with a huge range of assumptions. One is the so-called multiplier effect which assumes that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide causes a large increase in water vapor and thus a large rather than small temperature spike.

When thinking about "global climate" changes, we have also been sobered by the fact that humans have been trying to measure the temperature consistently only since the1880s, during which time advocates think the world may have warmed by about +0.6 °C -- which is less than the margin of error on our ability to measure the Earth's temperature!

Anyway, plaintiffs brought these actions under the federal common law of nuisance or, in the alternative, state nuisance law, to force defendants to cap and then reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. The district court held that plaintiffs' claims presented a non-justiciable political question and dismissed the complaints. 406 F. Supp. 2d 265.

On appeal, plaintiffs argued that the political question doctrine does not bar adjudication of their claims; that they had standing to assert their claims; that they had properly stated claims under the federal common law of nuisance; and that their claims were not displaced by any federal statutes.

In a lengthy opinion, the two judges held that the district court erred in dismissing the complaints on political question grounds; that all of plaintiffs had standing; that the federal common law of nuisance governs their claims; that plaintiffs had stated claims under the federal common law of nuisance; that their claims were not displaced.

An important aspect of the ruling was that the the activity in Congress and the administrative agencies was not yet far enough along to displace common law relief. Federal common law is a necessary expedient to which federal courts may turn when compelled to consider federal questions which cannot be answered from federal statutes alone. But when Congress addresses a question previously governed by a decision rested on federal common law the need for lawmaking by federal courts disappears. The question whether a previously available federal common-law action has been displaced by federal statutory law involves an assessment of the scope of the legislation and whether the scheme established by Congress addresses the problem formerly governed by federal common law.  The court did note that it may happen that new federal laws and new federal regulations may in time pre-empt the field of federal common law of nuisance.  (EPA appears to be on the road on the road toward regulating greenhouse gases.) But at least until EPA makes more findings, for the purposes of a displacement analysis the Clean Air Act does not sufficiently regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

In a very minimalist interpretation of what is needed for standing, the Second Circuit distinguished multiple precedents of the Supreme Court which held that to have standing a plaintiff must allege an injury that is concrete, direct, real, and palpable -- not abstract. Injury must be particularized, personal, individual, distinct, and differentiated -- not generalized or undifferentiated.  The Supreme Court has further stated that the asserted injury must be actual or imminent, certainly impending and immediate --not remote, speculative, conjectural, or hypothetical. The court rejected defendants challenge that the contentions of future injury at some unspecified future date are not the kind of “imminent” injury required.  The court also gave short shrift to the argument that plaintiffs could neither isolate which alleged harms will be caused by defendants' emissions, nor allege that such emissions would alone cause any future harms. 

The ruling may pave the way for more public nuisance suits, as it appears to enable private, nonprofit entities like the Sierra Club to pursue these cases. Allowing such a claim to proceed to discovery raises the potential stakes for every defendant currently or potentially facing public nuisance liability. And thus defendants may be faced with the difficult choice of working towards legislation or facing more of this kind of litigation.
 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Bayer Healthcare LLC moved last week to dismiss the master complaint in the federal MDL involving combination aspirin products. In Re: Bayer Corp. Combination Aspirin Products Marketing and Sales Practices Litigation, No. 1:09-md-02023 (E.D. N.Y.). Aspirin has been sold in the United States for more than a hundred years; a daily regimen of low-dose aspirin is widely recognized as useful in preventing heart attacks and strokes.

Plaintiffs are consumers who claim to have purchased Bayer combination aspirin and dietary supplement products. They do not claim that they were injured by these products or that the products were ineffective. Instead, plaintiffs seek damages because they say they would not have purchased these products if they had known that Bayer, instead of submitting a New Drug Application (“NDA”) for each of these combination products, relied on the preexisting separate regulatory review of aspirin and the supplements. Plaintiffs allege that Bayer misled and deceived
consumers into believing that the products had been proven to be safe and effective for their marketed purposes.
 

The Motion argues that plaintiffs’ claims fail, first, because they are, in essence, private attempts to enforce the FDCA, 21 U.S.C. §301 et seq.  MassTortDefense notes that courts have repeatedly refused to construe such private attempts to enforce the FDCA as valid state law causes of action like the plaintiffs have brought in this litigation. Under the FDCA, the United States government has the exclusive power to enforce the FDA’s regulatory requirements (which include provisions relating to the approval of new prescription and over-the-counter drugs, as well as regulation of dietary supplements and food additives). The FDCA provides that “[a]ll such proceedings for the enforcement, or to restrain violations, of this Act, shall be by and in the name of the United States.” 21 U.S.C. § 337(a) (2009).

Even if a state were to recognize it, a cause of action based on a failure to obtain FDA approval would be preempted as interfering with the FDA’s approval processes. Courts have repeatedly held that private plaintiffs fail to state a claim where they, in essence, seek redress for a violation of the FDCA. Courts have applied this doctrine to dismiss a variety of causes of action, from RICO and the Lanham Act, to state law unfair competition and consumer fraud act claims. See, e.g., Mylan Labs. v. Matkari, 7 F.3d 1130, 1139 (4th Cir. 1993) (dismissing Lanham Act claim); In re Epogen & Aranesp Off-Label Mktg. & Sales Practices Litig., 590 F. Supp. 2d 1282, 1290 (C.D. Cal. 2008) (dismissing state consumer fraud and false advertising and RICO claims); Ethex v. First
Horizon Pharm. Corp., 228 F. Supp. 2d 1048, 1055 (E.D. Mo. 2002) (dismissing deceptive trade practices claims and Lanham Act claim).

Additionally, defendant argues that plaintiffs, who do not claim harm or that their products did not work, have not alleged a cognizable injury. Accordingly, plaintiffs have not stated a claim for any of the causes of action they have brought. Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), a complaint must be dismissed if it fails to articulate grounds upon which relief can be granted. Under Rule 8(a), a plaintiff’s obligation to provide the grounds of his entitlement to relief requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do. Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 US 544, 555 (2007).   The Supreme Court recently reaffirmed these principles in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937 (2009).

These standards apply to injury and loss requirements as well as to other elements of a claim. As the Second Circuit recently explained, to state a claim for relief, a plaintiff must do more than simply allege an injury or loss – that theory must be “plausible.” McLaughlin v. American Tobacco Co., 522 F.3d 215, 227 (2d Cir. 2008). Legally cognizable theories of injury must also not require a court to “engage in a series of speculative calculations to ascertain whether, or in what amount, plaintiffs suffered a loss.” Id. at 230.  Like many convoluted consumer fraud actions, plaintiffs' claims here fail to allege a plausible theory that is open to private plaintiffs.
 

 

 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Next month the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania will hear argument in a pharmaceutical case that has implication for all readers of MassTortDefense, regardless of what industry they may represent. See Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, C/O Office of General Counsel v. Janssen Pharmaceutica, Inc., No. 24 Eap 2009 (S.Ct. Pa.).  This case presents not only significant constitutional and statutory issues, but also impacts policies affecting the public interest in open government, health care policy, and the regulation of the practice of law in the context of governmental litigation.

In the underlying case, the Commonwealth seeks damages for asserted financial harm allegedly caused by Janssen’s supposed deceptive marketing practices in promoting its anti-psychotic drug, Risperdal, for off-label uses. This action was originally filed in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County in February 2007. In June 2008, Janssen filed a Motion to Disqualify Plaintiff’s Counsel, the private Texas-based plaintiff personal injury firm of Bailey Perrin & Bailey, which had been hired by the state on a contingency fee basis.   Public records indicate that during the precise time period that the fee contract was negotiated and executed, one of Bailey Perrin’s founding partners made repeated and significant contributions, totaling more than $100,000, to Pennsylvania Governor Rendell’s re-election campaign and to the Democratic Governors Association, according to defendant.

The Commonwealth opposed the Motion; the trial court denied the Motion on December 8, 2008. Janssen thereafter sought extraordinary appellate relief in the state Supreme Court, which was granted.

The Commonwealth’s retention of contingent fee private counsel in this matter raises significant issues including whether and when state law authorizes the Office of General Counsel to enter into a contingent fee contract with outside counsel; whether the Commonwealth’s hiring of outside litigation counsel on a contingent fee basis violates the state constitution, including the separation-of-powers mandate of the Pennsylvania Constitution; and whether the Commonwealth’s hiring of outside litigation counsel on a contingent fee basis violates the due process rights of the defendant company.

In many contexts, the legal policy of the Commonwealth -- like many states -- strongly favors open, competitive bidding for contracts involving state funds. Such requirements, included in the state Constitution and various statutes, are designed to prevent fraud, eliminate bias and favoritism, and thus protect vital public interests.

Those same goals of open and good government reside in the requirement that state officials give their undivided loyalty to the people of the Commonwealth. The antithesis of these goals and policies is “pay-to-play,” the award of government contracts to major campaign contributors. This case threatens to expand the scope of pay-to-play in unprecedented fashion. The very sovereignty of the Commonwealth itself – its legal enforcement authority and parens patriae powers – should not be subject to sale. Public records reveal hundreds of thousands of dollars of contributions to the benefit of the state governor in close proximity to the issuance of a no-bid, contingency fee contract to one of the contributors, according to defendant.  The media has widely and correctly assailed the appearance of impropriety thus created.

Aside from its questionable origins, the contingent fee contract violates the core principle that attorneys pursuing actions on behalf of the Commonwealth represent a sovereign whose obligation to govern impartially is essential to its right to govern. Government attorneys must exercise independent judgment as a ministers of justice and not act simply as advocates. The impartiality required of government lawyers cannot be met here, where the private pecuniary interest inherent in the contingent fee is the primary motive force behind the bringing of this very action. By turning over sovereign prosecutorial power to contingency counsel, the Governor effectively created a new branch of government – motivated by the prospect of private gain rather than the pursuit of justice or the public welfare.

This subversion of neutrality does more than implicate the due process rights of those confronting such tainted prosecutions. Direction of state prosecutions by financially interested surrogates also damages the very public interest that such litigation is supposed to advance. Here, it is already clear that Pennsylvania’s in-force health care policies concerning the use of atypical anti-psychotic medications dramatically conflict with the reckless allegations of contingent fee counsel’s complaint. Those (typical plaintiff) allegations broadly equate all “off-label” use of prescription drugs with “medically unnecessary” use, and blindly assert that all such “medically unnecessary” use is “illegal.” The law, however, recognizes off-label use as generally accepted by the medical community and the FDA, and as perfectly legal, and does not consider prescription drugs unsuitable for use merely due to lack of FDA approval. The allegations of the complaint – crafted more for the pecuniary goals of counsel than for the needs of the patients served by the affected state programs – risk the public health by threatening to deprive some of our neediest citizens of a medicine that the Commonwealth’s own unbiased administrators consider “preferred” for the same off-label indications that the complaint brands “illegal.”

It will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court approaches these significant issues int he coming weeks.

[Your faithful blogger was able to contribute to the amicus brief of the Washington Legal Foundation , the public interest law and policy center, in this matter.]

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Tenth Circuit has upheld a trial court ruling remanding a proposed class action under the “local controversy exception” to federal jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA).  See Coffey v. Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, No. 09-6106 (10th Cir.  9/4/09).  Plaintiffs filed a proposed class action in state court in Oklahoma on behalf of themselves and all other similarly situated persons asserting state law claims based on the defendants’ alleged contamination of their property through operation of the Blackwell Zinc Smelter in Blackwell, Oklahoma. The case alleges that the mining companies failed to clean up lead, arsenic and cadmium contamination in the Blackwell area from the decades-out-of-operation smelter plant.

 Defendants removed to federal court, and plaintiffs filed a motion to remand, arguing that there was no basis for federal jurisdiction. The district court granted the motion, concluding that plaintiffs had demonstrated that their case fell within the “local controversy exception” to CAFA, and did not raise a federal question under CERCLA.

CAFA was enacted to respond to perceived abusive practices by plaintiff attorneys in litigating major class actions. CAFA allows federal jurisdiction over class actions involving at least 100 members and over $5 million in controversy when minimal diversity is met (between at least one defendant and one plaintiff-class member). It is undisputed that those standards were met here. Congress did create an exception to CAFA, however, for those cases consisting of primarily local, intrastate matters, which it characterized as the “Local Controversy Exception,” S. Rep. No. 109-14, at 39 (2005).  The court concluded this case presents a classic example of what Congress intended to cover when it created this exception. It is a “truly local controversy— a controversy
that uniquely affects a particular locality to the exclusion of all others.”

There are three main requirements for plaintiffs to meet in order to satisfy the “local controversy exception.”  The defendants did not contest that plaintiffs met two of the three requirements—all of the members of the plaintiff class are Oklahoma citizens, and the principal injuries occurred in Oklahoma. What was in dispute was that requirement that there be at least “one real local defendant.” In order to satisfy this “local defendant” requirement, plaintiffs must show that at least 1 defendant is a defendant from whom significant relief is sought by members of the plaintiff class; whose alleged conduct forms a significant basis for the claims asserted by the proposed plaintiff class; and who is a citizen of the State in which the action was originally filed.  In particular, defendants argued that plaintiffs failed to show that defendant BZC -- the alleged local -- was a defendant from whom significant relief is sought or that BZC was a citizen of Oklahoma.

Although BZC was the operator of the smelter from 1922-1974, defendants argued that the language “from whom significant relief is sought” requires consideration of a defendant’s ability to pay a judgment, citing Robinson v. Cheetah Transportation, No. 06-0005, 2006 WL 468820 (W.D. La. Feb. 27, 2006).  Since BZC had no assets to satisfy any potential judgment, therefore BZC could not be considered a defendant from whom significant relief is sought.  The district court ultimately rejected defendants’ position, concluding that the CAFA exception refers to a defendant from whom significant relief is “sought,” rather than a defendant from whom the relief “may be obtained” or “can be collected” or words of similar import. The 10th Circuit agreed with the district court’s plain language analysis. The statutory language was found to be unambiguous, and a “defendant from whom significant relief is sought” does not mean a “defendant from whom significant relief may be obtained.”  There was nothing in the language of the statute that indicates Congress intended district courts to wade into the factual swamp of assessing the financial viability of a defendant as part of this preliminary consideration, said the per curiam opinion.

On the second issue, citizenship, a district court’s determination about a corporation’s principal place of business “is a question of fact that we review for clear error.”  BZC owned the real property in Oklahoma and pays taxes on that property; it had filed an application for a permit to operate a groundwater treatment plant in Oklahoma.  Thus, the court concluded that BZC’s clean up activity was a “substantial activity in which it is currently engaged” and that this “activity suffices to establish Oklahoma as BZC’s principal place of business.” 

Although the appeals court has discretion to exercise its appellate jurisdiction to review the CERCLA issue, the Tenth Circuit said, it declined to exercise that discretion.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Two recent consumer fraud class actions offer contrasting lessons.  First, the federal court declined to certify a class of Ford Motor Co. truck owners who alleged the vehicles are prone to a shimmying problem. Lewis v. Ford Motor Co., 2009 WL 2750352 (W.D. Pa. 8/25/09).

According to Plaintiffs, their vehicles were subject to front-end suspension defects which caused severe oscillation under ordinary driving conditions and allegedly created a safety hazard for the drivers of the vehicles as well as other motorists. Pennsylvania residents Timothy Lewis and Timothy Trapuzzano sued Ford on behalf of a statewide class of owners of 2005–2007 model year F-250 and F-350 trucks.  Plaintiffs moved seeking class certification as to Count III of their Complaint, the alleged violation of the Pennsylvania Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law.  The court noted that the 3rd Circuit has recently re-evaluated the standard of review to be applied by a district court in considering a motion for class certification. First, the district court must consider carefully all relevant evidence and make a definitive determination that the requirements of Rule 23 have been met before certifying a class;  that is, it is no longer sufficient for a party to assure the court that it intends or plans to meet the requirements. Second, the decision to certify a class requires rigorous consideration of all the evidence and argu-ments offered by the parties.  This may require the court to resolve all factual or legal disputes relevant to class certification, even if they overlap with the merits -- including disputes touching on elements of the cause of action.  Finally, weighing conflicting expert testimony at the certification stage is not only permissible; it may be integral to the rigorous analysis Rule 23 demands. In other words, to certify a class the district court must find that the evidence more likely than not establishes each fact necessary to meet the requirements of Rule 23. In re Hydrogen Peroxide Antitrust Litig., 552 F.3d 305, 310 (3d Cir.2008.)

Originally, plaintiffs alleged the defendant failed to comply with the terms of a written guarantee or warranty given to the buyer at, prior to or after a contract for the purchase of goods or services.  But at the motion stage, instead, plaintiffs relied on the so-called “catch-all” provision, which broadl includes “unfair methods of competition” or “unfair or deceptive acts or practices” to include “engaging in any other fraudulent or deceptive conduct."   This switch may have been done to avoid the argument that plaintiffs need to prove relaince -- an indivdualized inquiry that can impede certification.  The court consluded, based on the almost universal agreement of the district courts of the 3rd Circuit, that a plaintiff must allege and show justifiable reliance even for claims brought under the catch-all provision of the state's Consumer Protection Act.

The reliance element was individual, and interestingly, the court noted that this affected the 23(a) issue of commonality as well as the 23(b) issue of predominance. Next, plaintiffs argued that while there may be some individual differences in the amount of damages, such discrepancies were not sufficient to defeat class certification. However, the court noted, they failed to recognize that the threshold questions do not concern the amount of the individual damages but whether or not the individual injury occurred. Proof of injury or fact of injury (whether or not an injury occurred at all) must be distinguished from calculation of damages (which determines the actual value of the injury. 

If proof of the essential elements of the cause of action requires individual treatment, then class certification is unsuitable. Here, each class member would have to show not only justifiable reliance but also loss as a result of that reliance, aspects subject to individual, rather than common questions of law or fact. This lack of commonality rendered this case unsuitable for class treatment.  And it logically followed that if plaintiffs failed to satisfy the criteria for showing commonality, they cannot satisfy the more strenuous demands of the predominance analysis.

Shortly thereafter, the 9th Circuit handed down a decision announcing a standard of review for legal issues related to certification orders, and overruled a district court's denial of class certification in a consumer fraud class action.  Yokoyama v. Midland Nat'l Life Ins. Co., 2009 WL 2634770
(9th Cir.  8/28/09).

Three consumer senior citizens, all residents of Hawaii, alleged that they had purchased Midland's annuities from an independent broker. Plaintiffs alleged that the the annuities were marketed through deceptive practices, in violation of Hawaii's Deceptive Practices Act. The district court held that the plaintiffs could not satisfy Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23's requirements that common issues predominate over individual issues and that a class action is a superior method of adjudication.

The dispositive issue on appeal was whether the Hawaii Act requires a showing of individualized reliance.  But there was a debate over the standard of review.  WHile certification decisions generally were reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard, the 9th Circuit panel agreed with the Seventh Circuit's explanation of the appropriate standard of review. Andrews v. Chevy Chase Bank, 545 F.3d 570, 573 (7th Cir.2008).  That is, the underlying rulings on issues of law must be reviewed de novo even when they are made in the course of determining whether or not to certify a class. We generally review a grant of class certification for abuse of discretion, but purely legal determinations made in support of that decision are reviewed de novo. (Note that Judge Smith argued in his concurrence that Ninth Circuit precedent cannot be overturned by two judges, only en banc).

Hawaii courts have interpreted the word “deceptive” to include those acts that mislead consumers acting reasonably under the circumstances, observed the panel.   And a deceptive act or practice is  a representation, omission, or practice that is likely to mislead consumers acting reasonably under the circumstances.  The representation, omission, or practice is material if it is likely to affect a consumer's choice. Whether information is likely to affect a consumer's choice is an objective inquiry, turning on whether the act or omission is likely to mislead consumers as to information important to consumers in making a decision regarding the product or service.  Therefore, said the court, since Hawaii's consumer protection laws look to a reasonable consumer, not the particular consumer, inidivudal relaince is not an element. The fact-finder will focus on the standardized written materials given to all plaintiffs and determine whether those materials are likely to mislead consumers acting reasonably under the circumstances.

 

 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A California appellate court last week affirmed a trial court ruling denying class certification to a group of Boeing employees suing over alleged exposure to harmful levels of beryllium. Marin v. Brush Wellman Inc.,  No. B208202 (Calif. Ct. App., 2nd Dist. Aug. 24, 2009).

The plaintiffs alleged that Brush Wellman, a contractor of their employer, misrepresented the permissible limit for beryllium exposure. Beryllium is a potentially toxic metal that is used in aircraft construction and other industrial applications because of its light weight and great strength. However, some exposed persons are beryllium sensitization, which can be a precursor to chronic beryllium disease, which is a serious illness. 

The court of appeals agreed with the trial court that common issues did not predominate. In a toxic tort case, the plaintiff must first establish some threshold exposure to the defendant's defective, toxic products, and must also establish to a reasonable medical probability that a particular exposure or series of exposures was a legal cause of his injury, i.e., a substantial factor in bringing about the injury. This typically requires expert testimony about the level of exposure that is unsafe, and expert testimony that exposure above a certain level will cause injury or disease. The significance of this is  that when individual claimants differ both in their makeup and in the amount of their exposure to the substance, the evidence of their injuries will differ from individual to individual.

Here, each of the class members would have to show where he worked, when he worked within each location or facility, what the beryllium levels were at these locations, and how much of the beryllium was Wellman's.  It is patent that each such package of facts will be largely unique to each claimant.  The six named plaintiffs worked at six different facilities, some of which had multiple buildings, over differing periods covering up to 40 years. Boeing's air monitoring and industrial hygiene records showed non-uniform results. In other words, the levels of exposure varied widely among the facilities over time, and even within a single facility. The sales and use evidence that could be used to trace the beryllium to Wellman implicated a necessarily individualized inquiry, not a common one.

In an effort to salvage a class, plaintiffs' counsel explained at oral argument that the proposed class was only for those who required medical monitoring. Those persons who actually contracted illness would be excluded from the class as their claims would be necessarily unique and individualized.  Even assuming this issue was properly presented to the trial court, the plan to certify a class of persons requiring medical monitoring and, in addition to such a class, allowing the more serious cases to proceed individually and separately, was to the court "an invitation to a litigation disaster."   Recourse to such a class would do nothing to streamline this litigation but would most probably convert it into a nightmare.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A putative class action of purchasers of the asserted mood enhancer and belly fat reducer Relacore was recently rejected by a New Jersey appeals court.  Lee v. Carter-Reed Co., 2009 WL 2475314 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 8/14/09).  The court affirmed a lower court's decision not to certify the class action, in which plaintiffs had alleged that the defendant falsely advertised the benefits of the product.

Plaintiff Melissa Lee alleged she purchased Relacore, manufactured and distributed by Carter-Reed Co., and asserted that she purchased the product based on the promise that it would reduce belly fat. But, she averred, she actually gained belly weight during the time she took the product.  She claims that defendant's advertising campaigns touted that Relacore helps reduce stress-induced belly fat. Lee claimed that the defendant devised and utilized a fraudulent, deceptive advertising campaign for Relacore. She sought relief under the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, and related common law fraud theories.

Following discovery limited to class suitability, plaintiff moved for class certification. Defendants opposed the motion. Following oral argument, the trial court denied the application for class certification, citing absence of superiority,  manageability, and predominance. In an unpublished per curiam opinion, the Superior Court affirmed and held that individual issues predominated over issues allegedly common to the class.

The court noted first that the superiority requirement requires an analysis that includes: (1) an informed consideration of alternative available methods of adjudication of each issue, (2) a comparison of the fairness to all whose interests may be involved between such alternative methods and a class action, and (3) a comparison of the efficiency of adjudication of each method. Manageability of the class is a consideration, as well, but it is “disfavored” in NJ to deny class certification on this basis alone. In order to justify denial of class certification on this basis, the management issues must be of great magnitude. 

Here, the issues of superioirty and of manageability were subordinate to the issue of predominance.  A party asserting a CFA claim in New Jersey must establish wrongful conduct, an ascertainable loss, and a causal relationship or nexus between the wrongful conduct and the loss. A common law fraud claim requires proof of  a material representation of a presently existing or past fact, made with knowledge of its falsity and with the intention that the other party rely thereon, resulting in reliance by that party to his detriment. 

In this case, the central issue for the consumer fraud claim was the existence of a causal nexus between the wrongful conduct and any loss.  Plaintiff asserts that she relied on a false marketing campaign and she was induced by the false representations to purchase and use the product. Neither plaintiff nor the court knew, however, what caused others to purchase and use the product. Neither plaintiff nor the court knew whether putative class members even saw the alleged print or Internet advertisements or whether they purchased the product due to a recommendation from a friend or family member or for some other reasons.

Moreover, the Relacore market campaign was multi-faceted. In some ads, it was touted as a belly fat retardant; in others, a mood elevator; in others, a stress reducer.  There was no way to know on a common basis the reason any putative class members purchased the product, even assuming they heard or saw any advertising. This distinguished the case from Varacallo v. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., 332 N.J. Super. 31 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 2000), in which the court certified a class of those who purchased “vanishing premium” life insurance, and in which the advertising approach was uniform and common to all class members.

The lack of predominance was even more obvious in the context of plaintiff's common law fraud claim. For this claim, the putative class must prove reliance -- which they could not on a common basis.

The case is useful as it analyzes establishing a causal nexus between the challenged conduct and an ascertainable loss.  Properly viewed, that causal link ought to be a major impediment to class certification because it requires individualized factual determinations for absent class members. Plaintiff's argument to extend Varacallo to false advertising product cases brought forth numerous opposing amici, including PLAC.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The federal court has ordered plaintiffs in the MDL concerning the heart medication Digitek to respond to discovery relating to whether the individuals in each identified case had sufficient evidentiary support to justify filing their claim.  The decision is also interesting for all those in mass torts struggling with plaintiffs' typically inadequate responses to initial fact discovery and Plaintiff Fact Sheets. In re: Digitek Products Liability Litigation, MDL-1968 (S.D. W.Va.).

In April, 2008, the FDA announced a recall of the drug Digitek® (Digoxin) distributed by Mylan Bertek Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and UDL Laboratories, Inc. The recall stated that certain lots of the tablets may have contained more than the approved level of the drug’s active ingredient, thereby exposing patients with renal failure who consumed the drug to the risk of digitalis toxicity. Soon thereafter, the plaintiffs filed civil actions against the defendants in state and federal courts across the country. In August, 2008, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation entered an order establishing a multidistrict litigation proceeding, which consolidated federal Digitek® related actions for joint case management. The plaintiffs generally allege that the defendants manufactured, marketed, tested, promoted, and/or distributed Digitek® with inconsistent amounts of the active ingredient.

As is fairly typical, plaintiffs were required to fill out basic fact information about their use of the drug and alleged injuries in Plaintiff Fact Sheets.  Such fact sheets are often used instead of  interrogatories, and allow the parties and the court to assess the various types of cases in the mass tort. They can be crucial to decide on trial plan, the scope and timing of additional discovery, and even settlement analysis. 

Defendants served three requests for admission in 39 individual cases, seeking information relating to whether the plaintiff in each identified case had sufficient evidentiary support to justify filing a claim. The requests at issue asked the plaintiff or their counsel  to "admit that you did not serve Defendants with any of Plaintiff’s medical records when you served the Plaintiff Fact Sheet;"  to "admit that you did not have any of Plaintiff’s medical records or pharmacy records in your possession when you filed the Complaint in this case;" and to "admit that you did not have Plaintiff’s medical records or pharmacy records in your possession when you served Defendants with the Plaintiff Fact Sheet."

The Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee in the MDL submitted the plaintiffs’ master objections to the defendants’ requests. They argued that the discovery was premature: before the parties may begin
discovery on an individual case, that case must be selected for inclusion in a trial group. Second, they allege that the defendants are attempting to cure deficient Plaintiff Fact Sheets with the
requests, rather than through the deficiency process outlined in previous pre-trial orders.  Third, in a preemptive strike, they argued that since the Plaintiff Fact Sheets constitute discovery responses,  defendants cannot pursue sanctions for them under Rule 11.  Finally, plaintiffs also asserted that the requests were not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence, and alleged that the targeted information is protected by the attorney-client privilege and/or the work product doctrine.

The court noted that the defendants have expressed serious concerns about the merits of many of the cases filed in the MDL. They believe that a large number of cases lack sufficient evidentiary support demonstrating that the identified plaintiffs exhibited digitalis toxicity as a result of ingesting nonconforming Digitek® tablets. The defendants are attempting to determine whether the plaintiffs served with the requests possessed their medical and pharmacy records at the time their complaints were filed and the Plaintiff Fact Sheets were submitted. The defendants suspect they were not. If their suspicions prove true, the answers to the requests may be used to support future Rule 11 motions for sanctions.

The court first held that the provisions and stipulations contained in previously entered pretrial orders do not prohibit the defendants from serving requests for admission on individual plaintiffs at this time.

Next, regarding the deficiency process, the court noted that the defendants were not seeking information that must be contained in a Plaintiff Fact Sheet. Rather, they are seeking Rule 11 information relating to whether the plaintiffs had a sufficient evidentiary basis to file suit. The requests specifically target information concerning whether the plaintiffs possessed their medical and pharmacy records at particular times. This information is outside the scope required to be disclosed in a Plaintiff Fact Sheet. The deficiency process described in pretrial orders has no application in determining whether the defendants’ requests for admission are proper.

Third, while the plaintiffs are correct that Plaintiff Fact Sheets are considered discovery responses according to the case management order, their argument about Rule 11 is premature because the defendants have not yet filed a Rule 11 motion for sanctions. Even so, the plaintiffs again missed the point of the defendants’ requests. The defendants were not attempting to discover whether the plaintiffs committed sanctionable conduct in their Plaintiff Fact Sheets. Instead, they were trying to gather information as to whether there were appropriate Rule 11 prefiling investigations.

Also, the court found that the requests were specifically aimed at discovering information relevant
to the defendants’ defense. If the plaintiffs in the 39 cases in fact failed to comply with Rule 11, serious issues arise as to the merits of those plaintiffs’ claims. The defendants would
be able to use the information gathered from the requests to support a defense that the claims lack
evidentiary basis. Thus, the information sought by the defendants is within the scope of discoverable material under Rule 26(b)(1).

Finally, the court acknowledged that information relating to Rule 11 may raise potential privilege
and conflict issues. However, if the information received by an attorney from a client is relevant to
whether a complaint is well-founded, it probably will eventually be disclosed, either in a pleading
or in later discovery. Schwarzer, Sanctions Under the New Federal Rule 11--A Closer Look, 104
F.R.D. 181, 199 (1985). Thus, the fact that information may be incorporated into work product does
not immunize it from disclosure.

In summary, based upon the allegations contained in the complaints, a prefiling investigation without first obtaining medical and pharmacy records would be reasonable only in an extremely
limited set of circumstances. The records would be essential in determining whether the plaintiffs
have a colorable claim. Rule 11 applies to the same extent in mass tort and multidistrict litigation as it does in more conventional disputes.The defendants’ requests for admission were sufficiently and narrowly tailored to reveal whether the plaintiffs were in possession of the relevant records at the time suit was initiated. The requests would not cause the plaintiffs any undue burden or hardship as the information necessary to answer the requests should be readily ascertainable. 

[Remember you can add this blog to your feeds by clicking on the button on the left side, or subscribe by typing your email address into the appropriate blank space on the left margin.]

 

 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

We have posted before about just how difficult Canada is becoming as a jurisdiction for class actions defendants, particularly companies in the pharmaceutical industry. Frequently, identical consumer products, drugs, and medical devices are marketed in Canada as well as the U.S.  When a product is recalled, or new science suggests risks in a product leading to American product liability and mass tort litigation, Canadian plaintiff attorneys have not been bashful about bringing copycat litigation, borrowing from U.S.-conducted theories and discovery.

A ray of hope to the north?  The Quebec Superior Court last week declined to certify (authorize is the term they use) a class action for Canadians claiming to have experienced side effects from the use of GlaxoSmithKline Inc.’s antidepressant Paxil.  This is the first time a Quebec court has rejected a class action involving a prescription pharmaceutical product -- ever as far as we can tell. See Goyette v. GlaxoSmithKline Inc., Quebec Superior Court, No. 500-06-000157-020 (8/17/09).

Plaintiff sought to represent a national class of Paxil users. Three issues were prominent: Did the claims of the class members raise identical, similar or related questions of law or fact?  Did the facts alleged seem to justify the relief sought? And was the plaintiff an adequate class representative?  Importantly, at the time of the complaint, the class rules required plaintiff to submit a supporting affidavit (on which she was cross-examined).  Since that time, Quebec has sought to minimize the amount of factual material presented to the court in support of class certification (making opposition a bit more difficult).

The first issues sounds like the commonality aspect of U.S. class procedure. GSK argued that the highly subjective nature of the alleged symptoms in the present case, such as headaches, nausea, vertigo, the infinite variations on the symptoms, and the intensity and duration are so subjective that they cannot be decided collectively and so cannot satisfy the common question element.  Nevertheless, the court found that while the claim for exemplary damages was not common, there were common questions concerning the warnings GSK had given.

However, even in the absence of a true predominance requirement, some Canadian courts will look at whether and what issues will require individual determination. Here, the court agreed that the underlying question is whether allowing the suit to proceed as a representative one will avoid duplication of fact-finding or legal analysis. Thus an issue will be “common” only where its resolution is necessary to the resolution of each class member’s claim. The court found that if  "a class action were permitted here, there would be no saving in judicial time since there is no real common question and each case must be litigated on its on merits."  The court noted that each year there was a different set of information in the CPS (Canadian PDR), and accordingly, there would be different sub-classes depending on changes in the relevant wording in each of the years.

Similarly, in this case, civil liability must be determined by assessing the specific risks disclosed for each individual patient which risks vary depending on multiple factors:

 a) whether the adverse effects occur during the use of the product and lead to discontinuation;

 b) whether adverse effects follow discontinuation;

c) whether the user was advised prior to use, by either their physician or pharmacist, of whether they may experience dependency or withdrawal symptoms;

d) whether the symptoms suffered were described in the C.P.S. (PDR);

e) whether the symptoms were not described in the C.P.S. but are proved to be directly related to the use of Paxil; or

f) to the extent that the symptoms arose following discontinuation, whether such symptoms were "mild and transient" and were described in the C.P.S.

Next, the court determined that the facts alleged do not support the relief requested. All of the symptoms that Ms. Goyette alleges to have experienced were mentioned by GSK in the C.P.S. and that any fault must have been through the misreading of the C.P.S. by Ms. Goyette's prescribing physician.  And she made no specific allegations about the injuries of the absent class members.  Accepting as true the well-pleaded allegations, in essence, the facts that are taken as proven do not include impressions, opinion, legal argument, inferences or hypotheses that are not verified.

Finally, adequacy of representation is evaluated on three criteria:

 1- an interest in undertaking the legal proceedings;

 2- an ability to instruct counsel; and

 3- absence of a conflict with the other group members.
 

Based on the previous analysis, the court found that Ms. Goyette could not represent a class since she herself does not have a valid cause of action.  Moreover, plaintiff had shown a singular lack of interest in that she never sought to speak with any of the other members of the proposed class, none of whom she knows; she has never sought to communicate with any of the individuals alleged to have signed up at her attorneys' website; and she could provide no explanation as to why these legal proceedings which started on May 2, 2002 remained dormant for several years.

An analysis with a little bit of teeth.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Defendants have moved to dismiss the complaint in a proposed class action by parents claiming that the makers of shampoos and and soaps for kids failed to list toxic chemicals on product ingredients lists. Vercellono, et al. v. Gerber Products Co., et al., No. 2:09-cv-02350 (D.N.J.).

The complaint names Gerber, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Cos. Inc., Procter & Gamble
Distributing LLC, MZB Personal Care, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Nestle Inc. as defendants.
The plaintiffs claim that several products, including Grins & Giggles, Head-to-Toe Baby Wash and others, contain formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane.  Plaintiffs further allege that these chemicals have been linked to cancer, skin allergies and other health problems.

The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory, punitive and/or exemplary damages for the proposed class, which is defined as all consumers nationwide who purchased the products in question.  Plaintiffs allege that the companies violated consumer fraud statutes by making or distributing baby care products specifically marketed for sensitive skin despite containing the chemicals, and misrepresented that the products they marketed, distributed, promoted, sold, and/or made were safe for children.

Defendants' motions attack several aspects of the complaint, including the injury allegations in connection with the consumer fraud count.  The motion illustrates one of the key battlegrounds in a consumer fraud class action.  While plaintiffs typically assert that the predominating issues are common, defendants will point to the injury element under the statute as requiring individual proof.  But before even deciding the class issues, the question is raised whether plaintiffs have adequately alleged an  injury.  Often, they will seek to avoid suggestion of personal physical injury, because of the individual issues it raises.  But there is risk in going too far.

According to the Gerber motion, plaintiffs suffered only mere exposure to the chemicals and failed to cite any actual injury. The complaint fails to allege that plaintiffs, their children, or anyone else has ever suffered any actual harm as a result of using the products. Nor does the complaint allege that the products failed to perform as a bath product. Rather, the complaint merely alleges that plaintiffs have suffered “exposure” to formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane.  While they assert that they were injured by paying the purchase prices for the defendants’ products, under the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, as under many such acts, plaintiffs are required to allege that they have suffered an ascertainable loss, and allegations of economic loss are insufficient, as are allegations of  the vague potential of a speculative future injury.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

MassTortDefense has posted about the dangers lurking in consumer fraud class actions before. About a year ago, we posted on a disturbing decision in Nafar v. Hollywood Tanning Systems, Inc., 2008 WL 3821776 (D.N.J., August 11, 2008), where the district court certified a nationwide class of tanning customers.  We concluded our post, by noting "Clearly, this certification decision ought to be reviewed by the Third Circuit."  Fortunately, that has happened. The Third Circuit granted Hollywood Tans’ petition for interlocutory review under Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(f), and has vacated the class certification decision. Nafar v. Hollywood Tanning Systems, Inc., No. 08-3994 (3d Cir. Aug. 5, 2009).

Plaintiff had alleged she purchased monthly tanning memberships from defendant Hollywood Tanning Systems, in New Jersey. Plaintiff alleged that defendant fraudulently failed to disclose the fact that any exposure to ultraviolet rays (UV rays) increases the risk of cancer and allegedly deceptively failed to warn consumers about the dangers of indoor tanning. While plaintiff acknowledged that defendant's machines may block out most UVB rays, she contended that defendant failed to inform consumers that UVA rays, also emitted by its machines, are allegedly linked to skin cancer. Plaintiff instituted suit alleging: (1) violation of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act (“NJCFA”), (2) fraud, (3) unjust enrichment, and (4) breach of warranty.

Plaintiff sought a nationwide class of consumers who had purchased tanning memberships. The district court’s analysis of the Rule 23(b) requirements for class certification was, unfortunately, devoid of substance. The 3d Circuit determined that the district court erred by not defining either the class or the class claims, as required by Rule 23(c);  erred by failing to conduct an adequate choice-of-law analysis when the potential class members for this consumer fraud action hail from numerous states; erred by failing to consider evidence suggesting that individual issues of fact and law regarding causation predominate over common issues, and finally, erred in failing to consider whether res judicata would apply to potential personal injury claims, and therefore whether Nafar was an “adequate representative” of the class.

In the context of class action certification, the Supreme Court has stated that a district court “may not take a transaction with little or no relationship to the forum and apply the law of the forum in order to satisfy the procedural requirement that there be a ‘common question of law.’" Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts, 472 U.S. 797, 821 (1985). A court must apply an individualized choice of law analysis to each plaintiff’s claims. Here, the district court had stated that common issues of law predominated: “Common questions of law predominate because New Jersey law is central to this litigation. The NJCFA [consumer fraud act] will apply to all class members because this particular law governs Defendant's behavior and uniform policies. New Jersey has a strong interest in this litigation because the case's outcome will likely affect Defendant's nationwide behavior…. Indeed, the NJCFA is one of this nation's strongest consumer protection laws and its application will not frustrate other states' consumer protection laws. ” That conclusion was not based on an analysis of the choice of law rules of the forum state; cited no state court cases suggesting that NJ law should apply to the claims of consumer from other states; failed to analyze the differences among the consumer protection laws of the various states; and failed to analyze the interests other states may have in applying their laws by simply assuming every state would rather apply NJ’s law.

The 3d Circuit noted that New Jersey now applies the Second Restatement’s “most significant relationship” test. On remand, the District Court was ordered to conduct a choice of law analysis under New Jersey’s most significant relationship test.

The trial court had stated that common fact issues predominated as well because the alleged misrepresentations and omissions concerning the negative consequences related to indoor tanning are alleged to be uniform. However, the court failed to conduct any analysis of the elements of the claims upon which the class was certified, and whether any of the elements might raise individual questions. In addition to the analysis that will be necessitated by a proper choice of law review, the 3d Circuit noted that evidence of plaintiffs’ conduct relevant to the causation issue cannot be ignored without comment in a predominance analysis. This is because the Supreme Court of New Jersey has held that individual issues regarding plaintiff’s behavior may, in certain cases, defeat predominance in a NJCFA class action, despite the alleged uniformity of a defendant’s misrepresentations or omissions.

As we noted last year about the certification decision, the defendant apparently submitted surveys showing that the risks of tanning are common knowledge, and many consumers understood the cancer risks involved. Even if plaintiffs were not required to present any direct proof of individual reliance – which they would be under some state laws – this would not prevent a defendant from presenting direct evidence that an individual plaintiff did not rely on any representations from the company. Defendants have a right to present evidence negating a plaintiff's direct or circumstantial showing of causation and/or reliance. The "predominance" inquiry here thus resembled a mere commonality test. On remand, the 3d Circuit held, the court should consider the evidence presented, resolve any disputes relevant to the predominance issue, and consider all the elements of the underlying claims to determine if individual issues predominate over common issues of fact and law.

Finally, named plaintiff had only economic injuries, but personal injury claims were ostensibly included in the class definition.  This raised the issue of claim splitting and res judicata, and the issue whether the named plaintiff could be an adequate class representative for a class alleging such disparate injuries.  The appeals court found that  the district court failed to consider this very important issue in assessing the adequacy of representation requirement. For that reason the court was told it should consider, on remand, New Jersey’s doctrines regarding preclusion, whether other states’ preclusion doctrines would apply, the specific claims and facts alleged here, and whether any potential future claims by class members with personal injury would be at risk of being barred by res judicata.

We will see what happens on remand, but for now, scary decision vacated.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal judge has dismissed a proposed class action that alleged that Playtex Products Inc. sold  insulated baby-bottle coolers with excessive levels of lead. Ramos v. Playtex Products Inc. et al., No. 1:08-cv-02703 (N.D. Ill. 2009).

At MassTortDefense we love talking about defense wins, and especially love posting about early wins.  Here, Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow dismissed all counts in the consolidated complaint without prejudice. The court relied first on the federal pleading requirements as described in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007); and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1953 (2009) (stating that “Twombly expounded the pleading standard for all civil actions”). We have posted on that before.
 

Plaintiffs alleged that the vinyl fabric from which these coolers are constructed contains dangerous levels of lead and that Playtex marketed these products as being safe, despite its awareness of regulations prohibiting the use of lead in children’s products and knowing that children who ingest lead suffer long-term injuries. Plaintiffs asserted claims for violation of the consumer fraud statutes of forty-three jurisdictions (Count I), common law negligence (Count II), and unjust enrichment (Count III). In the motion papers, the negligence claim became a medical monitoring claim.

The judge said the plaintiffs’ complaint was unable to meet pleading standards for the
claims alleged. The plaintiffs had failed to articulate many important points, including the basis for  their claims under any consumer protection statutes other than in New York and California. Named plaintiffs, Suarez and Stanford, were residents of New York and California, respectively, and neither alleged injury in, or contact with, any jurisdiction other than New York or California.

Additionally, the plaintiffs' claims failed to meet pleading standards of Rule 9(b) because of the absence of numerous crucial details, including where and from whom they purchased the coolers, specifics regarding the presence of lead in the products, such as where and how accessible it was, and whether they relied on statements from Playtex about the coolers’ safety before making their purchases. Averments of consumer fraud generally must be pleaded with the same particularity as common law fraud. See, e.g., Kearns v. Ford Motor Co., 567 F.3d 1120, 1125 (9th Cir. 2009). Even where, as here, plaintiffs assert that fraud is not a necessary element of a claim, any claim with a basis that nonetheless sounds in fraud is subject to the heightened pleading standard of Rule 9(b).  Plaintiffs quoted statements on Playtex’s website assuring customers that its products “surpass the most stringent domestic and international regulatory guidelines on . . . safety matters,” Am. Compl. ¶ 33, but failed to allege whether or when they relied on, or even saw, these statements prior to purchasing the coolers.

Additionally, plaintiffs wanted Playtex to pay for the cost of lead testing for their children, presumably a medical monitoring claim, yet at no point did they make any allegation that their children were exposed to lead.  Indeed, Suarez and Stanford fail to allege that they even have children. Playtex pointed out that the plaintiffs had not described any physical or economic injury associated with the product.  Plaintiffs expressly disclaimed personal injuries in this case at oral argument. What is required to support a claim for medical monitoring is that plaintiffs plead and prove that medical monitoring is probably, reasonably, not just possibly, necessary. The plaintiffs had asserted no allegation that any child came into contact with one of the coolers.  Thus, no allegation of the exposure element of a medical monitoring claim either.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal court has rejected a class certification motion from a group of consumers alleging that “all-natural” Van’s Waffles have more fat and/or calories than listed on the packaging. Hodes v.  Van's International Foods, et al., CV 09-01530 RGK (C.D. Calif. July 23, 2009).

Van’s manufactures, markets, and distributes frozen waffles.  Plaintiffs alleged that defendant marketed its waffles as healthy and “all natural,” and listed nutritional values on its packaging labels showing lower quantities of calories, fat, and sugar than its competitors. Plaintiffs further alleged that these nutritional values were false because the waffles contained significantly more calories, fat, and sugar than the labels represented. Plaintiffs further asserted that Van’s
knew of the error, but did not change the labels until late 2008.

Plaintiffs asserted claims for fraud, breach of express warranty, breach of implied
warranty of fitness for a particular purpose, false advertising, and unfair business practices in violation of the California Unfair Competition Law.

Plaintiffs sought certification of a nationwide class of consumers who have been purportedly
harmed by defendants’ misrepresentations. Judge Gary Klausner of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California found that (1) common questions of law and fact did not predominate over individualized issues, and (2) a class action was not superior to other methods for
fairly and efficiently adjudicating this controversy.  The court’s decision was based on the factor of Rule 23(b)(3) dealing with the manageability of this class action. First, the sheer number of class members, which was at least in the “tens of thousands,” caused the court concern over managing the proposed class. Specifically, the court had concerns about how plaintiffs would identify each class member and prove which brand of frozen waffles each member purchased, in what quantity, and for what purpose. The likelihood that tens of thousands of class members saved their receipts as proof of their purchase of Van’s waffles is very low. 

Second, plaintiffs overstated the argument that the “individual nature of damages” in this case
did not overcome the alleged predominance of common issues relating to liability. This was not a case where the individual damages could be calculated almost as a “mechanical task.”  Here,
plaintiffs failed to present the court with any plan for how to determine the amount of damages
suffered by each class member, and thus no showing of why it would not require an investigation as to which of Van’s 19 frozen waffle varieties class members purchased, how much each class member spent, and whether those particular varieties contained nutritional inaccuracies.

Third, the court addressed the important issue of reliance.  Plaintiffs typically claim that the class can be certified because a particular consumer fraud act claim does not require a showing of reliance.  However, here, while plaintiffs alleged that they did not need to prove individual reliance by class members, they ignored the fact that other individualized purchasing inquiries that remain in this case.  The court was not convinced that the common questions of Van’s liability would predominate over the individual questions of who purchased Van’s frozen waffles during the relevant class period, which kind of frozen waffles they purchased, how many they
purchased, and whether the kinds they purchased contained false nutritional information.
 

A useful case reminding readers that the absence of a reliance requirement does not necessarily mean the class should be certified.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation has issued an order consolidating 12 putative class actions alleging that Apple Inc.’s iPhone 3G did not perform as fast as promised on AT&T Mobility LLC’s 3G data network.  In re: Apple IPhone 3G Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2045.

Plaintiffs allege that iPhone owners paid extra for the supposedly superior functionality and high-speed data network used by the phone. They further allege that because the phone is typically used for e-mail and on-line activities, many purchasers subscribe to a data plan that uses AT&T’s 3G network. But, they assert, the phone does not function as fast as promised and often performs at slower speeds than other 2G and 3G phones. In the litigation thus far, plaintiffs' complaints conspicuously seem to omit one critical condition precedent to their causes of action: an allegation that they contacted Apple to seek a repair of the alleged defects or a replacement iPhone 3G under Apple's one-year limited warranty.

In the order issued last week, the JPML said that centralizing the lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California was appropriate. All actions involve common factual questions arising from the performance of Apple’s iPhone 3G on AT&T’s 3G network. Specifically, the actions share allegations that Apple and, where named, AT&T, misrepresented to the public the speed, strength and performance of the iPhone 3G on AT&T’s 3G network. Centralization under Section 1407 will eliminate duplicative discovery; prevent inconsistent pretrial rulings, particularly with respect to class certification; and conserve the resources of the parties, their counsel and the judiciary.

The Northern District of California stands out as an appropriate transferee forum, said the panel. The headquarters of the common defendant, Apple, are located within this district; accordingly, relevant witnesses and documents will likely be found there. Eight actions are already pending in the district. Other cases are in the Southern District of Florida, the District of New Jersey, the Eastern District of New York and the Eastern District of Texas.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal judge has decided an that an advisory jury can hear evidence on claims against the U.S. government in bellwether trials in the MDL concerning alleged formaldehyde-laden trailers. In re: FEMA Trailer Formaldehyde Products Liability Litigation, MDL 1873 (E.D. La.)

Readers of MassTortDefense will recall how Hurricane Katrina devastated much of the Gulf Coast in 2005. The total damage of Hurricane Katrina has been estimated at $75 billion, while not-much-later Hurricane Rita caused $10 billion in damage. The government, through FEMA, moved individuals whose homes were lost or deemed uninhabitable into makeshift housing provided by the agency.  Plaintiffs allege that the trailers had components that exposed them to dangerous and excessive levels of formaldehyde.

The court has decided that it will hold bellwether trials in the MDL. But the defendants include both private entities and the government. The government moved to strike the jury demand and requested that a jury not be involved in any manner in determining its liability. The federal government argued that, because the plaintiffs have filed claims under the Federal Torts Claims Act (“FTCA”), 28 U.S.C. §§ 2671-2680 and 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b), the use of any jury is precluded under 28 U.S.C. § 2402 which states that “[a]ny action against the United States under section 1346 shall be tried by the court without a jury. . .”  The Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee (“PSC”) and the nongovernmental defendants both opposed the motion. Indeed, both the PSC and the non-governmental defendants contended that it is both permissible and sensible for the court to utilize an advisory jury who will hear evidence of the Government’s alleged fault in order to properly apportion liability to all parties. The government claimed that any use of even an advisory jury contravenes the statute and congressional intent to have FTCA cases decided by the court without a jury.

Rule 39(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure states, in pertinent part, “[i]n an action
not triable of right by a jury, the court, on motion or on its own . . . may try any issue with an
advisory jury.”  The court found that it has the power to make use of an advisory jury in this case. Because of the purely advisory function that a jury empaneled under Rule 39(c) has, the use of an advisory jury is not precluded under 28 U.S.C. § 2402. The court concluded it will empanel a jury to hear the bellwether plaintiffs’ claims against the non-governmental defendants in the bellwether trials and will exercise its discretion to use that jury in an advisory capacity to hear the claims against the government in those same trials.

This advisory jury will not be asked or allowed to make a binding factual determination on the plaintiffs’ FTCA claims; instead, it will be allowed to hear the case and, through the verdict, advise the court, who will remain free to consider the same evidence and completely disregard such findings. The court determined that utilizing an advisory jury will alleviate jury confusion that would result if jurors are expected to listen to all the evidence against all the defendants - including FEMA - but then are instructed to ignore any evidence pertinent to the government.
 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The judge handling the MDL involving the consolidated litigation involving Chinese manufactured drywall claims has issued a first order. Pursuant to Pretrial Order #1, the initial pretrial conference was set for July 9, 2009,  in the Courtroom of Judge Fallon. Earlier this summer, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation agreed to consolidate a number of the suits in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The suits have named as defendants the Chinese-based manufacturers, as well as importers, contractors, suppliers and others, including Knauf Gips KG, Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin Co., Taishan Gypsum Co., L&W Supply Corp., USG Corp. and Lennar Corp., the country’s second-largest home builder by volume.

The items listed in the Manual for Complex Litigation (Sections 22.6, 22.61, 22.62, and 22.63) were, to the extent applicable, set as a tentative agenda for the conference. (That may include adding parties, pleadings and motions, issue identification and development. ) Counsel were ordered to confer and seek consensus to the extent possible with respect to the items on the agenda, including a proposed discovery plan, any amendment of pleadings, consideration of any class action allegations and motions, and be prepared to select trial dates.

Plaintiffs and defendants were to submit to the Court before the conference a brief written statement indicating their preliminary understanding of the facts involved in the litigation and the critical factual and legal issues. (These statements will not be filed with the Clerk, will not be binding, will not waive claims or defenses, and may not be offered in evidence against a party in later proceedings.)

The Order covers a host of housekeeping issues for a new MDL. The Clerk will maintain a master docket case file under the style "In Re: CHINESE MANUFACTURED DRYWALL PRODUCTS LIABILITY LITIGATION” and the identification "MDL No. 2047 ".  All parties and their counsel were reminded of their duty to preserve evidence that may be relevant to this action. The duty extends to
documents, data, and tangible things in possession, custody and control of the parties to this
action, and any employees, agents, contractors, carriers, bailees, or other non-parties who possess materials reasonably anticipated to be subject to discovery in this action.

Prior to the initial conference, counsel for the plaintiffs and counsel for the defendant(s) were required to confer and seek consensus on the selection of a candidate for the position of liaison counsel for each group who will be charged with essentially administrative matters.

It is the Court’s intention to appoint a Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee (“PSC”) to conduct and coordinate the discovery stage of this litigation with the defendant’s representatives or committee.  The main criteria for membership in the PSC will be: (a) willingness and availability to commit to a time-consuming project; (b) ability to work cooperatively with others; and (c) professional experience in this type of litigation (d) willingness to commit the necessary resources to pursue this matter.

Behind the scenes, history suggests that a key issue underlying parts of the litigation the litigation will be whether the pollution exclusion applies. Insurers will likely argue that the alleged off-gassing of sulfur compounds from the Chinese drywall clearly constitutes the actual, alleged or threatened discharge, dispersal, seepage, migration, release or escape of pollutants (referencing terms of the typical exclusion clause).  There is a split of authority on the scope of such a pollution clause.  Some states have narrow definitions which favor policyholders, while the more broad definitions in other jurisdictions typically favor insurers. Choice of law may be the determining factor on this.

One builder (Dragas Management) has already been named in a declaratory judgment action by its insurer, Builders Mutual Insurance Co.  In addition to relying on a pollution exclusion argument, insurers seem intent on showing that each installation of drywall constitutes a separate “occurrence” under the policy, and as such, a separate deductible would apply to each. Builders would undoubtedly prefer a single deductible for the installation within an entire development or project.

Concerns over the drywall have prompted legislators, including Sens. Nelson, D-Fla., and Landrieu, D-La., to introduce the Drywall Safety Act of 2009, which seeks to impose a recall and a temporary ban on imports until federal drywall safety standards are put in place.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The federal court has dismissed a proposed class action accusing Dell Inc. of fraudulently marketing an ink-jet printer feature to convince customers to replace ink cartridges that don't need to be replaced yet. Dajani v. Dell Inc., 2009 WL 1833983 (N.D.Cal. June 25, 2009).

Dajani alleged that Dell fraudulently marketed its Ink Management System, a technology feature on all Dell ink jet printers.  The feature will display ink levels on a status window during a print job. The complaint alleged that the Ink Management System was highly imprecise and inaccurate, and that it was designed to deceive customers into replacing what they believed to be nearly empty cartridges, when they actually still contained a substantial amount of usable ink. Dajani sought to represent a class of all Californians who own or have owned Dell ink jet printers.

Judge Susan Illston rejected the lawsuit, without leave to amend the complaint.  Previously, the court had dismissed California-law based claims, as the terms and conditions of his sales agreement provided for Texas law to be allied to all claims. The amended complaint alleged a claim under Texas law for breach of implied warranty of merchantability and a claim of unjust
enrichment.

The court ruled last week that the claim for the breach of implied warranty of merchantability could not survive, because the printer was not unmerchantable as the term is defined under Texas law. The product must be unfit for the ordinary purposes for which it is used because of a lack of something necessary for adequacy.  Dell argued that the ordinary use of the product was printing, not measuring ink, and that any alleged imprecision in the Ink Management System had no impact on that basic function. The court agreed, finding that at most, plaintiff had alleged that the use of the Ink Management System is cumbersome because of allegedly premature replacement prompts. The device still worked.  And plaintiff hurt his claim by alleging that upon receiving “low ink” warnings, he simply removed and discarded his ink cartridge and replaced it with a new one. Such was "plainly at odds" with the product’s instruction manual, which states that a low ink warning appears when ink cartridges are low, not yet empty, and that a separate "reserve tank"  window appears when they are empty.

The judge also dismissed the unjust enrichment claim because under Texas law, when a valid, express contract covers the subject matter of the parties' dispute, there can be no recovery under a theory of unjust enrichment. Fortune Prod. Co. v. Conoco, Inc., 52 S.W.3d 671, 684 (Tex.2000) (“Parties should be bound by their express agreements. When a valid agreement already addresses the matter, recovery under an equitable theory is generally inconsistent with the express agreement.”).

Because plaintiff cannot cure the defects mentioned above through the pleading of additional facts which do not contradict those already made, plaintiff's complaint was dismissed without leave to amend.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission reported this month the results of a study suggesting that when physicians have a financial interest in medical imaging equipment, they are more likely to order imaging tests and incur higher overall spending on their patients' care.  The June MedPAC report is titled Report to the Congress: Improving Incentives in the Medicare Program.  Such an issue seems important to the current debate on health care reform and efforts to curb the rising costs of health care.  But is it of interest to readers of MassTortDefense?

Imaging, particularly the use of PET scans and CT scans, is a favorite tool of plaintiffs' lawyers seeking medical monitoring. Currently before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is a case involving a proposed class action seeking CT scans for lung cancer. See Kathleen Donovan, et al. v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., SJC No. 10409 (Mass. SJC, argued June 9, 2009)

Multiple policy grounds support the decision to reject  medical monitoring. Metro-North Commuter Railroad Company v. Buckley, 521 U.S. 424 (1997). This imaging issue stands as yet another reason courts need to be careful with claims for medical monitoring and wary of plaintiff experts opining that imaging is reasonably medically necessary ( a typical element of a medical monitoring claim) because it is supposedly becoming more widely used. See Redland Soccer Club, Inc. v. Dept. of the Army and Dept. of Defense of the U.S., 548 Pa. 178, 696 A.2d 137, 145-46 (1997) (requiring the prescribed monitoring regime is reasonably necessary according to contemporary scientific principles); Wyeth, Inc. v. Gottlieb, 930 So.2d 635 (Fla.App. 3 Dist.2006) (same).

MedPAC is an independent advisory body charged with providing policy analysis and advice concerning the Medicare program, and issued its most recent report to Congress on imaging, among other topics.  The commission noted that rapid technological progress in diagnostic imaging over the last decade has enabled physicians to more effectively diagnose and treat certain illnesses. At the same time, use of medical imaging has grown in certain areas of the country, without a clear benefit in terms of the quality of care.   The report also noted that recent research indicates a particular expansion of in-office imaging as many physicians buy and use machines in their offices, rather than refer patients out.

The report cites the 2008 Government Accountability Office report which ties the growth in Medicare spending to the increase in physicians who perform advanced imaging services in their office. That GAO report found that Medicare spending for imaging services performed by doctors doubled from 2000 to 2006. In particular, costs for advanced imaging such as computed tomography (CT) scans and nuclear medicine rose faster than other standard previous imaging services such as MRIs.

 

 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The federal judge presiding over the MDL involving litigation claiming trailers issued after Hurricane Katrina allegedly exposed residents to formaldehyde has declined to dismiss government contractors that hauled and installed the trailers.  In re  FEMA Trailer Formaldehyde Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 1873 (E.D. La.).  Judge Engelhardt rejected the motion of Shaw Environmental Inc. and CH2M Hill Constructors, Inc. to be dismissed from a multiple-plaintiff case in the trailer MDL.  The court rejected the contractors' arguments that the plaintiffs lacked standing;  he also rejected the contractors'  argument that the FEMA trailer residents failed to plead claims cognizable under the Louisiana Products Liability Act.

The plaintiffs in this case are Louisiana residents who had lived in trailers issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They sued the makers and distributors of FEMA trailers
in November, 2007. Then in early 2009, the plaintiffs added trailer haulers and installers,
Shaw and CH2M Hill, as defendants.

The contractors argued first that the plaintiffs lacked standing because they had failed to link  particular plaintiffs to any particular defendant involved in their specific unit.  The court ruled that because the original complaint matched plaintiffs to trailer manufacturers, those originally named plaintiffs had standing to add defendants in the chain of distribution. Those plaintiffs who failed to assert any linkage at all were dismissed without prejudice.

Second, the contractors argued prescription, the Louisiana version of laches, asserting that the plaintiffs' products liability claims prescribed on May 18, 2007, or one year after the first trailer suit was filed. The contractors claimed that the plaintiffs should have known about their claim for formaldehyde exposure by that date. Judge Engelhardt, however, ruled that the clock started from the date of injury, and it is impossible to determine in advance exactly when each plaintiff became aware of his or her injuries.

"What each ... plaintiff knew about formaldehyde exposure or the possibility of legal claims relating thereto; what injury each such plaintiff allegedly experienced from such exposure, and when knowledge of these alleged injuries occurred, are questions that can be answered only a case-by-case basis. These facts are not evident from the face of the complaints,” Judge Engelhardt wrote.

Finally, Judge Engelhardt rejected the contractors contention that the state product liability act did not apply to them because they were not manufacturers of the trailers.  While Louisiana law determines that the proper assembly of a defective part does not create manufacturer liability, here, in contrast, plaintiffs contended that the alleged formaldehyde-related defect occurred in part because of the assembly process used by the contractors.  An alleged defect which manifests itself in the assembly process can impose Louisiana Products Liability Act "manufacturer" liability on a party when the defect is created by the assembly process, he concluded.

Readers will recall that last December, the court properly refused to grant class certification to the six proposed subclasses of plaintiffs in this MDL, finding they did not meet the standards required for class certification under Rule 23. The plaintiffs had sought certification of four state subclasses of individuals who resided in trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama and Mississippi following hurricanes Katrina and Rita, as well as a future medical monitoring subclass, and an economic loss subclass.  And the court has begun selecting bellwether cases for the first trials.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation has consolidated a number of lawsuits brought over Chinese-made drywall installed in U.S. homes. See In re: Chinese-Manufactured Drywall Products Liability Litigation, MDL-2047 (JPML).

The motion for consolidation encompassed ten actions, four actions in the Southern District of Florida, three actions in the Middle District of Florida and one action each in the Northern District of Florida, Eastern District of Louisiana, and Southern District of Ohio. The panel said it was aware of 67 related lawsuits that were pending in federal courts around the country. Those suits and any other related actions will be treated as potential tag-along actions.

The Panel found that all actions share factual questions concerning drywall manufactured in China, imported to and distributed in the United States, and used in the construction of houses; plaintiffs in all actions allege that the drywall emits smelly, corrosive gases. Centralization under Section 1407 will eliminate duplicative discovery, including any discovery on international parties; prevent inconsistent pretrial rulings, particularly those with respect to class certification issues; and conserve the resources of the parties, their counsel and the judiciary, said the Panel.

As is sometimes the case, no district was a clear focal point of this litigation. The common manufacturing defendant and its affiliates are foreign entities without a major presence in any of the suggested transferee districts. Most actions also name local entities, such as builders and suppliers, as defendants. Several parties suggested different districts, and all of the suggested districts, particularly those in the southeastern region, have a nexus to the litigation through allegedly affected houses built with the drywall at issue. On balance, the panel was persuaded that the Eastern District of Louisiana is a preferable transferee forum for this litigation. Centralization in this district permits the Panel to effect the Section 1407 assignment to a judge who has "extensive experience in multidistrict litigation as well as the ability and temperament to steer this complex litigation on a steady and expeditious course." That would be the Honorable Eldon E. Fallon of the Eastern District of Louisiana.

As posted on MassTortDefense before, the lawsuits allege that sulfur compound levels in the drywall are too high, causing issues with air conditioning systems, electrical appliances, internal wiring and other electrical systems in homes. Plaintiffs also allege the drywall produces a rotten egg-like stench and causes a variety of respiratory and other health problems for those who live in the affected homes. The lawsuits filed so far have named Chinese-based manufacturers, as well as importers, developers and builders, contractors, suppliers and others. Companies facing suits include Knauf Gips KG, Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin Co., Taishan Gypsum Co., L&W Supply Corp. and USG Corp. Lennar Corp., a major home builder, has brought in more than 20 manufacturers, suppliers and installers.  Some legislators have been critical of the CPSC's handling of the issue.  And bills have been introduced to ban the product.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal court has dismissed the class action claim made against a number of manufacturers and sellers of the “Sleep Number” bed products. Molly Stearns, et al.,  v. Select Comfort Retail Corporation, No. 08-2746 JF, (N.D. Calif. June 5, 2009).

Plaintiff filed a complaint alleging that she had found mold on her Sleep Number® bed purchased in 2000. The complaint alleged various causes of action, including for strict product liability, intentional misrepresentation, negligent misrepresentation, concealment, breach of express warranty, and breach of implied warranty. Stearns also sought to bring a class action on behalf of other  purchasers and users of Sleep Number® beds. An amended complaint added claims for alleged violation of the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act, the California Unfair Competition Law, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200 et seq.; the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), 18 U.S.C. § 1962c; the  Consumer Product Safety Act;  in total, plaintiffs presently assert seventeen claims for relief.

Plaintiffs defined the purported class as all original purchasers of a Select Comfort® bed between January 1, 1987 and the present date, whose beds contained mold. At oral argument, and in response to defendants’ valid contention that a nationwide class would be overly ambitious in light of the differences in applicable state laws and the individualized circumstances of each bed purchaser, plaintiffs' counsel represented that they would be willing to limit the class to California residents. This concession, however, would have eliminated several of the putative class representatives. The court found that this alone would require denial of class certification based on the present state of the pleadings.

More importantly, the elements of proof with respect to the property damage alleged in the complaint likely will vary significantly among class members, depending on when the bed was purchased; whether any anti-fungal measures were included in the product; and the
surrounding environmental conditions. The amount of damage incurred also will vary among class members. Some class members might only require a new bed or a refund, while others conceivably might have suffered additional property damage from the spread of mold in their homes. Plaintiffs failed to show how these potentially diverging interests would be addressed in the single broadly defined class.

In addition, the court noted that Article III requires that the representative or named plaintiff must share the same injury or threat of injury.  DuPree v. U.S., 559 F.2d 1151, 1153 (9th Cir. 1977). See also Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393, 403 (1975) (“A litigant must be a member of the class which he or she seeks to represent at the time the class action is certified”).  In the instant case, it was not yet clear whether any of the named plaintiffs had or could set forth a cognizable claim under any of their numerous legal theories. The court had done a claim by claim analysis leading to a dismissal with prejudice of several of the claims, including breach of implied warranty of fitness, breach of implied warranty of merchantability, fraud, intentional misrepresentation, racketeering, conspiracy, and violations of the Sherman Act and California's Cartwright Act. 

While the named plaintiffs, all of whom claim their Sleep Number beds are defective products, were given leave to amend their claims for negligence, strict product liability, breach of express warranty, and violations of the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act, the current complaint failed to state a claim. For example, the generalized allegations of harm were insufficient for the court to know whether tort claims were barred by the economic loss doctrine. Accordingly the motion to strike was granted, without prejudice to plaintiffs filing an amended pleading consistent with the ruling.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The federal court overseeing the MDL involving trailers issued by the U.S. government following Hurricane Katrina has dismissed some of the plaintiffs' state law claims against mobile home manufacturer defendants, on the basis of the federal preemption doctrine. In Re: FEMA Trailer Formaldehyde Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 1873 (E.D. La.)

As readers of MassTort Defense know, Hurricane Katrina impacted much of the Gulf Coast in August 2005, and Hurricane Rita followed in September 2005, causing extensive damage along the Louisiana and Texas coasts. In the wake of the hurricanes, many individuals whose homes were lost or damaged moved into temporary housing provided by FEMA. Plaintiffs allege that these trailers exposed residents to high levels of the chemical formaldehyde, about which they were not warned. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated a number of suits against defendants, including the federal government and several trailer manufacturers, over the alleged formaldehyde exposure in 2007.

Judge Kurt Engelhardt of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana last week granted the manufacturer defendants' motion to dismiss certain state law claims. The defendants asserted that the construction of these mobile homes was regulated by the Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards Act, 42 U.S.C. § 5401 et seq., (“the MHA”) and the regulations promulgated by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”), pursuant to 24 C.F.R. § 3280 and § 3282 (“the HUD Code”). Pursuant to the MHA, HUD established the Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards (“MHCSS”), 24 C.F.R § 3208 et seq., which govern the standards for formaldehyde emissions from materials used in manufactured homes. This regulation expressly and specifically dictates the maximum level of formaldehyde gas that component products in mobile homes can emit. The regulations also specify that a health notice on formaldehyde emissions shall be temporarily displayed in the kitchen of each manufactured home.Accordingly, the defendants asserted that the federal statutes and regulation in the MHA and the HUD Code explicitly and impliedly preempt plaintiffs’ state law claims against them.

As several courts have previously noted, the MHA does not explicitly preempt state causes of action. Turning to implied preemption, the court noted that implied preemption exists when state law regulates conduct in a field Congress intended the Federal Government to occupy exclusively (also referred to as “field preemption”), or when state law actually conflicts with federal law (also referred to as “conflict preemption”). Conflict preemption exists in two scenarios: (1) when compliance with both a state and federal law is impossible, and/or (2) when the state law conflicts with the federal law such that it stands as an obstacle to the achievement of the federal law’s purposes and objectives.

After analyzing the statute and regulations, the MDL court concluded that if plaintiffs in the instant case were allowed to go forward with their state product liability claims raising the ambient air standard, then defendants in the mobile home industry would essentially be required to deviate (in ways variable from state to state) from those federal standards so carefully and thoroughly crafted by HUD. The MHA clearly states that if states want to regulate safety matters that federal law already covers (like formaldehyde emissions), those regulations must be “identical.” 42 U.S.C. § 5403(d). Furthermore, it was noteworthy that the plaintiffs contend that the moving defendants should have adhered to the ambient air standard, which differs from the HUD-accepted component products standard. Thus, cases that present situations where the plaintiffs are not arguing that the defendants should have adhered to a standard higher than, or different from what the MHA imposes, are inapplicable.

The court concluded similarly that any such claims relating to inadequate warnings of exposure
to purportedly high levels of formaldehyde contained in the units, that require more than the federal
label standards, should be dismissed. However, any of plaintiffs’ state law claims that advance non-compliance with federal formaldehyde regulations (to the extent that such claims exist) are considered to be parallel claims, are not preempted and, thus, are not dismissed. See Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc., 128 S.Ct 999, 1011 (2008).

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal court last week rejected an attempt to consolidate a newly filed proposed class action over Lexapro and Celexa with the multidistrict litigation involving the drugs. In Re: Celexa and Lexapro Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 1736 (E.D. Mo.).

Judge Rodney W. Sippel said in his ruling that plaintiffs had not demonstrated that consolidation would be appropriate. The MDL is currently comprised of 42 cases brought by individual plaintiffs who claim Lexapro or Celexa caused or induced a suicide or suicide attempt. In originally creating this MDL in 2006, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation noted that the actions shared allegations relating to the safety of Celexa or Lexapro and the adequacy of Forest's warnings concerning the possible adverse effects of using the drugs, in particular, the potential for each product to induce its users to commit, or attempt to commit, suicide. The JPML recently declined to transfer two personal injury cases to the MDL because they involved injuries other than suicide.

The new suit, Universal Care, Inc., et al. v. Forest Laboratories, Inc., et al., on the other hand, involves allegations relating to Forest Laboratories Inc.'s marketing of the drugs, and economic damages allegedly caused from the sale of Celexa or Lexapro. Specifically, the new suit alleges violations of the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act and makes claims for unjust enrichment,  fraudulent concealment , and misrepresentation. The plaintiffs in this case claim that Forest engaged in improper promotional activities, causing third-party payors to reimburse patients and health care institutions for prescriptions of Lexapro and Celexa that were written for patients for whom the drugs were not indicated.

Moreover, the cases pending in the MDL are individual actions, not a putative class actions. The extensive discovery and motion practice relating to the alleged appropriateness of class-wide treatment and the adequacy of the class representatives are not part of the current MDL. These factors could significantly delay the progress of the MDL proceedings, prejudicing both the MDL plaintiffs and Forest. A final factor is that the MDL is already more than 2 years old, with significant pretrial proceedings already haven taken place.

Even in the MDL context, Rule 42 applies, and the court has discretion to assess the impact of allegedly common questions.  Consolidation is inappropriate if it causes confusion or leads to delay, inefficiency, inconvenience, or unfair prejudice to a party. E.g., EEOC v. HBE Corp., 135 F.3d 543, 551 (8th Cir. 1998).

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The certification decision in a proposed class action may be the most important aspect of such litigation. Few certified class actions go to jury verdict (they settle), and, frequently, cases in which class certification is denied are dismissed without even named plaintiffs’ claims being adjudicated. Accordingly, the preparation for the class certification hearing/briefing is crucial. Both sides have important tactical decisions to make about the amount and nature of pre-certification discovery they wish to conduct. Discovery of named plaintiffs and absent class members, when available, can show important distinctions among the class members, which in turn demonstrate an absence of commonality, a predominance of individual issues, and manageability problems. Not infrequently, plaintiffs object to defendants’ attempted discovery as allegedly "going to the merits" and thus as inappropriate for the certification stage. In an interesting, recent little decision in the Ketek antibiotic litigation, the show was on the other foot.

Plaintiffs, who alleged the maker of the antibiotic Ketek fraudulently concealed the drug's dangers, were denied the right to depose various non-party witnesses at the certification stage of this litigation. Sergeants Benevolent Association Health and Welfare Fund v. Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLP, 2009 WL 1181808 (E.D.N.Y., 4/30/09). The plaintiffs are employee benefit plans that paid for Ketek, known generically as telithromycin. The FDA approved Ketek in 2004 for treatment of three medical conditions. Plaintiffs assert that this approval was based in part on data generated in a study that allegedly “was contaminated by fraudulent activity.”

As part of class certification discovery, plaintiffs proposed to take the deposition of nine non-party witnesses, all of whom were involved with the challenged study and the FDA's approval of Ketek. The court found “unconvincing” plaintiffs' assertion that the proposed non-party depositions were necessary to establish common impact through a “loss of value” methodology; the court found that plaintiffs had misunderstood that methodology in the Zyprexa litigation, which they claimed to be mirroring. Second, the proposed non-party depositions were highly unlikely to produce or lead to evidence relevant to numerosity, typicality, or adequacy of representation. Evidence relating to the complexity of attempting to prove plaintiffs' civil RICO claim may be relevant to predominance and superiority, but plaintiffs need not actually prove their RICO claim, or conduct the discovery necessary to prove that claim, in order to make this showing. Third, defendants did not dispute that the evidence relating to the study was common to all members of the putative class. Thus, discovery postponed to merits phase.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal court has rejected class certification in the multidistrict litigation concerning McDonald's Corp.'s french fries. In Re McDonald’s French Fries Litigation, MDL No. 1784, Civ. No.06-C-4467 (N.D. Ill. May 6, 2009). Plaintiffs in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., brought claims against McDonald's for allegedly putting hydrolyzed wheat bran and hydrolyzed casein in a beef flavoring for oil used in production of french fries and hash browns. Plaintiffs included individuals with celiac disease; galactosemia; autism; and wheat or gluten allergies. Defendant was alleged to have falsely claimed the "Potato Products" were gluten, wheat, and dairy-free through its website and in literature available at the restaurants.

The plaintiffs did not claim that they were physically harmed by the presence of trace amounts of wheat gluten and casein — a milk protein — in the beef flavoring. Rather, they based their claims on theories of consumer fraud and alleged economic losses. Plaintiffs claim they purchased Potato Products based solely on defendant’s representations that those products were free of gluten, milk and/or wheat ingredients, that the Potato Products in fact contained these allergens, and that absent defendant’s misrepresentations, plaintiffs would not have purchased the Potato Products.

The court first addressed the class definition. Named plaintiffs had testified in their depositions that they were quite satisfied with the Potato Products they consumed. (This shows the importance of pre-certification discovery, and the common common disconnect between the theories of class counsel and the reality of the class). None of the named plaintiffs had any physical reaction to eating the Potato Products. It was clear, therefore, that many persons in the class as defined by plaintiffs had gone on eating defendant’s Potato Products even after defendant clarified its product disclosures. Expert testimony showed that many patients with food allergies conduct their own ‘trials’ to determine what foods with gluten they have previously enjoyed that they may eat in moderation without experiencing symptoms. People who continued to use the products suffered no injury, not even the economic one claimed in this lawsuit. So the class was both over-inclusive and too indefinite for certification.

Regarding a narrower possible class of persons who because of their diagnosis of celiac disease, galactosemia, autism or a wheat, gluten or dairy allergy would not have eaten McDonald’s french fries or  hash browns if they had known they contained, potentially, a small amount of hydrolyzed wheat bran and hydrolyzed casein in the beef flavor that makes up one percent of the oil in which the potato suppliers par-fry the potatoes before shipping them to McDonald’s, and who relied on a representation by defendant that its Potato Products were wheat or milk free in purchasing and eating the french fries or hash browns….the court found that individual issues and individualized proofs would destroy manageability of a class action. That class in essence asked the court or jury to, at a minimum, review and evaluate potentially millions of letters from doctors for each class member. In addition, each claimant would have to individually affirm that he or she had seen the representation, purchased Potato Products on the basis of the representation, and no longer did so following defendant’s expanded product disclosure in February, 2006. Such a necessary separate evidentiary inquiry into each class member’s claim precluded certification.

Finally, choice of law issues ensured that individual issues of law clearly predominated over
common issues, making a nationwide class unmanageable. In at least some jurisdictions, reliance is necessary to connect the representations with the economic harm claimed, and in others individual proof is necessary to show that any injury was proximately caused by the misrepresentation made by a defendant.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., has sent a letter to the President calling for the resignation of the current head of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, and criticizing the agency for its response to reports of Chinese-made tainted drywall installed in U.S. homes.

In a letter addressed to President Obama earlier this month, the senator targeted the CPSC for failing to do enough, in his view, to halt the import of the drywall. Readers will recall that residents claim this product emits a sulfur smell, poses health risks, and also causes electrical problems.

Nelson asserted that the "agency is doing too little, too late to help residents of Florida and other states who are reporting serious health and safety problems associated with living in homes built with tainted drywall imported from China.”  The CPSC reports that it has launched a formal compliance investigation to determine any risk associated with the sulfur-based gases that may be emitted from the imported drywall

Nelson is also a sponsor of the Drywall Safety Act of 2009, which seeks to impose a recall and a temporary ban on imports until federal drywall safety standards are put in place to protect consumers. The legislation also calls for the CPSC to perform a study with the EPA to determine the level of risk posed by the substances in the drywall.

Products litigation has ensued, including a proposed class action was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. According to that suit, a shortage of drywall made in the U.S. caused many builders to use imported Chinese drywall during Florida's pre-recession construction boom earlier this decade. There has also been speculation that some of that drywall may have been kept at sea waiting to enter U.S. ports, and was thus exposed to excessive moisture/humidity that caused the alleged fume problems. Such claims are typically inappropriate for class certification because of the individual issues that will be presented by evidence surrounding injury and causation. And at least one U.S. home builder has sued more than two dozen manufacturers, suppliers and installers of drywall imported from China.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Judge Engelhardt of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, overseeing the MDL relating to the alleged formaldehyde contamination of FEMA trailers used in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, has chosen a lawsuit by a New Orleans woman and her son to serve as the first bellwether case in this MDL. See In re: FEMA Trailer Formaldehyde Products Liability Litigation, MDL-1873 (E.D. La.).  Plaintiffs generally allege that trailers issued by the government following Hurricane Katrina exposed residents to high levels of the chemical formaldehyde.

The court had ordered the parties to submit the names of no less than 50 potential bellwether trial plaintiffs. From these names, one plaintiff for each of four bellwether jury trials was to  be selected. The manufacturer defendants for these four trials had to be the four estimated to have the most emergency housing units at issue in this proceeding. (These four manufacturers are Gulf Stream, Fleetwood, Forest River, and Keystone RV.)  Only plaintiffs who have identified and sued one of the four manufacturers, the relevant contractor, and the Government, were eligible to serve as bellwether trial plaintiffs. In addition, the bellwether plaintiffs must be selected from those plaintiffs for whom Plaintiff Fact Sheets already have been obtained and provided to the defendants. In addition, actions chosen for bellwether trials must have proper venue in the Eastern District of Louisiana, unless the parties in question consent to trial in this district.  The court, from that list, selected the case brought by Alana Alexander and Christopher Cooper against Gulf Stream Coach Inc. to be the first that will be tried in federal court. The trial is set for Sept. 14, with three other cases against the other different defendants scheduled to follow as the court approached the hundreds of suits through a series of bellwether trials.

Readers will recall that last December, the court properly refused to grant class certification to the six proposed subclasses of plaintiffs, finding they did not meet the standards required for class certification under Rule 23. The plaintiffs had sought certification of four state subclasses of individuals who resided in trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama and Mississippi following hurricanes Katrina and Rita, as well as a future medical monitoring subclass, and an economic loss subclass.

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated a number of suits against the
government and a handful of trailer manufacturers over the alleged formaldehyde exposure
in October 2007, despite defendants’ objections. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  released in 2008 the results of a study which it commissioned concerning formaldehyde levels in mobile homes provided to residents of the Gulf Coast affected by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  CDC has been working with FEMA and other agencies to investigate possible levels of formaldehyde in the trailers and mobile homes.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Two thousand Central American banana farm workers suing over their alleged exposure to a pesticide were permitted split up their suits to avoid federal court jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act.  See Vanegas v. Dole Food Co., 2009 WL 690198 (C.D. Cal. 3/9/09).  The opinion allowed the plaintiffs to craft their suits against the Dole Food Co., Dow Chemical Co., and other defendants, so that they each have no more than 100 plaintiffs and avoid CAFA's mass action reach.

Plaintiffs allege that they were injured by exposure to 1, 2-Dibromo-3-chloropropane (“DBCP”), a toxic chemical sold under the brand names “Nemagon” and “Fumazone.” Plaintiffs allege that defendants manufactured, marketed, and distributed DBCP. Plaintiffs further allege that they were exposed to DBCP as a consequence of working on banana plantations in Costa Rica, Panama, Honduras, and Guatemala, owned or operated by defendants.

Plaintiffs were divided, alphabetically and by country, into 30 cookie cutter cases such that each case has less than 100 plaintiffs; they alleged claims for (1) products liability-negligence; (2) strict products liability; (3) products liability-defect in design, manufacture, and chemical composition; (4) products liability-breach of warranty; (5) fraudulent management; (6) intentional misrepresentation; (7) fraud by concealment; (8) general negligence; and (9) conspiracy.

Defendants removed, and plaintiffs sought remand. Plaintiffs argued that this case is not a “mass action” pursuant to the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, 28 U.S .C. §§ 1332(d) and 1453, because their complaint s each contain less than 100 plaintiffs. Defendant responded that plaintiffs may not “gerry-mander their lawsuit to circumvent CAFA,” citing Freeman v. Blue Ridge Paper Products, Inc., 551 F.3d 405, 2008 WL 5396249, at *1 (6th Cir. Dec.29, 2008); Proffitt v. Abbott Laboratories, 2008 WL 4401367, at *5 (E.D.Tenn. Sept.23, 2008)). Defendants argued that plaintiffs cannot artificially splinter their actions to avoid jurisdictional thresholds.

The district court remanded, holding that the removal statute is to be “strictly construed against removal jurisdiction and any doubt must be resolved in favor of remand,” citing Hofler v. Aetna U.S. Healthcare of California, Inc., 296 F.3d 764, 767 (9th Cir.2002). These actions do not constitute “mass actions” under CAFA, said the court, because each of these actions has been brought by less than 100 plaintiffs. Tanoh v. AMVAC Chemical Corp., 2008 WL 4691004, at *5 (C.D.Cal. Oct.21, 2008). Nothing in CAFA suggests that plaintiffs, as masters of their complaint, may not “file multiple actions, each with fewer than 100 plaintiffs, to work within the confines of CAFA to keep their state-law claims in state court.” Tanoh, 2008 WL 4691004 at *5.

The court distinguished Freeman, saying the Sixth Circuit limited its ruling to one type of claim splitting. “In Freeman, the plaintiffs divided their suit into five separate suits with identical parties and claims, each covering distinct, sequential six-month time periods,” the court said. “By contrast, each of the cases at issue here involves distinct plaintiffs. Moreover, the Sixth Circuit explicitly noted that its holding is limited to the situation where there is “no colorable basis for dividing up the sought-for retrospective relief into separate time periods, other than to frustrate CAFA.”
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

An interesting snapshot of mass torts and product liability actions in the federal courts is found in the annual report, "Judicial Business of the United States Courts: 2008 Annual Report of the Director."  This report is produced by the Statistics Division, Office of Judges Programs, Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts The latest report shows that a surge in asbestos cases drove a significant rise in new federal personal injury and product liability litigation.

Overall, civil filings increased 4 percent in 2008 to 267,257, and the national pending civil caseload climbed 12 percent to 298,129, the report said.  The rise in diversity of citizenship filings resulted chiefly from personal injury cases related to asbestos, especially in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and diet drugs in the Eastern District of Arkansas. According to court officials, asbestos filings under MDL 875 and diet drug filings under MDL 1203 caused filings to swell by more than 19,500 cases. About 99,000 asbestos-related cases containing at least 3.3 million claims are pending in the MDL in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. (In the Arkansas Prempro MDL, which consists of thousands of cases, the judge has ordered the plaintiffs to complete discovery involving defendants Pfizer Inc. and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Inc. by Sept. 1 , 2009) .

In the 2007 reporting period, a total of 29,291 product liability cases were commenced in federal courts, and in the same period ending in 2008, that number jumped to 53,102, based largely on the surge in asbestos-related filings .

The United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation acted upon 35,987 civil actions pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §1407 during the 12-month period ending September 30, 2008. The Panel transferred 8,156 cases originally filed in 92 district courts to 52 transferee districts for inclusion in coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings with 27,831 actions initiated in the transferee districts. Product liability cases involving the hormone therapy drug Prempro and the Kugel Mesh Hernia Patch were among the more significant of the Panel's transfer determinations during the report period. The Panel did not order transfer in 25 newly docketed litigations involving 150 actions.

Since the creation of the Panel in 1968, it has centralized 301,255 civil actions for pretrial proceedings. As of September 30, 2008, a total of 11,665 actions had been remanded for trial, 395 actions had been reassigned within the transferee district, and 186,747 actions had been terminated in the transferee court. At the end of this fiscal year, 102,448 actions were pending throughout 60 transferee district courts.

The federal judiciary calls the report the most comprehensive set of detailed statistical tables published on its work.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

When one thinks of global mass tort issues, questions of actions by European citizens in U.S. courts or the spate of class actions in Canada may come to mind. Perhaps we will need a broader perspective, as the courts in China have reportedly given the green light to suits arising out of the distribution of tainted dairy products. We have posted on this issue before, within the larger context of product issues arising from goods made in China.

The move signals an apparent change in the way Beijing is handling fallout from the melamine scandal, which was implicate din the death of at least six infants and sickening of nearly 300,000 others with kidney problems. A government-sanctioned compensation plan had been proposed to resolve the issues, but a large number of families have refused government compensation because it is too small, electing instead to try to sue. Under the payout plan organized by the dairies, families whose children died would have received 200,000 yuan ($29,000), while others received 30,000 yuan ($4,380) for serious cases of kidney stones and 2,000 yuan ($290) for less severe cases.

Plaintiffs needed government permission to bring suit, and it remains unclear how the government plans to handle the cases. Chinese courts often turn down class-action or group action suits, preferring to deal with cases one by one to avoid running afoul of Communist Party officials, who ultimately control the judiciary.

The crisis highlighted the need for major overhauls to China's food safety system, culminating in a law passed recently that proposes to consolidate hundreds of regulations covering the country's 500,000 food processing companies.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

While asbestos may be regarded as the grandfather of mass torts, Agent Orange is not far behind in longevity. In the latest chapter, the U.S. Supreme Court last week declined to review three court orders dismissing damages claims against manufacturers of Agent Orange; plaintiffs had alleged that exposure to defoliants during the Vietnam War caused cancer and other illnesses. See Isaacson v. Dow Chemical Co., U.S., No. 08-460, 3/2/09; Stephenson v. Dow Chemical Co., U.S., No. 08-461, 3/2/09; Vietnam Ass'n for Victims of Agent Orange v. Dow Chemical Co., U.S., No. 08-470, 3/2/09.

The denial of cert leaves intact three decisions last year by the Second Circuit in favor of Dow Chemical, Monsanto Co., and other defendant companies . See Isaacson v. Dow Chemical Co., 517 F.3d 129 (2d Cir. 2008); Stephenson v. Dow Chemical Co., 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 6201 (2d Cir. 2008); Vietnam Ass'n for Victims of Agent Orange v. Dow Chemical Co., 517 F.3d 104 (2d Cir. 2008). The Second Circuit rulings largely relied on the government contractor defense to protect the government and wartime contractors from being sued civilly for their federal executive function activities. The government contractor defense in essence prevents plaintiffs from doing an end run around a statute that prohibits them from suing federal officials directly. The government contractor defense shields companies from liability if they rely on government specifications, accurately follow those specifications, and inform the government about any problems with the product the government doesn’t know about. Here, the government continued to order Agent Orange and declared its toxicity levels acceptable, the Second Circuit found.

A major settlement was reached in the Agent Orange cases filed decades ago, but another later round of suits was filed by people who alleged they became ill after 1994 as the result of Agent Orange exposure. Defendants, no doubt, are hopeful that this will be the end of the Agent Orange litigation.

In the third case, the claims brought by Vietnamese nationals under the Alien Tort Statute alleged that the spraying of herbicides in South Vietnam between 1962 and 1970 was a violation of international law. The Second Circuit dismissed the appeal by the Vietnamese nationals, finding that because the toxin was used to protect U.S. troops against ambush, and not as a weapon of war against human populations, the plaintiffs had failed to adequately plead a violation of international law. In addition, the court concluded that any domestic tort law claims by Vietnamese citizens were barred by the government contractor defense.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Ontario Court of Justice earlier this month certified a class action against Dell Canada Inc. for alleged damage caused to about 120,000 individuals, corporations, and government agencies by allegedly defective notebook computers. See Griffin v. Dell Canada Inc., Ontario Superior Court of Justice, No. 07-CV-325223D2 (2/3/09). Here at MassTortDefense, we have posted about just how difficult Canada is becoming as a jurisdiction for class actions defendants. Frequently, identical consumer products, drugs, and medical devices are marketed in Canada as well as the U.S.

The court concluded that a class action was the preferred option to address the issues, that it was “fanciful” to think that any claimant could pursue an individual claim in a complex products liability case, and rejected Dell's arguments that an arbitration clause in its terms and conditions of sale precluded direct litigation by its customers.

The court minimized the importance under the Class Proceedings Act of plaintiffs’ obligation to produce a workable litigation plan. Such a plan is necessary to help the court decide whether a class action is the preferable procedure, and whether the litigation is manageable. The more complex the litigation, the more detailed a plan is needed that indicates how to manage the litigation. The court ruled, however, that the plaintiff is not required to show that there is a fair, efficient, and manageable method of resolving the claim, but only that there is a fair, efficient, and manageable method for advancing the claim. Order at para. 95. Who cares about theoretical advancement if the claim cannot efficiently be resolved?  A class proceeding in this case achieved this lesser goal and met the objective of judicial economy, even though plaintiff’s plan provided no detail of the resources the class law firm has to administer a claims process of this dimension to ensure that the interests of class members are protected, and there was no analysis of the resources that will be required to litigate the class members' claims to conclusion. Nevertheless, the court went ahead and certified the action conditionally, subject to the plaintiffs producing an acceptable litigation plan. Order at para. 102.

The court rejected Dell Canada’s argument that the significant individual issues involved in each of the potential claims far outweigh the common issues, as merely a “familiar refrain.” Order at para. 90.  Perhaps it is familiar because it is frequently true? The court concluded that the trial judge will be able to fashion efficient and fair trial plan procedures using the extensive powers and discretion conferred on the court by Sec. 25 of Ontario's Class Proceedings Act. The prospect of individualized mini-trials on whether, and to what extent, other factors contributed to the computer failures did not deter the certification. Nor did potentially difficult issues of causation and damages. Order at para. 90.

Dell did not propose that consumers undertake individual lawsuits, but argued that adjudication through arbitration administered by the National Arbitration Forum, as specified in Dell's terms and conditions of sale, was preferable to a class action. The court found, however, that arbitration was not the kind of process that would be easy for class members to navigate without legal representation. The multitude of individual issues that Dell says precludes class treatment would also lead to more complex and therefore more costly arbitration hearings, said the court. Order at para. 92-93.

“On the other hand, aggregating similar individual actions in a class proceeding avoids unnecessary duplication of fact-finding and analysis, and distributes fixed litigation costs among class members, making it economical to prosecute this claim, thereby improving access to justice.” Order at para. 93.
.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A putative class of Florida homeowners recently filed suit against a company that manufactured drywall in China, alleging the material used in their homes emits sulfur compounds that damaged heating and electrical wiring, and created health risks. See Allen v. Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin, No. 09-CV-54-FtM-99 DNF (M.D. Fla., complaint filed 1/30/09). This is just the latest potentially significant suit arising over products made in China. Plaintiffs allege that defendants manufactured drywall that contained fly ash from Chinese coal-fired power plants, causing the product to emit sulfur compounds that create odor and corrode copper in air conditioning units and wiring in homes. At least one home builder has also brought claims over the drywall issues.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys claim that as much as 10 million square feet of such drywall was used in Florida homes due to shortages of American-made drywall between 2004 and 2006. The complaint asserted causes of action including negligence and negligence per se, strict liability, breach of express and implied warranties, fraudulent misrepresentation, and violation of Florida's deceptive and unfair trade practices act. Defendants dispute the allegations and note that any low levels of sulfur compounds present in the air in homes are not a health risk

Regardless of the merits of the case, and clearly such claims are typically inappropriate for class certification because of the individual issues that will be presented by evidence surrounding injury and causation, there is a growing volume of cases over alleged defects in products made in China. Such litigation can also raise insurance coverage disputes. Coverage litigation has erupted concerning the recent heparin drug contamination allegations, for example. What importers tell their insurers about their source of supply; whether subsidiaries are covered; whether importers here are in de facto joint ventures with Chinese suppliers; and similar questions may be front and center in coverage disputes when this type of products litigation hits. Insurance companies seem to be increasingly playing the card that insureds needed to disclose the details of their manufacturing suppliers. The recent China dairy product scandal may have insurers arguing that product defects are the result of intentional, criminal behavior, rather than negligence.

With the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 seeking to place importers on the hook for defects, U.S. companies may be in the market for more coverage. At the same time, Chinese exporters have not felt the need to buy insurance as they feel judgment-proof in U.S. courts. However, importers may want to consider requiring their suppliers to purchase such insurance as part of the bargaining.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal court has issued an opinion on an important aspect of the Class Action Fairness Act, namely whether the denial of class action status deprives a federal court of jurisdiction under the Act. In Kitts v. Citgo Petroleum Corp., 2009 WL 192550 (W.D. La., 1/23/09), the district court declined to remand to state court a personal injury action stemming from an oil spill. Although some district courts have held that post-removal events such as class certification denial can render the court without subject matter jurisdiction under CAFA, the Western District of Louisiana held that the better approach is to retain jurisdiction.

On June 15, 2007, plaintiffs filed a putative class action suit in state court in Louisiana, claiming damages resulting from a 2006 oil spill alleged to have occurred from a facility owned and operated by defendant. Plaintiffs' complaint alleged they suffered injuries from this spill, respiratory problems and illnesses, sinus damage, difficulty breathing, and burning of the throat and nasal passages. Defendant removed, based on CAFA. The federal district court later denied class certification. Plaintiffs then filed a Motion to Remand alleging that remand to state court was appropriate because the refusal to certify this matter as a class action divested the court of subject matter jurisdiction.

The court, however, found compelling the reasoning of those cases finding jurisdiction continues to exist even after denial of the class action. Particularly appropriate was the conclusion reached by the Southern District of Florida in Colomar v. Mercy Hospital, Inc., 2007 WL 2083562, *3 (S.D.Fla.07/20/2007). In support of its denial of a Motion to Remand filed in a case properly removed under CAFA, but after the minimally diverse defendant was dismissed and class certification was denied, the Florida district court stated that the courts considering the issue of whether a federal court retains jurisdiction after class certification is denied have concluded that case developments subsequent to removal do not alter the courts' CAFA jurisdiction, if jurisdiction was proper at the time of removal.

The court quoted from the CAFA legislative history, the Senate Report stating that “once a complaint is properly removed to federal court, the federal court's jurisdiction cannot be ousted by later events.... If a federal court's jurisdiction could be ousted by events occurring after a case was removed, plaintiffs who believed the tide was turning against them could simply always amend their complaint months (or even years) into the litigation to require remand to state court.... [I]f subsequent events could unravel a federal court's jurisdiction, a defendant could prevail on the merits, only to have the federal court conclude that it lacks jurisdiction to enter judgment."  S. Rep. 109-14, 109th Cong., 1st Sess.2005, reprinted in 2005 U.S.C.CA.N. 3, *70-71, *66-67.

Here, the court said that to litigate the case up to the eve of trial, and then to seek remand after adverse rulings have issued and summary judgment is briefed, equates to a forum shopping. Plaintiffs admitted that this matter was properly removed under CAFA. Plaintiffs' efforts to unravel jurisdiction on the eve of trial was forum shopping which the traditional rules of removal and remand are designed to preclude.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal district court recently denied defendant’s motion to dismiss in a putative class action under California's Unfair Competition Law alleging that defendant engaged in misleading conduct by advertising its “Healthy Choice” pasta sauce as “all natural” even though it includes some “high fructose corn syrup.” Lockwood v. Conagra Foods, Inc., 2009 WL 250459 (N.D.Cal. Feb. 3, 2009).

Defendant moved to dismiss on several grounds: arguing plaintiffs' claims were expressly preempted by the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act; were impliedly preempted by comprehensive FDA regulations under the Federal Food and Drug Cosmetic Act; that the court should defer to the FDA under the “primary jurisdiction” doctrine. Finally, defendants asserted that the court should strike the class allegations because plaintiffs cannot prove reliance on a class-wide basis.

Regarding the field preemption argument, the court noted that the purpose of the NLEA was to clarify and to strengthen FDA's authority to require nutrition labeling on foods, and to establish the circumstances under which claims may be made about the nutrients in foods. Under the Act, states may impose labeling requirements for artificial favors, colors or preservatives only if such requirements are identical to those imposed by the FDCA; any differences are preempted. But, the court held, this provision does not apply to plaintiffs' complaint as currently pled. Plaintiffs did not allege that defendant's pasta sauce contains artificial flavoring, coloring or a chemical preservative; rather, they allege that the “high fructose corn syrup” is not produced by a natural process and therefore the pasta sauce is not “all natural.”  One wonders why the claims of not all "natural" due to the use of an "artificial" flavor isn't squarely in that ballpark.

Turing to implied field preemption, the court noted that NLEA's provisions suggest Congress did not intend to occupy the field of food and beverage labeling. The FDA's policy as to the word “natural” similarly suggested an intent not to occupy the field of food labeling. Under the policy, the agency has considered natural to mean merely that nothing artificial or synthetic (including colors regardless of source) is included in, or has been added to, the product that would not normally be there. Although the FDA acknowledges that some consumers may be misled by the use of the term “natural,” it has declined to adopt any regulations governing this term. This inaction is consistent with an intent not to occupy the field. This is especially so given that at the time the FDA declined to formally define “natural” it was aware of and had reviewed state regulation of the use of the term, yet it made no mention of the need for uniformity or a preemptive federal regulation.

On conflict preemption, the court found that the defendant had not proved as a matter of law that plaintiffs' claims, if successful, make compliance with federal law a physical impossibility. A manufacturer could comply, that is, not violate, the FDA's policy as to use of the term “natural” and still comply with state law as articulated by plaintiffs in this case, thought the court. Nor does California law stand as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the objectives of the FDCA. Again, it seems questionable that this type of claim wouldn't risk imposing labeling requirements for "artificial" favors, directly in contrast to federal regulations.

Regarding primary jurisdiction, the court found application of the doctrine was not appropriate here. At a minimum, various parties have repeatedly asked the FDA to adopt formal rulemaking to define the word natural and the FDA has declined to do so because it is not a priority and the FDA has limited resources. Moreover, the court did not feel this was a technical area in which the FDA has greater technical expertise than the courts. Finally, plaintiffs' claims were based on state law and, thus, federal law would not dispose of plaintiffs' state law claims.

Finally, the court declined to strike the class allegations at this juncture, finding that if a misrepresentation is material an inference of class-wide reliance may be inferred under the California law. MassTortDefense has posted about the growing trend of plaintiffs to use consumer fraud act claims in place of traditional product theories. Plaintiffs continue to believe that claims based on unfair and deceptive trade practices acts are somehow easier to certify as class actions because of differing notions of reliance and causation.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently agreed to hear Eli Lilly’s appeal of a federal district court's orders granting class certification and denying summary judgment in litigation over its anti-psychotic medication, Zyprexa. See In re Zyprexa Products Liability Litigation, 08-4685-mv (2d Cir. 1/15/09).

Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the the Eastern District of New York had granted class certification last fall to a group of third-party payers, including insurance companies, who were suing Eli Lilly for alleged overpayment after the company allegedly exaggerated the benefits of the drug and supposedly failed to disclose certain side effects. The 2d Circuit has now granted the 23(f) motion for leave to appeal.

Readers of MassTortDefense may recall that the 2d Circuit just last year in McLaughlin v. American Tobacco Co., 522 F.3d 215 (2d Cir. 2008), overruled Judge Weinstein's certification of a class of “light” cigarette smokers, finding that individualized issues regarding reliance, loss causation, damages and injury all precluded a finding that common issues predominated over individualized ones as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3). The Zyprexa class claim was brought under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. § 1964, as plaintiffs seek to take advantage of their reading of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bridge v. Phoenix Bond & Indemnity Co., 128 S. Ct. 2131 (2008), regarding reliance in a RICO fraud claim.

In certifying the class in Zyprexa, Judge Weinstein applied his take on the reasoning in Bridge, finding that third-party payers had colorable claims based on the allegedly fraudulent statements made to and relied upon by doctors who prescribed the drugs (not parties). As warned of in our post here last year, the Supreme Court had appeared to reject the defense argument that the proximate cause requirement inherent in the “by reason of” language of the RICO statute demands that a civil RICO plaintiff asserting a claim based on fraud establish his reliance on a misrepresentation by the defendant. In the context of a civil RICO claim predicated on fraud, the required causal link demands a showing that the plaintiff relied on an alleged misrepresentation made to the plaintiff by the defendant. Otherwise, the causal relationship between the alleged injury and the alleged fraud is too attenuated.

The Court appeared to reject petitioners' arguments that under the “common-law meaning” rule, Congress should be presumed to have made reliance an element of a civil RICO claim predicated on a violation of the mail fraud statute. And rejected the argument that a plaintiff bringing a RICO claim based on mail fraud must show reliance on the defendant's misrepresentations in order to establish proximate cause. The Court felt it had no ability to respond to the policy argument that RICO should be interpreted to require first-party reliance for fraud-based claims in order to avoid the “overfederalization” of traditional state law claims. A RICO plaintiff who alleges injury by reason of a pattern of mail fraud cannot prevail without showing that someone relied on the defendant's misrepresentations. But that does not mean, under one reading of Bridge, that the only injuries proximately caused by the misrepresentation are those suffered by the recipient.

The Court’s decision on reliance was based on statutory interpretation, rather than logic or common sense. We predicted that the absence of a clear reliance requirement may in fact make this type of claim even more popular with mass tort plaintiffs. And we are seeing its potential effect on class certification decisions in some district courts.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Sixth Circuit has affirmed the dismissal of claims that a child contracted mesothelioma from exposure to his father's asbestos-laden clothes, finding no evidence that such a “bystander” injury was foreseeable at the time of the alleged exposure. Martin v. Cincinnati Gas and Electric Co., 2009 WL 188051 (6th Cir. 1/27/09).

Claims were brought against the father's old utility company employer and a company that allegedly manufactured asbestos-fireproofing for the utility. The claims were based on asbestos that Martin's father allegedly brought home on his work clothes while working for the utility, CG & E. The district court granted summary judgment for defendants because neither had a legal duty to the plaintiff.

Under applicable Kentucky law, as in most jurisdictions, duty presents a question of law for the judge to decide. Typically, there is a universal duty of care which requires every person to exercise ordinary care in his activities to prevent foreseeable injury. The most important factor in determining whether a duty exists is foreseeability. And foreseeability, in turn, is determined based on what the defendant knew or should have known at the time of the alleged negligence. There was no evidence that either defendant had actual knowledge of the danger of bystander exposure, so the question is whether they should have known: that is, was such a risk foreseeable to them based on “common knowledge at the time and in the community?”

Plaintiff’s expert report did not indicate that the risk was knowable, but in any event, it is insufficient that the danger was merely knowable: the knowledge has to have been available to the defendant. There was an insufficient showing of any general knowledge of bystander exposure in the industry. Plaintiff's expert report concedes that the first studies of bystander exposure were not published until 1965. (Martin's father's exposure to asbestos materials stopped in 1963).

The court rejected the plaintiff’s reliance on several cases from other states where bystander asbestos exposure liability has been upheld; the Sixth Circuit agreed with a number of other cases in which courts have found no duty for secondary asbestos exposure. E.g., CSX Transp. Inc. v. Williams, 608 S.E.2d 208, 210 (Ga. 2005); Adams v. Owens-Illinois Inc., 705 A.2d 58, 66 (Md. Ct. App. 1998); In re Certified Question from Fourteenth Dist. Ct. of Appeals of Tex., 740 N.W.2d at 218-20; In re New York City Asbestos Litig., 840 N.E.2d 115, 121 (N.Y. 2005); and Alcoa Inc. v. Behringer, 235 S.W.3d 456, 462 (Tex. Ct. App. 2007).
 

Summary judgment affirmed.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has affirmed the district court's denial of class action status in litigation arising from a 2002 incident in which a Norfolk Southern train derailed, causing a chemical spill.  See Turnage v. Norfolk Southern Corp., No. 07-6033,  2009 WL 140479 (6th Cir. 2009).

While so much of the focus in class actions is on Rule 23 (b) provisions, the court found that plaintiffs had not demonstrated that the number of people allegedly harmed by the spill, but not already fully compensated, was so numerous as to make joinder impractical. While this 23(a)requirement is commonly referred to as a “numerosity” requirement, the real issue is whether the plaintiff seeking class certification has demonstrated impracticability of joinder.

The incident had led to a mandatory evacuation of homes within a 1 mile radius of the site, and a voluntary evacuation of those within a 3 mile radius.  Nevertheless, the class definition, and the number of putative class members, was a moving target throughout the litigation.

The proximity of class members to each other, and the discrete and obvious nature of the alleged harm, made identifying class members easy.  And made joinder easier too. So, while some courts find the proximity of class members a factor in favor of certification under Rule 23 (b), the 6th Circuit noted the opposite effect on the 23(a) factor.

After the incident, the defendant had set up claim centers and reimbursed a vast majority of households within the 1 mile radius for out-of-pocket expenses related to food, clothing, and lodging. Plaintiffs made an insufficient showing that the residents included in their numbers suffered actual damage. Plaintiffs failed to show how many of the 15,000 supposedly uncompensated residents actually evacuated. The excludable group includes those who were out of town during the evacuation, those in the voluntary zone who chose not to evacuate and whose daily routines were little disturbed, and those who were able to relocate temporarily to other quarters with little inconvenience or expense.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

An interesting little case: a personal injury class gets certified, defendant stipulates to key elements of liability, and defendant wins the trial anyway.

The Louisiana appeals court has affirmed a lower court ruling in favor of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. in a case involving an accidental chemical release at a DuPont facility in Reserve, Louisiana. See Johnson v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 2009 WL 91481 (La.App. 5 Cir. 2009).

The named plaintiffs filed a class action petition in 1994, alleging they were injured by the release of toxic chemicals at a DuPont facility after a small chemical accident. The trial court certified the matter as a class action in September, 1997. DuPont stipulated to certain elements of liability in 2000, but reserved their right to trial on damages, causation, the nature of the chemicals released, and the area affected. The plaintiffs apparently agreed to waive all claims for punitive damages in the stipulation.

At a bench trial in 2006, the trial court ruled in favor of DuPont, finding that the plaintiffs had not met their burden on causation. The plaintiffs failed to show exposure to harmful levels of chemicals, and to show that plaintiffs' injuries were caused by the chemical explosion.

The Louisiana Court of Appeal has agreed, saying that plaintiffs' sole medical expert did not establish that the plaintiffs' injuries— nausea, eye and skin irritation, coughing, and headaches—were caused by the chemical release. Plaintiff’s expert treated the plaintiffs at the time of their alleged injury and had diagnosed them with “fume inhalation,” but based entirely on the history provided by the plaintiffs.

The court also rejected plaintiffs’ challenge to the testimony of a DuPont witness about plaintiffs' alleged injuries, because such testimony was about his observations of plaintiffs' alleged injuries, not testimony as a medical expert. Although he was closer to the incident than plaintiffs, he did not hear any explosion, did not smell anything, and did not experience nausea, headaches, eye irritation, or other symptoms.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

As posted by MassTortDefense, the Digitek MDL judge late in 2008 issued a pretrial order regarding multi-plaintiff complaints. In Pretrial Order No. 7, the court ordered the severance of most multi-plaintiff cases (other than spouses). In Re: Digitek Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 1968 (S.D. W.Va.). The court noted that several complaints in this MDL action join multiple plaintiffs whose only apparent connection with one another is that they allegedly ingested the drug at issue. Other MDL judges have noted the case management, tracking, and other difficulties often accompanying that joinder practice, citing Vioxx and diet drugs.

Plaintiffs’ Co-Lead Counsel were to submit to the court a report identifying multi-plaintiff actions docketed prior to this Order that are subject to severance, and submit a suitable proposed severance order. One of the reasons plaintiffs resist such severance is the need to pay separate filing fees for all the separate claims filed, but the Order required the fees.

The plaintiffs in the Digitek multidistrict litigation then identified five class actions that they say meet the court's requirements for severance under Pretrial Order No. 7. The plaintiffs said that the five cases they identified have multiple class representatives, but  -- despite the order -- they propose that they be continued with multiple class representatives until "class certification issues are addressed and determined by the Court to ascertain suitability and typicality of the class representatives' claims."  These kinds of personal injury claims are typically inappropriate for class treatment.  Individual issues of causation, injury, and damages predominate over any alleged common issues.  Choice of law issues can make the class device unmanageable.

MassTortDefense also posted before about defendants' proposal to centralize the cases filed in New Jersey, and plaintiffs' proposal to designate the New Jersey cases as a mass tort.

New Jersey state court Digitek cases have now been designated a mass tort by a New Jersey Supreme Court Order, and have been assigned to the Bergen County Superior Court. The centralized mass tort docket has been assigned to Judge Jonathan N. Harris.

The state’s mass tort website states that Digitek is a medication used to treat heart failure and abnormal heart rhythm. The NJ complaints seek damages, medical monitoring and other relief due to the purchase or ingestion of allegedly defective Digitek tablets which the plaintiffs claim were released with as much as twice the appropriate thickness. The complaints further allege that patients were thus taking twice the intended dosage. A Class I recall was initiated by the defendants after receiving some reports of illness and injuries consistent with potential overdoses of Digitek. It is alleged that this condition is dangerous especially among individuals suffering from renal failure because the Digitek may accumulate in the body of such individuals, rather than be excreted normally in urine. 

The pattern of federal case MDL and mass tort treatment of multiple filings in a given state's court has been seen in numerous other pharmaceutical cases, including Vioxx and Seroquel.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The U.S. Supreme Court has denied General Motor's cert petition seeking review of the Arkansas Supreme Court's affirmation of a nationwide class of owners of pickup trucks and sports utility vehicles with allegedly defectively designed parking brakes. General. Motors Corp. v. Bryant, U.S., No. 08-349, certiorari denied 1/12/09.

GM filed the petition after the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled, in June, 2008, that an Arkansas circuit court was not required to conduct a choice-of-law analysis before certifying a multi-state class action.

Last June, we called this a “disturbing” opinion. General Motors had noted that the significant variations among the fifty-one pertinent product defect laws should defeat predominance. [Most courts have accepted this notion.] But the trial court provided four reasons for its finding that the potential application of multiple states’ law did not create predominance concerns. First, the court noted that, unlike the federal rule which requires a rigorous analysis of class certification factors including the impact state law variations may have on predominance, no such rigorous analysis is required in Arkansas. Second, the potential application of many states’ laws was not germane to class certification, but was instead a task for the trial court to undertake later in the course of exercising its autonomy and substantial powers to manage the class action. Third, the trial court found that assessing choice of law was a merits-intensive determination and thus inappropriate at the certification stage. “It would be premature for the Court, at this stage in the case, to make the call on choice of law.” Fourth, if application of multiple states’ laws was eventually required, and it proved too cumbersome or problematic, the circuit court could always consider decertifying the class. The state supreme court agreed.

MassTortDefense would suggest that most courts and commentators do not equate a choice of law analysis with an impermissible examination of the merits of the plaintiffs’ claims. Choice of law is a threshold question that ultimately permits a court to reach the merits of the dispute by establishing the governing legal rules. The selection of the proper law cannot fairly be termed a “merits-intensive determination.”  Moreover, the trial court need not make any determination about the merits of the causes of actions alleged in order to assess, based on relevant contacts, which state’s law ought to apply to those claims. Nor does the trial court even have to “make the final call” on what law will apply to each and every claim by every class member. It is sufficient for class certification for the trial court to discover that the law of many other states will likely have to be applied to many class members’ claims, and factor that into superiority and manageability of the proposed class.

The repeated references to the trial court’s ability to later decertify the class smacks of the improper, rejected, concept of conditional certification – a practice that has been soundly rejected in recent years by state and federal courts and is now prohibited under both the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure and the federal rules on which they are modeled. After considerable time and effort is expended, courts are reluctant to decertify. Here, for example, GM presented the court with a thorough analysis of conflicts of laws regarding the state-law fraud claims, breach of warranty, applicable statutes of limitations, and unjust enrichment. It seems unlikely that the trial court (after its certification was affirmed) will ever seriously revisit this issue in the context of a new predominance determination. If the Arkansas court’s approach were correct, class certification would be a meaningless exercise since courts would not address the most difficult and important class certification-related questions – i.e., whether a class trial is fair or feasible – until long after certification. 

Perhaps it is not surprising that the Supreme Court would decline to weigh in on a state procedural law issue, particularly one billed by respondents as a preliminary determination, but a shame that resources will be wasted on a clearly inappropriate class action.  And let's not forget the "blackmail settlement" pressure that these types of cases create.  Castano v. American Tobacco Co., 84 F.3d 734, 746 (5th Cir. 1996); In re Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, Inc., 51 F.3d 1293, 1298-99 (7th Cir.1995); Bruce L. Hay & David Rosenberg, “ ‘Sweetheart’ and ‘Blackmail’ Settlements in Class Actions,” 75 Notre Dame L.Rev. 1377, 1389-92 (2000).
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A couple months ago, MassTortDefense posted about a decision in which the federal court in West Virginia denied class certification in a claim brought against DuPont for the alleged release of perfluoroctanoic acid, a substance also known as PFOA or C-8, from its Washington Works plant in Wood County, West Virginia, into drinking water. See Rhodes v. E.I. DuPont De Nemours and Co., 2008 WL 4414720 (S.D. W.Va., September 30, 2008). Plaintiffs are appealing that.

Now, the federal district court in New Jersey has similarly rejected class certification in two consolidated suits in which state residents argued that DuPont should pay for a medical monitoring program because their drinking water was allegedly contaminated with a Teflon-related chemical. See Rowe v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., D.N.J., No. 06-1810; Scott v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., D.N.J., No. 06-3080.

PFOA, also known as C-8, is made by DuPont for use in a variety of consumer products, including in non-stick cookware. Plaintiff sought medical monitoring to detect disease in the future they were allegedly put at risk for based on exposure to the chemical. But to recover medical monitoring costs, plaintiffs must show “significant exposure” to a chemical. Plaintiffs argued they had sufficient common proof of “significant exposure” to PFOA because tests revealed that the water supply around DuPont's Chambers Works Plant in New Jersey allegedly exceeded .04 parts per billion (ppb) for the substance, and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection recommended .04 ppb as the “safe” level of exposure. The plaintiffs also offered Dr. David Gray, a toxicologist, to testify that .02 ppb was actually the level at which negative health affects may start showing up in individuals.

The court first rejected any use of the settlement by DuPont of previous PFOA claims to show the existence of common issues. The other case was ultimately resolved through “voluntary settlement,” the court said. DuPont's statements cannot be considered admissions of liability, causation, or appropriate damages.

The court also rejected plaintiffs use of regulatory-based risk assessments. While they may be an appropriate way to determine for the public what health and environmental officials believe are “safe” levels of a chemical in drinking water, they are not themselves an adequate means of showing the kind of significant exposure to a substance that is required to support medical monitoring claims. There is a difference between a “safe” level for public policy and regulatory purposes and the “significant exposure” that creates the sufficiently excessive risk needed to trigger medical monitoring. “Such methodology does not work in the tort litigation context, where a plaintiff must prove that he has suffered an actual increased risk of disease in order to merit recovery in the form of medical monitoring.”

Also affecting their utility in the class context, the risk assessments are based on assumptions about the general population, and are thus not applicable to show class-wide significant exposure. Plaintiffs’ expert merely assumed that class members all weighed a certain amount and consumed a certain amount of allegedly contaminated water. Those assumptions are not necessarily true for all class members—indeed, they are undoubtedly false, as the class contained thousands of individuals who are different sizes and have different water consumption habits.

Importantly, given plaintiff’ counsel refrain about the cost of pre-complaint, pre-certification homework, and the frequent "we'll deal with that later" mentality, the court noted while it would take significant investigative efforts to obtain information specific to each individual in the proposed class, the difficulty of this task does not excuse plaintiffs from doing it. A class action is not intended to be an easy way around research problems. Plaintiffs have the burden of proving that each class member has suffered significant exposure to PFOA—they cannot circumvent this requirement by simply relying on assumptions about the general population.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Here's one to keep an eye out for: Wholesale Justice,Constitutional Democracy and the Problem of the Class Action Lawsuit by Martin H. Redish.  Coming in the Spring from Stanford Univ. Press.

In recent years, much political and legal debate has centered on the class action lawsuit. Many lawyers and judges have noted the intense pressure to settle caused by the very filing of a class suit. Some contend that the procedure amounts to a form of judicial blackmail. The risk is greater when the number of claims aggregated in the class action is so large great that an adverse verdict would push the defendant into bankruptcy, for then the defendant will be under great pressure to settle even if the merits of the case are slight. Castano v. American Tobacco Co., 84 F.3d 734, 746 (5th Cir. 1996); In re Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, Inc., 51 F.3d 1293, 1298-99 (7th Cir.1995); Bruce L. Hay & David Rosenberg, “ ‘Sweetheart’ and ‘Blackmail’ Settlements in Class Actions,” 75 Notre Dame L.Rev. 1377, 1389-92 (2000). Plaintiffs counter that it is an effective means of policing corporate behavior and assuring injured victims' fair compensation.

According to the previews, this book represents a scholarly effort to view the modern class action comprehensively through the lenses of American political and constitutional theory. Redish argues that the modern class action undermines foundational constitutional principles, including procedural due process and separation of powers. He also asserts that the class action has been improperly transformed from its origins as a complex procedural device into a means for altering the controlling substantive law in highly undemocratic ways.  This despite the admonitions of a number of courts that the procedural device of Rule 23 should not be allowed to expand the substance of the claims of class members. Broussard v. Meineke Discount Muffler Shops, Inc., 155 F.3d 331 (4th Cir. 1998); see Cummings v. Connell, 402 F.3d 936, 944 (9th Cir.2005)(“It is axiomatic that Rule 23 cannot ‘abridge, enlarge or modify any substantive right’ of any party to the litigation.”); Blaz v. Belfer, 368 F.3d 501, 504 (5th Cir.2004)(“A class action is merely a procedural device; it does not create new substantive rights.” (quoting Frazar v. Gilbert, 300 F.3d 530, 545 (5th Cir.2002)), rev'd on other grounds sub nom., Frew ex rel. Frew v. Hawkins, 540 U.S. 431, 124 S.Ct. 899, 157 L.Ed.2d 855 (2004)); Mace v. Van Ru Credit Corp., 109 F.3d 338, 346 (7th Cir.1997)(stating that “[t]he application of Rule 23 does not abridge, enlarge or modify any substantive right”); In re Baldwin-United Corp., 770 F.2d 328, 335 (2d Cir.1985)(stating that the federal class-action procedure set forth in Rule 23 “is a rule of procedure and creates no substantive rights or remedies enforceable in federal court”); Southwestern Refining Co. v. Bernal, 22 S.W.3d 425, 437 (Tex.2000) (holding that class action is procedural device which does not alter the substantive requirements of the underlying substantive claim); Winters v. Kan. Hosp. Serv. Ass'n, 1 Kan.App.2d 64, 562 P.2d 98, 101 (1977)(stating that Kansas' class-action statute “is a procedural statute” that “creates no substantive rights”).

Redish goes on to propose an alternative vision of the class action lawsuit, one that is designed to enable the device to serve its potentially  valuable procedural purposes in certain contexts without simultaneously contravening core precepts of American constitutional democracy.

Martin Redish is the Louis and Harriet Ancel Professor of Law and Public Policy at the Northwestern University School of Law.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The federal court in the FEMA Trailer MDL has denied class certification to a class of plaintiffs alleging that they were harmed or put at risk of future harm by formaldehyde exposure after residing in Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers following Hurricanes Rita and Katrina. See In re FEMA Trailer Formaldehyde Products Liability Litigation, MDL No.1873 (E.D. La., class certification denied 12/29/08).

In a previous post, MassTortDefense reported on the court’s analysis of the personal injury class claims. Today, we look at the medical monitoring class claims, a topic about which we have posted before.

In addition to all the general reasons set forth for why class certification was inappropriate, the court offered additional analysis as to why certification of the medical monitoring class (the "future medical services sub-class" ) was inappropriate.

Plaintiffs contended that class-wide common issues of law and fact included: (1) whether certain plaintiffs were significantly exposed to formaldehyde, an allegedly hazardous substance; (2) whether certain plaintiffs now suffer a significantly increased risk of contracting a serious latent disease, associated with formaldehyde exposure; (3) whether certain plaintiffs’ risk of contracting such a disease is greater than (a) the risk of contracting the same disease had there been no exposure, and (b) the chances of members of the public at large of developing the disease; (4) whether a medical procedure exists that makes the early detection of any such diseases possible; (5) whether the future medical services regime for such detection is different from medical services recommended in the absence of exposure; and (6) whether there is some demonstrated clinical value in the early detection and diagnosis of any such diseases. In essence, plaintiffs alleged that most of the elements of a medical monitoring claim were common.

The Court felt, however, that the first two allegedly class-wide issues, exposure and increased risk, were actually individual issues. Whether an individual has been “significantly exposed” to formaldehyde will differ depending on several variables, including other exposures, past and present cigarette use, formaldehyde-containing cosmetics use, etc. Thus, an accurate exposure level for a class representative has no bearing on an accurate exposure level for any other member of the proposed class because of these differing variables. Similarly, determining an individual’s risk of developing a particular formaldehyde-related disease or injury is keyed to several individual factors, including level of exposure, duration of exposure, and other individual characteristics such as whether the person has other risk factors for contracting a particular injury or disease.

Second, while the proposed medical monitoring sub-class would require the application of laws of “only” four different states, plaintiffs failed to make any substantial attempt to explain whether any individual variations in those states’ laws are manageable here, or whether they would “swamp common issues of law and fact.”

Next, the court found that plaintiffs’ proposed class was unorthodox in that it sought an order to monitor and treat the injuries that have resulted from that exposure. That is, a future medical services subclass should be certified to set up and maintain a program by which plaintiffs’ injuries may be detected and treated. Seemingly, plaintiffs went beyond the usual talk of treatment in the context of whether treatment exists such that monitoring could be beneficial, to essentially call for the development of a program aimed at also providing treatment to individuals (especially children) who have been adversely affected by hazardous levels of formaldehyde in the units.

But, by essentially requesting monitoring and treatment in the class, subclass members would arguably be relieved of the burden that they would bear in an individual suit, relative to proving any current manifest injury or disease. The court agrees found that plaintiffs were indeed attempting to skip over the process of obtaining the requisite liability finding against the manufacturing defendants, by holding them responsible for funding a monitoring and treatment service for injuries that a jury may later deem was never their responsibility. In other words, the monitoring program requested by plaintiffs seems to bypass a liability finding on injury in favor of immediate medical monitoring and treatment, both. Plaintiffs failed to demonstrate to the court why defendants should be asked to pay for such a program without, first, a finding of liability against them.

Finally, defendants contended that plaintiffs, as a group, did not meet the “manifest physical injury” requirement, which they asserted is a prerequisite for medical monitoring in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Plaintiffs, on the other hand, asserted that they meet this requirement because the physical injury they claim to have suffered is in the form of “cellular and molecular” damage. Even without addressing the issue whether such cellular damage qualifies as a manifest present injury, the court felt it would still be faced with the individualized inquiry of whether formaldehyde exposure resulting from the units caused those "injuries." This is not an issue that can be determined on a class-wide basis.

Accordingly, the medical monitoring class claims involved too many individual issues. 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The federal court in the FEMA Trailer MDL has denied class certification to a class of plaintiffs alleging that they were harmed by formaldehyde exposure after residing in Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers following Hurricanes Rita and Katrina. See In re FEMA Trailer Formaldehyde Products Liability Litigation, MDL No.1873 (E.D. La., class certification denied 12/29/08).

The plaintiffs had filed claims against the United States and several manufacturers alleging that they were exposed to high levels of formaldehyde contained in emergency housing provided to them by FEMA. The plaintiffs proposed six subclasses, including four subclasses for residents divided by state (Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, and Mississippi), a medical monitoring (“future medical services”) subclass, and an economic loss subclass.

More on the medical monitoirng in a later post.  Today, the focus is the current injruy claims.

Judge Engelhart found that the proposed subclasses did not meet the requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a) or 23(b)(3).

Commonality

Interestingly, the court found that the plaintiffs had not met the commonality requirement of 23(a), usually not a demanding test. Plaintiffs alleged that common questions existed relating to why and how formaldehyde exposure occurred, what level of formaldehyde exposure was experienced, and who was exposed to the formaldehyde. Plaintiffs, as is typical, claim that defendants’ conduct or fault was a central and common issue. Plaintiffs argued that common issues of fact also relate to the scientific nature and behavior of formaldehyde. On the other hand, defendants argued that there is no commonality because plaintiffs lived in different units, and the court agreed. This case did not involve one single product that is alleged to have caused plaintiffs damage. Instead, plaintiffs have alleged that dozens of different manufacturing defendants have manufactured products that have caused them harm. The court found that the question of defendants’ conduct or fault in the failure to exercise reasonable care is clearly not a common issue because there are dozens of defendants who have manufactured numerous different products that have allegedly caused harm to plaintiffs. In that regard, a determination of fault as to one defendant will not answer the question as to any other defendant. Last, a determination relating to the scientific nature and behavior of formaldehyde is not common as to all class members as the true issue relates to the specific level of formaldehyde that each plaintiff experienced in his/her unit and the resulting symptoms allegedly suffered by that particular plaintiff.

Typicality

A second significant part of the analysis focused on 23(a)’s requirement of typicality. defendants noted that the proposed class representatives claim a myriad of symptoms and conditions, including unconsciousness, convulsions, nephritis, and hypothermia. Indeed, the Plaintiff Fact Sheet (“PFS”) designated a total of 47 alleged formaldehyde-related symptoms, ranging from low blood pressure to miscarriage and stillbirth. Plaintiffs have diverse medical histories, symptoms, and alleged exposures. Typicality is not satisfied where plaintiffs’ claims and defenses will be dominated by individual evidence. Thus, this MDL involves factual variations as to each plaintiff and proposed class representative which spawn individual issues relating to injury and causation as to each individual. Each plaintiffs’ claims and alleged injuries will require an examination of individual evidence, precluding the satisfaction of the typicality requirement for class certification. For example, plaintiffs admitted that a child’s lungs react differently to formaldehyde exposure than an adult’s lungs. Plaintiffs’ counsel also admitted that temperature, humidity, and ventilation affect and contribute to differences in formaldehyde levels in the units.

Predominance

Turning to Rule 23(b)(3), the court found common issues did not predominate and the class method was not superior: this MDL involves hundreds of models of trailers, produced by dozens of different manufacturers. Moreover, even units of the same make and model, made by the same manufacturer, can differ in regards to what components parts were used and when it was manufactured. Further complicating this aspect of these claims, exposure to formaldehyde (at certain levels) is fairly common in today’s society and the chemical is produced by the human body itself. Each plaintiffs’ potential formaldehyde exposure and any resulting health effects vary according to several different factors. Each plaintiff’s habits vary greatly, resulting in the necessity for individualized inquiries delving into the use of heating and air conditioning, and also window or door use (important to how ventilated a particular unit was). Some
plaintiffs are exposed to sources of formaldehyde and eye/nose/throat irritants unrelated to that said to be found in the units (resulting from contact with air pollution, pesticides, pets, cleaning agents, mold, bacteria, and viruses).

Further, as for the alleged injuries to the plaintiffs themselves, the court said that each one has suffered an individual physical injury that is specific to that particular individual, precluding the predominance of issues relating to the plaintiffs themselves. Also, the personal injury claims among plaintiffs vary greatly.

The Court concluded that plaintiffs’ claims will, to a significant degree, be individualized with respect to causation and will include individual issues of exposure, susceptibility to illness, and types of physical injuries. Hence, no class action.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The MDL court in the Teflon products litigation has refused to certify 23 proposed statewide consumer fraud class actions. In re Teflon Products Liability Litigation, 2008 WL 5148713 (S.D. Iowa, 2008).

Plaintiffs alleged that in producing and marketing Teflon® and unbranded, non-stick cookware coatings (“NSCC”), defendant DuPont allegedly made misleading representations regarding safety. None of the proposed class representatives alleged that he or she had been injured by the use of DuPont NSCC. Rather, in each of the purported class actions, plaintiffs sought recovery solely for economic damage and injunctive relief. In particular, plaintiffs demanded creation of a fund for scientific researchers to further investigate the potential for adverse health effects from the use of products containing DuPont's non-stick coating; that DuPont discontinue selling cookware containing the non-stick coating; that DuPont stop making alleged misstatements regarding the safety of its product; that DuPont replace and/or exchange all existing cookware containing DuPont non-stick coating possessed by class members with non-hazardous cookware; rescission and restitution; and/or that DuPont provide a new warning label or other disclosure on cookware made with or containing DuPont non-stick coating.

DuPont has steadfastly denied that PFOA's or any other chemicals are released at harmful levels when cookware coated with Teflon is used as intended.

The Class
The court first identified key deficiencies in plaintiffs’ attempt to define an ascertainable class. As they typically do, plaintiffs argued that at this stage, they do not need to show that each class member ultimately will be able to prove his or her membership; rather, the court need only ensure that the appropriate criteria exists to evaluate membership when the time comes. The court felt this argument necessarily depended upon the availability of evidence to establish membership at a later stage of the proceeding. No such evidence existed to be produced in the case. Deposition testimony showed that it is virtually impossible to identify a brand of non-stick coating based on a visual examination of the item of cookware. Testimony from the class members was thus a key component of the product identification and thus class membership issue. But, even after a lengthy discovery period, during which each proposed representative was thoroughly deposed, many class reps were unable to ascertain whether they belonged in the class or a particular sub-class. An “abundance” of proposed representatives had no memory whatsoever of the circumstances surrounding their purchase of the cookware—let alone records to document their purchase. Bottom line, too many infirmities existed in the class definitions to ensure that the court could determine objectively who was in the class, without resort to speculation. For example, many class representatives mistakenly believed their product contained Teflon coating-even when they were informed the particular brand of cookware at issue never used Teflon.

Lastly, membership in this class necessarily required a plaintiff to pinpoint the date on which he or she purchased the item of cookware; the proposed class representatives were unable to recall this information one-fourth of the time.

Typicality, Coherence, Predominance
An analysis of the claims made clear that common issues did not predominate; class reps’ claims were not typical. Plaintiffs built the majority of their claims around statements made and/or marketing practices employed by DuPont regarding its NSCC products. According to plaintiffs, the fact that each cause of action derived from an alleged  “common practice or course of conduct” on the part of DuPont rendered the claims made by a representative plaintiff typical of the claims of all class members. However, the alleged misstatements cited by plaintiffs span a forty-plus-year period, across a wide variety of advertising and promotional media. Each plaintiff was exposed to different representations, at different time periods. Because reliance is a key element of plaintiffs' claim for negligent misrepresentation, and is necessary for recovery under the consumer fraud statutes in many jurisdictions, an individualized inquiry must be conducted not only to pinpoint the representations at issue, but also to determine the extent to which each plaintiff relied upon the particular representations. Due to the widespread nature of DuPont's advertising over the years, however, determining the precise statements each plaintiff heard could only be accomplished through individualized inquiry.

The court also pointed out the varying degrees to which each plaintiff became educated about NSCC prior to purchase.  Even if class members were exposed to the same representation, advertisement, or omission, the court could not presume that each member responded to the representation or omission in an identical fashion. Here, some proposed class representatives who were informed of potential health risks from NSCC stopped using the cookware, but others exposed to similar information continued to use their existing cookware, and others purchased new non-stick cookware.

Finally the court worried that plaintiffs were splitting their cause of action and thus harming absent class members. Under any one of their alternative bases for relief, plaintiffs necessarily must establish first that DuPont's non-stick cookware coating is dangerous to the health of its users. But the class disclaimed personal injury and had abandoned their original claims for medical monitoring. The representative plaintiffs risked a future waiver not only of their own personal injury and medical monitoring claims, but also those of the absent class members.

 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

MassTortDefense has posted about the growing trend of plaintiffs to use consumer fraud act claims in place of traditional product theories. Plaintiffs continue to believe that claims based on unfair and deceptive trade practices acts are somehow easier to certify as class actions because of differing notions of reliance and causation. Score one for the defense in the effort to beat back this tide, with the lesson that if plaintiffs live by such statute they have to live by all the statute. Silverstein v. The Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Company,  2008 WL 4889677 (S.D.Ga. Nov. 12, 2008).

This action arose out of Procter & Gamble's manufacture and sale of Crest Pro-Health mouthwash, which allegedly stains its users'  teeth and impairs their sense of taste. Plaintiffs purchased Crest Pro-Health mouthwash as consumers. After using the mouthwash, each allegedly noticed that his teeth had acquired a brown stain and that his sense of taste allegedly was impaired. Since then, both plaintiffs stopped using Crest Pro-Health mouthwash. Plaintiffs alleged a violation of Georgia's Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act (“UDTPA”) and moved to certify a plaintiff class. Defendant opposed this motion and moved for summary judgment.

The court noted that an analysis of class certification must begin with the issue of standing. Specifically, the court must determine whether the named plaintiffs, as individuals, have standing to pursue the claims they intend to pursue on behalf of the class. There are multiple types of standing. Constitutional standing ensures that courts do not assume jurisdiction over disputes that are not cases or controversies within the meaning of Article III. Prudential standing encompasses a host of doctrines of judicial self-restraint, such as the rule that courts will not address political questions more appropriately resolved by the representative branches of government. Statutory standing asks whether a statute creating a cause of action permits the plaintiff before the court to prosecute that cause of action. Here, the court addressed constitutional and statutory standing.

Plaintiffs in this case sought injunctive relief, as injunctive relief is the only remedy permitted to consumers by Georgia's UDTPA. The function of an injunction is to afford preventative relief, not to redress alleged wrongs which have been committed already. Because injunctions can rectify ongoing or future harm but cannot redress past harm, a plaintiff who cannot show continuing, present adverse effects or a real and immediate threat of future harm lacks Article III standing to pursue an injunction. Plaintiffs alleged past harm --browned teeth and a loss of taste. An injunction could not right these wrongs. They stopped using the product, and they now obviously know of the alleged defects. In determining whether to certify the class that plaintiffs proposed, the court determined it must not focus on the standing of unnamed class members, some of whom might, in theory, have standing to seek an injunction because they do not yet know about Crest Pro-Health's alleged defects. Whether the unnamed class members have standing is irrelevant, found the court. The result of the rule, in most applications, acknowledged the court, is that once a plaintiff learns about a product's defect, he has lost his standing to enjoin the manufacturer from producing it. “Such is the state of the law.”

When a plaintiff asserts statutory authorization to sue, he must fall within the class of plaintiffs to whom the statute grants the authority to maintain suit. It has been said that statutory standing comprises the zone-of-interests test, which seeks to determine whether the plaintiff is within the class of persons sought to be benefited by the provision at issue. A plaintiff who demonstrates past harm, but does not allege ongoing or future harm, has not shown that he is “likely to be damaged” within the meaning of the statute. Instead, Plaintiffs' alleged harm is entirely past. Because plaintiffs cannot “raise a factual question about the likelihood of some future wrong,”  they lack statutory standing to maintain an action under the UDTPA.

While plaintiffs described this result as a “catch twenty-two of statutory construction,” the court found no Joseph Heller-like dilemma: this result is actually a vindication of the UDTPA drafters' intent. Although its text does not foreclose lawsuits by consumers, the UDTPA was drafted primarily to allow businesses to enjoin their competitors' unfair or deceptive trade practices.

Because it determined that plaintiffs lacked constitutional and statutory standing to maintain their UDTPA claim, the court granted defendant's motion for summary judgment as to plaintiffs' UDTPA claim.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

At MassTortDefense, we typically focus on product liability, toxic tort, and consumer fraud litigation. But a recent decision arising from the largest retail security breach in history, where, the intruders made off with data relating to over 45,000,000 credit and debit cards, raises important class action issues for our readers. In re TJX Companies Retail Security Breach Litigation, 2008 WL 4786658 (D.Mass. November 03, 2008).

Consumers made several complaints, many of them putative class actions. The federal court consolidated these cases, and later received additional cases by order of the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, see In re TJX Cos. Customer Data Security Breach Litig., 493 F.Supp.2d 1382, 1383 (J.P.M.L.2007). By September, 2007, TJX and counsel for the consolidated putative class action reached an agreement on settlement. After reviewing objections to the Agreement and holding a fairness hearing, the court gave final approval to the agreement on July 15, 2008. The court then considered class counsel's petition for attorneys' fees.

Determining whether a requested fee is reasonable requires consideration of a variety of factors. Some of the most typical include (1) the reaction of the class members to the settlement and proposed attorneys' fees; (2) the skill and efficiency of the attorneys involved; (3) the complexity and duration of the litigation; (4) the risk that the litigation will be unsuccessful; (5) the amount of time devoted to the case by counsel, and (6) the extent of the benefit obtained. The potential problem here was with the last item. Plaintiffs’ counsel asked for $6.5 million in fees, but as of October 30, 2008, class members had claimed just over $6,100,000 in benefits, a figure unlikely significantly to increase. To grant the petition would thus put more money in the pockets of the attorneys than in those of the wronged clients in whose name the suit was brought. When viewed through this prism, the benefits obtained for the class seem “virtual rather than real,” said the court. At bottom, said the court, class action litigation should benefit the individuals who have been harmed.

Simply awarding fees by reference to the valuation of the settlement presented by counsel requires a court to ignore two interrelated realities about class action litigation. First, only a fraction of any given class is likely to claim the benefits provided for in a settlement. Indeed, it is not unusual for only 10-15% of the class members to bother filing claims, and when settlements require class members to file statements or proofs of claim in order to receive their share response rates rarely exceed 50%. See Leslie, The Significance of Silence: Collective Action Problems and Class Action Settlements, 59 Fla. L. Rev. 71, 119-20 (2007)

The weakness in the approach of awarding fees based on benefits made available rather than actually utilized is that it arguably sets up a conflict between counsel and the class by creating an incentive for counsel to accept a settlement unlikely to yield a high claiming rate, for example, a coupon-in exchange for being guaranteed a percentage of the fund made available, not claimed. Similarly, some class counsel may agree to conditions on a settlement -- such as a short time frame in which to make claims or a burdensome claims procedure --in order to obtain additional concessions from the defendant that purportedly increase the value created by the litigation and that support an enhanced fee award.

“Simply put, the class action vehicle is broken,” opined the court.  And tying the award of attorneys' fees to claims actually made by class members is one step that judges can take toward repair. This approach will not only encourage more realistic settlement negotiations and agreements, but also will drive class counsel to devise ways to improve how class action suits and settlements operate. Class counsel would have an incentive to pay attention to the needs and desires of the class and to “think outside the box” to devise better notice programs, settlement terms, and claim procedures, all to the benefit of the consumers.

Linking attorneys' fees to claims would serve two additional objectives, thought the court. First, it might prevent “windfalls” for attorneys created by “class apathy.” Second, the court noted that there are surely plaintiffs' lawyers who bring putative class action lawsuits without merit, assuming, correctly, that in many cases the defendant will bw forced to settle the case to avoid a small probability of a substantial judgment. The failure to link fees to benefits claimed thus could encourage the filing of needless lawsuits.

Class counsel may argue that “You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.”   But the court responded that while this may be true, it stands to reason that one can maximize the chances that a horse will drink by, for example, verifying the horse can see the water; choosing clear, fresh, and cold water so that the horse is given the utmost incentive to drink; and making sure there are no obstacles in the horse's path.  (Gotta love it when a court takes a lawyer's analogy and runs with it!)

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A new report by the U.S. Department of Commerce, “The U.S. Litigation Environment And Foreign Direct Investment,” calls for supporting U.S. economic competitiveness by reducing legal costs and uncertainty in the tort system.

The report notes that foreign direct investment plays a major role as a key driver of the U.S. economy and as an important source of innovation, exports, and jobs. Because the U.S. share of global FDI inflows has declined since the late 1980s and the competition to attract FDI has grown more intense, the United States must strive to maintain its ability to attract FDI. Fear of litigation and potential liability under the U.S. legal system are among the more important concerns to those interested in investing in the United States.

There is an international perception that the pervasive nature of litigation in the United States and other related aspects of the legal system increase the costs of doing business and add uncertainty. The United States is increasingly seen from abroad as a nation where lawsuits are too commonplace.

Such perceptions are accurate, Between 1950 and 2006, total U.S. tort costs increased from $13 billion to $247 billion per year (in 2006 dollars), rising from 0.62 percent to 1.87 percent of U.S. GDP. And U.S. tort costs as a percentage of GDP are triple that of France and the United Kingdom and at least double that of Germany, Japan, and Switzerland. Such numbers make this issue an important U.S. competitiveness concern.

Fear of litigation is among the top issues listed by senior executives who manage internationally owned U.S. businesses. Significantly, U.S.–owned companies that operate in other advanced economies do not express a similar concern. Also, there is the perception that, at least in some contexts, other countries’ legal systems are more predictable and that the legal costs of doing business are substantially less.

Certain aspects of the U.S. legal system stand out to foreign investors, including punitive damages, class action litigation, high legal costs, joint and several liability, and contingency fee structures. One major source of consternation, perhaps because it is so unique to the U.S., is the problem with forum shopping. Most tort cases are brought in state courts, and there are specific courts within even well-regarded state legal systems that are seen as being overly favorable to plaintiffs. Such courts have sometimes been described as judicial hellholes or magic or jackpot jurisdictions.

The report calls for more economic research, and, appropriately, tort reform in these important areas.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Seventh Circuit has rejected a national consumer fraud class action. Thorogood v. Sears, Roebuck and Co., 2008 WL 4709500 (7th Cir. October 28, 2008).

As explained in the opinion of Judge Posner, plaintiff bought a Kenmore-brand clothes dryer from Sears Roebuck (Kenmore is a Sears brand name). The words “stainless steel” were imprinted on the dryer, and point of sale advertising explained that this meant that the drum in which the clothes are dried inside the dryer was made of stainless steel. The plaintiff says he thought it meant that the drum was made entirely of stainless steel. The plaintiff alleged that part of the drum rusted and stained the clothes that he dried in his dryer.

He filed a class action suit on behalf of himself and the other purchasers, scattered across 28 states plus the District of Columbia, of the half million or so Kenmore dryers advertised as containing stainless steel drums. He claims that the sale of a dryer so advertised is deceptive unless the drum is made entirely of stainless steel, since if it is not it may rust and cause rust stains on the clothes in the dryer. His individual claim is that the representation violated the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act. Although some members of the huge class are citizens of the states of which Sears is a corporate citizen (New York and Illinois), so that diversity of citizenship is not complete, the suit properly invoked federal jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act, since the amount in controversy exceeds $5 million. The district court certified the class, but the 7th Circuit reversed.

After noting the potential benefits of a class action, especially where individual damages are small, the court noted that the class action device has its downsides. There is first of all a much greater conflict of interest between the members of the class and the class lawyers than there is between an individual client and his lawyer. The class members are interested in relief for the class, but the lawyers are interested in their fees, and the class members' stakes in the litigation may be too small to motivate them to supervise the lawyers in an effort to make sure that the lawyers will act in their best interests.

A further problem with the class action is the enhanced risk of costly error. When enormous consequences turn on the correct resolution of a complex factual question, the risk of error in having it decided once and for all by one trier of fact rather than letting a consensus emerge from several trials may be undue. Mejdrech v. Met-Coil Systems Corp., 319 F.3d 910, 912 (7th Cir.2003); see also Castano v. American Tobacco Co., 84 F.3d 734, 746 (5th Cir.1996); McMillian, “The Nuisance Settlement  Problem,“ 31 Am. J. Trial Advoc. 221, 252-53 (2007); Stempel, “Class Actions and Limited Vision,” 83 Wash. U. L.Q. 1127, 1213-14 (2005). If a company is sued in a number of different cases for selling a defective product, and then it ins some of the cases and loses some, the aggregate outcome may be a fair reflection of the uncertainty of the plaintiffs' claims. But when the central issue in a case is given class treatment and so resolved by a single trier of fact, a trial becomes a roll of the dice; a single throw will determine the outcome of a large number of separate claims-there is no averaging of divergent responses from a number of triers of fact having different abilities, priors, and biases.

The risk is asymmetric when the number of claims aggregated in the class action is so great that an adverse verdict would push the defendant into bankruptcy, for then the defendant will be under great pressure to settle even if the merits of the case are slight. In re Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, Inc., 51 F.3d 1293, 1298-99 (7th Cir.1995).

There is still another downside to the class action, and it is the tendency, when the claims in a federal class action are based on state law, to undermine federalism. In re Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., 288 F.3d 1012, 1020-21 (7th Cir.2002); Elizabeth M. v. Montenez, 458 F.3d 779, 788 (8th Cir.2006). Here, the instructions to the jury on the law it is to apply would have to be an amalgam of the consumer protection laws of the 29 jurisdictions, and procedural rules by which particular jurisdictions expand or contract relief will be ignored. The Tennessee Consumer Protection Act, for example, does not authorize class actions.

Judge Posner felt that this case turns out to be a notably weak candidate for class treatment. “Apart from the usual negatives, there are no positives.” Common issues of law or fact not predominate over the issues particular to each purchase and purchaser of a “stainless steel” Kenmore dryer. The plaintiff claims to believe that when a dryer is labeled or advertised as having a stainless steel drum, this implies, without more, that the drum is 100 percent stainless steel because otherwise it might rust and cause rust stains in the clothes dried in the dryer. Do the other 500,000 members of the class believe this, asked the court? Does anyone believe this besides Mr. Thorogood? It is not as if Sears advertised the dryers as eliminating a problem of rust stains by having a stainless steel drum. There is no suggestion of that. It is not as if rust stains were a common concern of owners of clothes dryers. There is no suggestion of that either, and it certainly is not common knowledge.

Accordingly, the evaluation of the class members' claims will require individual hearings. Each class member who wants to pursue relief against Sears will have to testify to what he understands to be the meaning of a label or advertisement that identifies a clothes dryer as containing a stainless steel drum. Does he think it means that the drum is 100 percent stainless steel because otherwise his clothes might have rust stains, or does he choose such a dryer because he likes stainless steel for reasons unrelated to rust stains and is indifferent to whether a part of the drum not easily seen is made of a different material? In granting class certification, the district judge said that because “Sears marketed its dryers on a class wide basis ... reliance can be presumed.” Reliance on what? On stainless steel preventing rust stains on clothes? Since rust stains on clothes do not appear to be one of the hazards of clothes dryers, and since Sears did not advertise its stainless steel dryers as preventing such stains, the proposition that the other half million buyers, apart from Thorogood, all shared this understanding of Sears's representations and paid a premium to avoid rust stains is, to put it mildly, implausible, and so would require individual hearings to verify.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The recent decision in Boyd v. Allied Signal, Inc., 2008 WL 4603401 (La.App. 1st Cir., October 17, 2008), illustrates a distressingly common feature of class actions, particularly those in the toxic tort context. Class representatives who are not injured, and not even members of the class.

The basic facts: a compressed gas trailer owned by Allied Signal, Inc. and loaded with boron trifluoride developed a leak from one of its tubes while being transported as a tractor-trailer unit. After the leak was discovered, the tractor-trailer unit stopped around noon on the westbound shoulder of I-12 on or near its overpass for Cedarcrest Avenue in Baton Rouge, where the tube continued to leak and dispersed BF3 in the air. Mitigation efforts ensued, and were completed approximately eighteen hours later.

A number of civil actions seeking class action status were subsequently filed by those allegedly impacted by the leak. The trial court consolidated the various actions and ultimately certified a class action as to the issue of liability, establishing geographic boundaries approximately corresponding to those of an emergency “shelter in place” plan for nearby residents and to various gas dispersion plumes or isopleths estimated on a successive hourly basis by the plaintiffs' expert in atmospheric dispersion. The Louisiana court of appeals affirmed the trial court's decision to certify the class action. Boyd v. Allied Signal, Inc., 898 So.2d 450, 453-54 (La.App. 1st Cir.12/30/04), writ denied, 897 So.2d 606 (La.4/1/05).

One of the class reps claimed she had entered the westbound portion of Interstate Highway 12, and about five to ten minutes later encountered stalled traffic and observed a police officer some distance ahead, standing outside his unit. After pulling her vehicle onto the shoulder, she and her husband allegedly exited the vehicle and walked to the side of the highway, where she observed a truck ahead, surrounded by a haze. Ms. Smith claimed that she experienced eye irritation and coughing during the course of events, and washed her eyes with eyewash after arriving at her destination. She did not seek medical treatment for those claimed symptoms.

Ms. Smith was confirmed as a class representative. But identification of members of the class based upon their claims of physical presence in its geographic and temporal limits is an issue separate from proof of the veracity of such claims. Ms. Smith was not thereby relieved of her burden of proof on the issues of causation and damages by virtue of her status as a class representative. Defendants appealed the judgment in favor of Ms. Smith.

Under cross-examination, Ms. Smith had acknowledged there was nothing that prevented her from using an exit to get off I-12, rather than remain on the shoulder. Her husband admitted they were told to get back in their vehicle. In deposition he admitted that they never drove past the leaking tractor-trailer. Thus, during the time she was on I-12, she never closely approached the class geographic boundaries. The geographic boundaries of the class were carefully drawn to coincide as closely as practicable with a circle defined by the quarter-mile “shelter-in-place” radius centered on “ground zero” and the BF3 dispersion plumes postulated by the plaintiffs' expert in air dispersion in his air modeling.

At the conclusion of Ms. Smith's presentation of evidence, the defendants moved for involuntary dismissal of Ms. Smith's cause of action on the grounds that she failed to prove any symptomatic exposure to BF3. The defendants emphasized that the plaintiffs' own expert testified that the exit plaintiff used was outside the area of his air modeling, and that any concentration at that location “was so low that it would not have any significance from the point of view of a toxicologist.”

The trial court clearly erred in finding that Ms. Smith sustained symptomatic BF3 exposure while traveling on I-12. There was no testimony or other evidence supporting that finding. The court of appeals carefully reviewed the maps, diagrams, and aerial photographs showing the geographic boundaries of the class. That review leads to the inescapable conclusion that Ms. Smith failed to prove that she was within the class geographic boundaries and that she suffered any exposure to airborne BF3 sufficient to cause any symptoms.
 

It is amazing that the claim was handled properly only on appeal, for a plaintiff who was not exposed, not injured, should never have been a class rep, was not a class member, and had no business obtaining a judgment at trial.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has recently dismissed a class action seeking a medical monitoring program for employees at a beryllium plant alleging exposure to airborne beryllium. Anthony v. Small Tube Manufacturing Corp., 2008 WL 4443896 (E.D.Pa.).

Gary Anthony, as sole class representative, asserted a claim of negligence on behalf of himself and a class of employees and former employees at the U.S. Gauge facility in Sellersville, Pa. The complaint alleged that the employees were exposed to airborne beryllium while working at the plant. The class was alleged to include several thousand members. The workers allegedly faced an increased risk of contracting “chronic beryllium disease” as a result of their exposure to airborne beryllium. CBD is a lung disorder which occurs when a person's immune system over-reacts to inhaled particles of beryllium and produces pathological changes in the lungs called granulomas.

Beryllium is a strong, lightweight metal with a high melting point, high stiffness-to-weight ratio, and excellent thermal and electrical conductivity. Beryllium is used as a pure metal, but more frequently it is incorporated at low levels into alloys. Beryllium copper is the most widely used alloy, but beryllium is also combined with aluminum, nickel and magnesium, to produce a panoply of products from non-sparking tools, and aircraft brakes, to laser targeting systems and nuclear weapons.

The putative class sought the establishment of a medical monitoring program funded by defendants, and administered under court supervision. As readers of MassTortDefense may recall, a claim for medical monitoring under Pennsylvania law, requires a plaintiff to prove:

(1) exposure greater than normal background levels;

(2) to a proven hazardous substance;

(3) caused by the defendant's negligence;

(4) as a proximate result of the exposure, plaintiff has a significantly increased risk of contracting a serious latent disease;

(5) a monitoring procedure exists that makes early detection of the disease possible;

(6) the prescribed monitoring regime is different from that normally recommended in the absence of the exposure; and

(7) the prescribed monitoring regime is reasonably necessary according to contemporary scientific principles.

Redland Soccer v. Department of the Army, 548 Pa. 178, 195-196, 696 A.2d 137, 145-146 (1997).

Defendants here sought summary judgment, attacking the validity of the claim of the named representative. (And if he did not have a viable claim, he was not an adequate class rep.). Plaintiff could not show he was “sensitized” to beryllium. Defendants averred that beryllium sensitization is required to sustain a claim for medical monitoring based on exposure to beryllium. That is, without being sensitized to beryllium, a plaintiff cannot demonstrate that he is at a significantly increased risk of contracting chronic beryllium disease (CBD), the only known latent disease which results from beryllium exposure. A person becomes sensitized to beryllium when his immune system recognizes beryllium as a foreign agent and builds cells in the bloodstream to react against it. The defendants contended that this sensitization is a necessary precondition to the development of chronic beryllium disease.

Plaintiff argued that all individuals sufficiently exposed to beryllium are at risk for the development of beryllium-related health effects. The putative class, having been exposed, was at a significantly increased risk of contracting CBD and should be medically monitored for the development of beryllium sensitivity. Plaintiff contended that it has “long been known” that machinists of beryllium are at a significantly increased risk of contracting CBD, and, therefore, summary judgment was inappropriate in this case.

Defendants further asserted that the Pennsylvania intermediate appellate court’s decision in Pohl v. NGK Metals Corporation, 936 A.2d 43 (Pa.Super.2007), allocatur denied, 952 A.2d 678 (Pa.2008) (per curiam), specifically rejected a plaintiff's experts' conclusions that mere exposure to beryllium is sufficient to create a significantly increased risk of contracting CBD. Plaintiff responded that, at best, Pohl stands for the proposition that the plaintiffs in that case were unable to demonstrate that their specific exposures to beryllium rose to the level of creating a significantly increased risk of harm.

The federal court did not read the Superior Court decision in Pohl as establishing a positive rule of law that a plaintiff must prove that he or she is beryllium sensitized in all cases seeking medical monitoring for beryllium exposure. However, as a matter of expert proof, it was clear to the court that to be diagnosed with CBD one must in fact be both beryllium sensitized (as demonstrated by a positive test result) and have a positive pulmonary biopsy indicating the presence of granulomas. Without being sensitized to beryllium, plaintiff cannot ever have a diagnosis of chronic beryllium disease. Therefore, plaintiff cannot demonstrate he is at a significantly increased risk of developing CBD, the only latent disease which results from exposure to beryllium.

While plaintiffs’ experts opined that all individuals exposed to beryllium, including machinists like plaintiff, were at a significantly increased risk of contracting chronic beryllium disease, even before they become beryllium sensitized, the court found that the experts did not have the data necessary to support their conclusions in this regard. The “opinions” were “merely assumptions and speculation.” Specifically, they did not have, or base their opinions upon, any beryllium readings, measurements, or other exposure data from the U.S. Gauge plant.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The California court of appeals has upheld class certification of claims that Hewlett Packard laptops were defective because an allegedly flawed component caused the screens to dim. Hewlett-Packard Co. v. Superior Court of Santa Clara County (Rutledge), 2008 WL 4368563 (Cal.App. 6 Dist. 9/26/08).

Plaintiffs alleged violations of the California Bus. & Prof. Code Section 17200, the unfair competition law; and the Consumer Legal Remedies Act, Civ. Code Section 1750; and also made claims for breach of express warranty. In August 2005, plaintiffs filed a motion for certification of a class consisting of all persons and entities who own or owned certain HP computers, listed by product number, “who contacted HP about a lack of visibility of the display screen.”  HP opposed the motion, contending plaintiffs had not shown either that common issues of fact and law predominated or that there was an ascertainable class. Specifically, HP presented evidence that of the approximately 118,514 class model computers sold under the Pavilion brand name, only approximately 4,716 were reported to need repairs due to display screen problems. And that the causes were individual.

In November, 2005, the court determined that the proposed class definition was flawed, but that it would consider a subsequent motion should plaintiffs cure the defect. On August 30, 2006, plaintiffs filed a supplemental memorandum in support of their motion for class certification. Plaintiffs re-defined their proposed class as “[a]ll persons or entities who own or owned one or more of the following HP Pavilion notebook models: [model numbers]; [a]nd the computer contained or contains [a certain specific] inverter, [part numbers].”  The crux of the plaintiffs' claim was that the HP notebook computers contained types of inverters that would likely fail and cause the screens to dim and darken at some time before the end of the notebooks' "useful life," according to the court.  Inverters regulate electricity flowing to the display screen.

At the November, 2006 hearing on the supplemental motion, the court asked the parties to provide briefing on the effect of Daugherty v. American Honda Motor Co., Inc., 144 Cal.App.4th 824, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 118 (2006), a case involving express warranties that had just been decided in October, 2006.

Eventually, the trial court certified the class. In its order certifying the class, the court stated that it was not ruling on the effect of the principles set forth in the Daugherty case. Following the California Supreme Court's denial of the petition for review in Daugherty, HP filed a motion for decertification on February 27, 2007, requesting the trial court rule on the effect that Daugherty had on the class certification. The court denied the motion in March, 2007, saying it was premature, so HP filed a petition for peremptory writ of mandate with the appeals court, which stayed the matter.

In Daugherty, the California Court of Appeal, Second District, held there can be no claim for breach of express warranty or unfair competition law violations arising from proof that "the manufacturer knew at the time of the sale that the component part might fail at some point in the future." HP focused on its holding that an express warranty does not extend the claims of defect beyond the warranty period. HP asserted Daugherty's rationale specifically limits its potential liability for the allegations set forth by plaintiff, making the issues individual, rather than subject to common proof. Moreover, HP argued the trial court erred in refusing to apply the principals of Daugherty to the determination of class certification.

In Daugherty, the plaintiffs were owners of Honda automobiles with an allegedly defective engine. The plaintiffs alleged that Honda had actual notice that the engines were experiencing severe mechanical problems due to oil leaks, but failed to provide adequate notice of the defect to owners of affected models. The plaintiffs first discovered the defects in their cars after the express warranty term of three years or 36,000 miles. The plaintiffs contended that “because the language of Honda's express warranty did not state that the defect must be ‘found,’ ‘discovered’ or ‘manifest’ during the warranty period, the warranty covers any defect that ‘exists' during the warranty period, no matter when or whether a malfunction occurs.” But the Daugherty court held: “[w]e agree with the trial court that, as a matter of law, in giving its promise to repair or replace any part that was defective in material or workmanship and stating the car was covered for three years or 36,000 miles, Honda did not agree, and plaintiffs did not understand it to agree, to repair latent defects that lead to a malfunction after the term of the warranty.”

Thus, Daugherty holds that failure of a component part after the expiration of the express warranty does not support a claim for relief under an express warranty claim. Daugherty holds there can be no claim for breach of express warranty or UCL violations arising from proof that the manufacturer knew at the time of the sale that the component part might fail at some point in the future. This would seem to cover plaintiffs' claim that certain HP notebook computers contained types of inverters that HP knew would likely fail and cause the screens to dim and darken at some time after warranty but before the end of the notebook's “useful life.”

However, the court of appeals found that while Daugherty may have implications for the merits of the underlying HP action, and indeed may serve to bar claims by plaintiffs that occurred outside the warranty period, it does not affect a determination of class certification. Daugherty was distinguished from the present action because it related to a substantive question on demurrer rather than a procedural question as here on a motion for class certification.

The court felt that if it were to accept HP's argument regarding the application of Daugherty to the present action, it would be considering the merits of the underlying action. And the question of class certification “does not ask whether an action is legally or factually meritorious.”

The court of appeals seemed to miss the point. While a court generally should not determine the merits of a claim at the class certification stage, it is appropriate to consider the merits of the case to the degree necessary to determine whether the requirements of class action rule will be satisfied. It may be necessary to analyze the plaintiff's factual allegations, the record evidence pertinent to class issues, and the applicable law in order to understand and evaluate the propriety of the class device. A court should look past the pleadings in order to determine whether a plaintiff's case meets the technical requirements for class certification. A court does not probe the merits when it probes behind a plaintiff's allegations because it is necessary to determine whether, if the class were certified, the issues presented could fairly and efficiently be resolved with respect to all the absent class members, based on the proof offered on behalf of only the named plaintiffs. Some inquiry into the substance of the plaintiff's case may be necessary for identifying the issues in the case and determining whether the complaint meets the requirements of commonality, typicality, and adequacy of representation, and what California calls community of interest. Evidence relevant to the class issues is often intertwined with the merits.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal court in West Virginia has denied class certification in a claim brought against DuPont for the alleged release of perfluoroctanoic acid, a substance also known as PFOA or C-8, from its Washington Works plant in Wood County, West Virginia, into drinking water. See Rhodes v. E.I. DuPont De Nemours and Co., 2008 WL 4414720 (S.D. W.Va., September 30, 2008). According to the court, plaintiffs had presented sufficient evidence that exposure to C-8 may be harmful to human health, but what “the plaintiffs misunderstand, however, is what they must show in order for me to certify the class. I cannot certify a class based on some potential harm to the general public, rather, there must be specific injuries to each member of the proposed class. The fact that a public health risk may exist … does not show the common individual injuries needed to certify a class action.”

The court viewed the plaintiffs as seeking primarily injunctive or declaratory relief in the form of a court-supervised medical monitoring program. While the likelihood of the plaintiffs' success on the merits is not relevant, the court must still engage in “rigorous analysis” to determine whether the proposed class meets the Rule 23 requirements. Gen. Tel. Co. v. Falcon, 457 U.S. 147, 161 (1982). A court may “probe behind the pleadings” to determine whether class certification is appropriate. Id.

A proposed class must be “cohesive” to be certified under Rule 23(b)(2). See Barnes v. Am. Tobacco Co., 161 F.3d 127,143 (3d. Cir.1998). This is particularly so because in a (b)(2) action, unnamed members are bound by the action without the opportunity to opt out. Barnes, 161 F.3d at 142-43. The cohesiveness requirement is similar to but “more stringent” than the commonality requirement of Rule 23(a). See Lienhart v. Dryvit Syst., Inc., 255 F.3d 138,147 n. 4 (4th Cir.2001); Barnes, 161 F.3d at 142-43.

Under West Virgina law, medical monitoring plaintiffs must first show a significant exposure. In a class action, if significant exposure is not a common issue, cohesiveness will be lacking. Exposure is significant if a plaintiff has been exposed to a larger quantity of the toxic substance or has been exposed for a longer duration than the general population. Thus, a plaintiff must be able to demonstrate that his exposure was somehow greater than what would normally be encountered by a person in everyday life.

Here, while the plaintiffs had evidence of the levels of chemical released, that evidence told the court nothing about how the plaintiffs’ C-8 exposure level compares to the level of C-8 exposure experienced by the general population. Evidence of the elevated C-8 concentrations in the named plaintiffs' blood likewise fails to show common exposure on a class-wide basis. The evidence of the higher C-8 concentration in the named plaintiffs' blood as compared to the general population suggests only that the named plaintiffs have possibly been “significantly exposed.”  Plaintiffs’ expert testimony did not provide a relevant comparison between the plaintiffs' exposure and the exposure of the general population. On this record, the general population's level of exposure to C-8 in their drinking water was unknown.

Under the second pertinent element of the medical monitoring cause of action, a plaintiff must demonstrate that her or she has suffered a significantly increased risk of contracting a particular disease relative to what would be the case in the absence of exposure. Furthermore, a plaintiff must also show that the exposure caused by the defendant was the proximate cause of that increased risk. In other words, the risk must be different and greater than it would have been absent the significant exposure at issue. Common proof of this element is always complicated because the plaintiffs must not only show that the class members have experienced a significantly increased risk but also that: 1) the risk is of a serious latent disease, 2) the defendant proximately caused that risk to each class member, and 3) the risk is significant relative to what it would have been absent the exposure.

The court agreed with DuPont’s argument that the plaintiffs could not show an increased risk of disease with class-wide proof because each class member's risk of disease will vary based upon: (a) variations in C-8 exposure and dose, and (b) variations in an individual's background risk of disease absent C-8 exposure. Plaintiffs had to concede that individual characteristics and habits will affect the level of risk experienced by each class member.

In a useful analysis, the court also explained why a regulatory risk assessment cannot and does not support an opinion that each individual class member had experienced a significantly increased risk of disease. In fact, a risk assessment is of limited utility in a toxic tort case, especially for the issue of causation, because of the risk assessment's distinct purpose. Risk assessments have largely been developed for regulatory purposes and thus serve a protection function in providing a level below which there is no appreciable risk to the general population. They do not provide information about actual risk or causation. See Bernard D. Goldstein & Mary Sue Henifin, Reference Guide on Toxicology in Federal Judicial Center Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence 413 (2d ed. 2000). Because of their appropriately prudent assumptions when there are limited data, risk assessments intentionally encompass the upper range of possible risks. Id.; see also Sutera v. Perrier Group of Am. Inc., 986 F.Supp. 655, 664 (D.Mass.1997) (rejecting regulatory standards as a measure of causation because the purpose of regulatory standards is to reduce public exposure to harmful substances); Allen v. Pa. Eng'g Corp., 102 F.3d 194, 198 (5th Cir.1996)); O'Neal v. Dep't of the Army, 852 F.Supp. 327, 333 (M.D.Pa.1994) (determining that risk figures based on the EPA's upper-bound estimates for another chemical are appropriate for regulatory purposes in which the goal is to be particularly cautious but overstate the actual risk and so, are inappropriate for use in determining whether medical monitoring should be instituted.).

Because a risk assessment overstates the risk to a population to achieve its protective and generalized goals, it is impossible to conclude with reasonable certainty that any one person exposed to a substance above the criterion established by the risk assessment has suffered a significantly increased risk. Precautionary measures to keep the general population safer are fundamentally distinct from the medical monitoring cause of action which provides relief to individuals that have already been “injured.”

Finally, on the element of need for medical monitoring, the court again found an absence of cohesion because if the individual nature of the inquiry. Plaintiffs’ expert seemed to assume that a member of the proposed medical monitoring class can have the determination of their particular and individualized diagnostic needs deferred until after the implementation of the medical monitoring protocol. While the proposed medical monitoring program was to be set up based on the “common” exposure, the implementation would be individualized. But while individualized implementation may be standard in public health monitoring programs, the tort of medical monitoring requires that determination to occur prior to a finding of liability. Plaintiffs were thus recommending a public health medical monitoring program rather than medical monitoring addressing tortious injuries to individuals. Plaintiffs thus merely deferred the individual issues that meant the class was not cohesive.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

At MassTortDefense we typically focus on cases, statutes, and the like, but certainly can make room for a thought-provoking academic piece. Professor Laura G. Dooley, Valparaiso University, has written National Juries For National Cases: Preserving Citizen Participation In Large-Scale Litigation in the NYU Law Review. Her observation: procedural evolution in complex cases seems to have left the civil jury behind. The trend toward centralization of cases pending on the same topic in one court results in cases of national scope being tried by local juries; this reality is a catalyst for forum shopping and a frequent justification for calls to eliminate jury trial in complex cases altogether. Yet, the jury is at the heart of a uniquely American understanding of civil justice, and the Seventh Amendment still mandates its use in federal cases. This article makes a new proposal designed to the constitutional and functional value of citizen participation in the civil justice system by aligning the jury assembly mechanism with the scope of the litigation.

When parties litigate a case of national scope, often a mass tort, this article argues
that the proper jury pool is neither local (as in state court, where jury pools are typically defined along county lines) nor regional (as might be true in a federal district), but rather a national jury drawn from a national pool.

The professor argues that this idea would eliminate incentives to forum-shop into local jury pools, and would make the decision-making body commensurate with the polity that will feel the effects of its decisions. She also postulates a higher level of legitimacy for decisions rendered by a national jury in national cases because they would not be subject to the criticism that a local jury is imposing its values on the rest of the country, and because geographical diversification of the jury would enhance the quality of decision-making. She asserts that the allegedly waning legitimacy of the civil jury in large-scale litigation reflects the disparity between the scope of the local jury pool and the scope of the cases. Moreover, the democratic values animating the Seventh Amendment can best be realized in large-scale litigation by empaneling a national jury, she says.

Interesting. In mass torts, we certainly have seen considerable forum shopping by plaintiffs; frequent attempts by defendants to remove to federal court because of jury pool issues; much anxiety over the use and selection of bellwether trials; and ongoing debate about the role of MDL courts in the early trials in consolidated federal litigation. Readers may have some comments on this one....
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Professor Byron Stier, of Southwestern Law School, has written an interesting article entitled, Another Jackpot (In)Justice: Verdict Variability and Issue Preclusion in Mass Torts.

In it, he notes that if there are no prior inconsistent verdicts, non-mutual offensive issue preclusion generally allows a finding by a single jury to bar re-litigation, in future cases, of the issue by the defendant who lost in the prior case. This approach, however, ignores the possibility that the first verdict delivered may have been an outlier, a fact that would be shown only if further verdicts were permitted to be delivered. In mass tort litigation, such a flawed approach may result in critical issues such as defect or negligence being resolved by only six jurors, when the potentially outlier verdict is then potentially applied to resolve the cases of thousands, perhaps bankrupting a company or an industry -- even when most juries would not so hold.

Focusing on mass tort litigation, this article by Professor Stier presents some growing empirical evidence of verdict variability and then critiques the use of issue preclusion, whose downside is applied only against defendants, not plaintiffs, because only defendants were parties to the prior action. As a result, the article argues, courts should exercise their discretion to deny issue preclusion in mass tort litigation. Instead, he asserts, courts should join the emerging consensus of mass tort management that ultimately better serves the goals of efficiency and public respect supposedly underlying issue preclusion: allow multiple verdicts to unfold a more balanced view of liability that will frequently be used for well-informed and far-reaching settlements. 

Given the administrative burden that mass torts can place on the courts, even with the use of management techniques such as an MDL, the temptation to use short-cuts to the traditional day in court promised all litigants and demanded by fundamental fairness can be immense. The professor offers some powerful arguments against one such short-cut.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal district court has declined to certify a proposed class action involving as many as 33,000 residents living near a Kentucky manufacturing plant. Cochran v. Oxy Vinyls, 2008 WL 4146383 (W.D. Ky. Sept. 2, 2008). For readers of MassTortDefense, an interesting feature of this proposed toxic tort class action was the court’s focus on the proposed class definition.

Plaintiffs, residents of neighborhoods surrounding an industrial area known as “Rubbertown,” alleged that emissions from defendant's operations in its nearby plant invaded their property in the form of particulate matter fallout and noxious odors. Defendant operated a plant in the Rubbertown area, at which it manufactured polyvinyl chloride resins (“PVC”); but defendant's plant is only one of several industrial facilities in the Rubbertown area.

Plaintiffs filed their complaint in 2006, alleging nuisance, negligence and/or gross negligence, strict liability for ultrahazardous activities, and trespass. Plaintiffs moved for class certification under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 23(b)(2) and 23(b)(3), for a class defined as including owners or residents of single family residences within two miles of the Oxy Vinyls facility, who allege the invasion of their property….a circular and largely geographic-based definition.

The court rejected this proposed definition. Although not specifically mentioned in Rule 23, the proper definition of the class is an essential prerequisite to maintaining a class action. The class must be sufficiently definite that it is administratively feasible for the court to determine whether a particular individual is a member. Courts have rejected certifying proposed classes where plaintiffs failed to identify any logical reason for drawing the class boundaries where they did. See, e.g., Daigle v. Shell Oil Co., 133 F.R.D. 600, 602-03 (D .Colo.1990) (holding that the plaintiffs had “failed to identify a class” where the proposed boundaries did not appear to “relate to the defendants' activities,” but were instead “arbitrarily ... drawn lines on a map”).

After an initial failed stab at certification, plaintiffs supplemented their effort with the expert report of an industrial hygienist, Roger Wabeke, who spent two days collecting air and settled dust samples in the neighborhoods immediately around the plant operated by Oxy Vinyls in an effort to tie the plant's alleged particulate pollution to the proposed class. The court's review of the record, even as supplemented by Mr. Wabeke's report, revealed an insufficient relationship between the proposed class definition and the evidence provided regarding the alleged emissions of the facility. The court concluded that Mr. Wabeke's report utterly failed to substantiate any sort of evidentiary relationship among the proposed class members that would justify certification of the proposed class.

The Wabeke report had numerous infirmities, but the most significant to the court was that the dust and air samples he collected were "virtually meaningless." The court noted that its rigorous review of the scientific evidence was not an inquiry into the merits, but rather a careful analysis of the Rule 23 prerequisites. Mr. Wabeke's report was “stunningly inadequate.” Far from a proposed class definition that was “objectively reasonable,” plaintiffs had offered no meaningful evidence that airborne contaminants from Oxy Vinyls spread in a uniform fashion in all directions from defendants' facility for a distance of up to two miles, or really that they spread that far from Oxy Vinyls at all. Therefore, the court was left without a basis upon which it could properly conclude that the members of the proposed class were distinguishable from the general public. For example, plaintiffs offered no way in which the proposed class members would be distinguished from those whose property may have been damaged by similar emissions from other facilities.

The faulty class definition also infected other elements of the Rule 23 analysis. Numerosity is inextricably bound up in the question of class definition. Thus, a flawed class definition can make it difficult to determine whether a class defined by geographical boundaries satisfies the numerosity requirement; indeed, courts faced with overbroad proposed classes have rejected plaintiffs' numerosity arguments due to this difficulty.

Similarly, the court was unable to conclude that named plaintiffs represented an adequate cross-section of the proposed class. For example, a proposed class member's lesser proximity to defendant's facility or closer proximity to one of the other facilities in the area may completely eliminate defendant's liability for the alleged harm they experienced. Mr. Wabeke's report provided no assurance of typicality, since the samples taken of settled dust were clearly and admittedly not “typical” of anything.

As for Rule 23(b)(3), the critical evidence of causation would be based upon highly individualized testimony. Thus, the Court was not at all convinced that defendant's liability to the class would involve predominating common issues or that a class action would be the superior method of adjudicating plaintiffs' claims.

The court concluded that Rule 23 and the vast majority of other mass tort cases “do not support the idea that simply by demanding a class and filing a document styled as an expert report a group of plaintiffs are thereby entitled to certification of whatever class they propose.”
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

MassTortDefense has posted about the dangers lurking in consumer fraud class actions before. The threat is no more evident than in the recent decision in Nafar v. Hollywood Tanning Systems, Inc., 2008 WL 3821776 (D.N.J., August 11, 2008), where the district court certified a nationwide class of tanning customers.

Plaintiff alleged she purchased monthly tanning memberships from defendant Hollywood Tanning Systems, in New Jersey. Plaintiff alleged that defendant fraudulently failed to disclose the fact that any exposure to ultraviolet rays (UV rays) increases the risk of cancer and allegedly deceptively failed to warn consumers about the dangers of indoor tanning. While plaintiff acknowledged that defendant's machines may block out most UVB rays, she contended that defendant failed to inform consumers that UVA rays, also emitted by its machines, are allegedly linked to skin cancer. Plaintiff instituted suit alleging: (1) violation of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act (“NJCFA”), (2) fraud, (3) unjust enrichment, and (4) breach of warranty. Plaintiff disclaimed any remedy for personal injuries suffered, but proceeded on her fraud-based causes of action, seeking return of her membership fees, treble damages, punitive damages, and attorney's fees.

Plaintiff sought a nationwide class of consumers who had purchased tanning memberships. The court’s analysis of the Rule 23(b) requirements for class certification was, unfortunately, devoid of substance. For the all-important predominance inquiry, the court first stated that common issues of law predominated: “Common questions of law predominate because New Jersey law is central to this litigation. The NJCFA [consumer fraud act] will apply to all class members because this particular law governs Defendant's behavior and uniform policies. New Jersey has a strong interest in this litigation because the case's outcome will likely affect Defendant's nationwide behavior…. Indeed, the NJCFA is one of this nation's strongest consumer protection laws and its application will not frustrate other states' consumer protection laws. ” That conclusion was not based on an analysis of the choice of law rules of the forum state; cited no state court cases suggesting that NJ law should apply to the claims of consumer from other states; failed to analyze the differences among the consumer protection laws of the various states; and failed to analyze the interests other states may have in applying their laws by simply assuming every state would rather apply NJ’s law.

The court then stated that common fact issues predominated as well because the alleged misrepresentations and omissions concerning the negative consequences related to indoor tanning are alleged to be uniform. However, the court failed to conduct any analysis of the elements of the claims upon which the class was certified, and whether any of the elements might raise individual questions. Nor did it discuss any of the defenses. For example, the defendant apparently submitted surveys showing that the risks of tanning are common knowledge, and many consumers understood the cancer risks involved. Even if plaintiffs were not required to present any direct proof of individual reliance – which they would be under some state laws – this would not prevent a defendant from presenting direct evidence that an individual plaintiff did not rely on any representations from the company. Defendants have a right to present evidence negating a plaintiff's direct or circumstantial showing of causation and/or reliance. The "predominance" inquiry here thus resembled a mere commonality test.

Similarly, the cursory superiority analysis reads as a mere recitation of the elements of the inquiry rather than as an application of the elements. It also fails to cite a single federal appellate decision supporting the conclusion reached. To determine if these requirements have been met, a trial court must envision how a class action trial would proceed. (MassTortDefense has frequently urged trial judges to "look down the road" and not blindly accept plaintiffs' bold assertions about trial procedures.) Under this analysis, the trial court must determine whether the purported class representatives can prove their own individual cases and, by so doing, necessarily prove the cases for each one of the thousands of other members of the class. If they cannot, a class should not be certified.

Clearly, this certification decision ought to be reviewed by the Third Circuit.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The possible transplantation of U.S.-style class actions to other countries has been a subject of much concern and study by those defending companies that market and sell their products internationally. Some have expressed skepticism that other nations, particularly those in Europe, will ever adopt true class actions because of general cultural differences, or specific factors, such as the absence of contingency fees. Others, pointing to examples like Canada, predict that the spread, while slow, may be inexorable.

Now comes a report issued by the advisory body responsible for overseeing the modernization of the English civil justice system recommending an expansion of class-like procedures in England. Entitled “Improving Access to Justice Through Collective Actions,” the Civil Justice Council proposes that the English civil justice system should add an “opt-out” class action to the existing range of procedural options available for civil claims. (The CJC is an Advisory Public Body, established under the Civil Procedure Act 1997 with responsibility for overseeing and coordinating the modernization of the civil justice system. The group provides advice to the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs on the effectiveness of aspects of the civil justice system, and makes recommendations to test, review or conduct research into specific areas. The Council includes members of the judiciary, members of the legal profession, civil servants concerned with the administration of the courts, persons with experience in and knowledge of consumer affairs, and persons able to represent the interests of particular kinds of litigants (for example business or employees)).

The Council report made several key findings:
-Existing English procedure does not provide sufficient or effective access to justice for consumers, small businesses, and employees;

-Existing collective actions could be improved considerably to promote better enforcement of citizens’ rights, while also protecting defendants from non-meritorious litigation;

-There are meritorious claims that could fairly be brought with greater efficiency and
effectiveness on a collective rather than unitary basis;

-Collective claims can benefit defendants in resolving disputes more economically and
efficiently, with greater conclusive certainty than can arise through unitary claims.

-The Courts are the most appropriate body to ensure that any new collective procedure is
fairly balanced as between claimants and defendants, the latter of which should be properly protected from unmeritorious, vexatious or spurious claims as well as from “blackmail” claims.

In turn, the CJC made several major recommendations:

-A generic collective action should be introduced.

-Collective claims should be brought by a wide range of representative parties: individual
representative claimants or defendants, designated bodies, and ad hoc bodies.

-Where an action is brought on an opt-out basis the statute of limitation period for class members should be suspended pending a defined change of circumstance.

-Certification of class status should be subject to a strict certification procedure.

-Appeals from either positive certification or a refusal to certify a claim should be subject
to the current rules on permission to appeal from case management decisions.

-Collective claims should be subject to an enhanced form of case management by
specialist judges.

-To protect the interests of the represented class of claimants any settlement agreed by the
representative claimant and the defendant(s) must be approved by the court within a
‘Fairness Hearing’ before it can bind the represented class of claimants.

While the CJC claimed to be wary of adopting the exact same model utilized by the U.S. justice system, and said it studied the pros and cons of the U.S. class action system, the report also suggests changes to the English court system that ought to be a cause for concern. These include aggregate damages, and the ability to have unallocated damages from an aggregate award distributed by a trustee of the award according cy-près.

The report invites a formal response from the lord chancellor, who is responsible for government policy on the legal system.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The MDL court overseeing the litigation arising from alleged contamination of the U.S. rice supply by genetically modified strains has declined to certify a proposed class. In re Genetically Modified Rice Litigation, MDL No.1811, 2008 WL 3539879 (E.D. Mo. August 14, 2008).

Plaintiffs, U.S. long grain rice producers, alleged that the defendants contaminated the U.S. rice supply with non-approved genetically modified strains of rice, thereby affecting the market price for plaintiffs' crops. Plaintiffs alleged that the U.S. market price for rice dropped dramatically as a result of defendant's alleged contamination of the rice supply. (The United States is one of the leading producers in the world of rice, accounting for approximately 13% of the worldwide rice trade. Nearly half of the U.S. rice supply is exported to other countries.)

Mass Accident
While plaintiffs' primary claim for damages was that the defendants' activities caused a market loss injury to the U.S. rice market, the complaint asserted statutory and common law claims of public nuisance, private nuisance, negligence, products liability, and strict liability for ultra-hazardous activities. Thus, the court observed that, in many respects, the alleged widespread contamination of U.S. rice is akin to a “mass accident” mass tort - the sort of case that the Advisory Notes to Rule 23 say should rarely be afforded class treatment. A mass tort resulting in injuries to numerous persons is ordinarily not appropriate for a class action because of the likelihood that significant questions, not only of damages but of liability and defenses to liability, would be present, affecting the individuals in different ways. In these circumstances an action conducted nominally as a class action would degenerate in practice to multiple lawsuits separately tried. See Pruitt v. Allied Chemical Corp., 85 F.R.D. 100, 111 (E.D.Va.1980) (denying class certification for all plaintiffs who claimed to be injured as a result of defendant's pollution of a river, as the pollution affected various groups of plaintiffs in significantly different ways).

Damages Key on Predominance
MassTortDefense notes how significant the issue of damages was to the certification decision, and in particular the predominance inquiry balancing individual issues and alleged common issues. The court observed that, ordinarily, variation in individual damage amounts is not a bar to class certification. Even wide disparity among class members as to the amount of damages suffered does not necessarily mean that class certification is inappropriate. See Bell Atlantic v. AT & T Corp., 339 F.3d 294, 306 (5th Cir.2003). However, class certification “may not be suitable where the calculation of damages is not susceptible to a mathematical or formulaic calculation, or where the formula by which the parties propose to calculate damages is clearly inadequate.” Bell Atlantic, 339 F.3d at 306 (citing Broussard v. Meineke Discount Muffler Shops, Inc., 155 F.3d 331, 342-343 (4th Cir.1998)).

Here, plaintiffs argued that they could show on a class-wide basis the total amount of economic harm caused by the contamination. Plaintiffs argued they could show the total quantity of long-grain rice affected. Using these two market-based figures, plaintiffs would supposedly calculate damage on a per-hundredweight basis. This figure will be used to calculate each individual plaintiff's damages. Each class member would attest to the quantity of rice sold, and that figure would be multiplied by the per-hundredweight loss.

But the court was not persuaded that the calculation of damages in this case was a common issue. What plaintiffs have proposed was a convenient shorthand calculation that might represent an estimate of some damages for some plaintiffs. It might be a reasonable basis on which to reach a settlement of some claims, mused the court. But plaintiffs' proposed method for calculating damages does not represent an actual adjudication of any one plaintiff's claims. Rather, calculation of actual damage is an individual issue specific to each plaintiff in this case, involving a unique inquiry into the time, place, and manner in which each plaintiff both priced and sold the rice.

For example, some rice producers entered pools or cooperatives to sell their rice. Others sold rice through booking contracts, where a quantity of rice to be delivered or a price to be paid might be set far in advance. Rice producers using basis contracts or hedge-to-arrive contracts employed yet more complicated methods for pricing and selling their rice. An accurate, true assessment of any plaintiff's damages would require an extensive inquiry involving the circumstances of that particular plaintiff. This case was therefore more like those cases where class certification was denied because individual damages issues predominated over common elements. This individual inquiry on damages predominated over the common issues allegedly raised in the class action complaint.

Superiority Lacking
The class method was not superior either. The claims process would devolve into an endless series of “mini-trials” that would fail to meet the goals of class certification. Also, hundreds of plaintiffs had shown significant interest in prosecuting their own claims. While plaintiffs argued that to deny class certification in this case would result in hundreds of full-scale individual trials across five states, all dealing with the same issues, the court noted that there are many options available to resolve the hundreds of cases in this MDL. The parties can propose a collection of “test cases” to be tried to verdict before deciding how other cases should be handled. The MDL court also has the option of going to trial on the claims of the plaintiffs named in the master consolidated complaint that was filed in its home district.

The opinion is thus also instructive on the willingness to look at real world trial plans and alternate methods of moving an MDL forward, beyond class action treatment.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri has dismissed a medical monitoring claim brought against the manufacturer of a medical device, finding that the applicable state law permits such a claim only in a true toxic tort case. Ratliff v. Mentor Corp., 2008 WL 3126300 (W.D. Mo.,  Aug. 5, 2008).

Plaintiff Toni Ratliff had a Mentor UB-Tape sling surgically implanted in her pelvis area to treat a condition. She brought a putative class action, including “all persons or entities in the State of Missouri who were treated, implanted or otherwise received the UB-Tape, designed, tested, manufactured, distributed and/or sold by Mentor Corporation.” Excluded from the class were all people with claims for personal injury or wrongful death. She alleged the device caused extrusions, infections and abscesses, often requiring secondary surgical procedures to correct the problem.

The relief sought included a notification, research, and medical monitoring fund for tests to catch those problems. Mentor moved to dismiss, arguing that a medical monitoring claim is not recognized in Missouri outside of the toxic torts context.

The court noted that Meyer v. Fluor Corp., 220 S.W.3d 712 (Mo. 2007) is the first and only Missouri Supreme Court case dealing with medical monitoring claims. It has been cited for the general proposition that Missouri recognizes a claim for medical monitoring. However, in Meyer, children allegedly exposed to lead sued smelter operators to recover damages for the expense of medical monitoring. The Missouri Supreme Court held that the children were entitled to recover such damages under a “medical monitoring claim” that “seeks to recover the costs of future reasonably necessary diagnostic testing to detect latent injuries or diseases that may develop as a result of exposure to toxic substances.” Id. at 716. Thus, by the Missouri Supreme Court’s own definition of a medical monitoring claim, the Meyer decision does not apply to potential latent injuries resulting from anything other than exposure to toxic substances.

The strict holding of Meyer is that, in Missouri, medical monitoring claims are available in toxic tort cases. Meyer does not necessarily support recognition of medical monitoring claims in garden variety products liability cases like plaintiff contended. This explicit limitation in Meyer led the district court to believe that the Missouri Supreme Court would dismiss medical monitoring claims that do not result from exposure to toxic substances.

Although the court did not get into policy issues, MassTortDefense notes that there is a growing recognition that medical monitoring should not be available in the context of drugs and medical devices. The voluntary use of a medical device or medicine prescribed by a health care professional is arguably far removed from the original medical monitoring notion of involuntary exposure to a chemical in the environment. In a case involving HRT, Vitanza v. Wyeth, Inc., 2006 WL 462470 (N.J. Super. Ct. Jan. 24, 2006), plaintiffs sought class certification of a group defined as all persons in New Jersey who had taken the drug Prempro and were not suffering from breast cancer, but who wanted medical monitoring for an alleged increased risk of future cancer. The court dismissed the claim, noting that the state's recognition of medical monitoring came in the unique context of manifest exposure to toxic substances in environmental tort actions, and was to be applied sparingly. The policy reasons applicable to the environmental exposure context (including the difficulty in proving exposure levels and duration, and even the identity of the chemicals at issue) are not present in the prescription drug context where claimants have access to relevant information through the label, pharmacy records, and their prescribing physician. The need to deter polluters, perceived to be present in the toxic tort context, does not apply to life sciences companies selling a product screened by the FDA.

The absence of these policy factors in a life sciences context was also observed in a recent Vioxx case. Sinclair v. Merck & Co., 195 N.J. 51, 948 A.2d 587 (N.J. 2008). The state supreme court ruled as a matter of law that plaintiffs could not maintain an action for medical monitoring in a pharmaceutical product liability action because they did not allege a presently manifested injury. The court held that the New Jersey Products Liability Act requires present manifest injury and therefore bars medical monitoring unless the present manifest injury element is satisfied. The court also examined prior precedents where medical monitoring was approved, and found those precedents were limited to personal injury stemming from asbestos exposure and exposure to environmental contamination. The majority declined to recognize any common law medical monitoring remedy. See also Parker v. Howmedica Osteonics Corp., 2008 WL 141628, at *5, n.6 (D.N.J.,  Jan.  14, 2008)(applying similar reasoning to device context). Similarly, in Conway v. A.I. DuPont Hosp. for Children, 2007 WL 560502 (E.D. Pa., Feb. 14, 2007), the court denied the defendant's motion to dismiss a medical monitoring claim regarding a medical device used in children with congenital heart defects. The court did, however, note that while medical monitoring was "suitable" in toxic substance exposure cases, the "same argument cannot be made for medical monitoring relief in products liability cases where diseases" are not caused by exposure to toxic substances.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

In a putative class-action suit alleging deceptive conduct by producers of smokeless tobacco products pursuant to the Pennsylvania Uniform Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law, the Third Circuit has overruled a district court’s denial of defendants’ motion to dismiss, remanding the case for further proceedings under the rubric that a complaint alleging deceptive conduct must allege that plaintiff justifiably relied on defendant's wrongful conduct or representation.

In Hunt v. U.S. Tobacco Co., 2008 WL 2967249 (3d Cir., August 05, 2008), the Third Circuit considered whether a private plaintiff alleging “deceptive” (rather than fraudulent) conduct under the amended so-called catch-all provision of the Pennsylvania Uniform Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law must prove that he justifiably relied on the defendant’s alleged deceptive conduct or statements.

Hunt and proposed class members alleged that U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. engaged in anti-competitive behavior that artificially inflated the price of the company’s moist smokeless tobacco products. Hunt claimed that consumers “relied on a presumption that they were paying prices set by an efficient market, when in fact they were paying prices artificially inflated by the anti-competitive and deceptive conduct.” The alleged misconduct was framed as consumer deception in violation of Pennsylvania’s Uniform Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law. Specifically, plaintiff brought suit under the so-called “catch-all provision” of the Consumer Protection Law, which proscribes engaging in any fraudulent or deceptive conduct which creates a likelihood of confusion or of misunderstanding.

Defendant moved to dismiss the complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) on the ground that Hunt failed to allege that he had justifiably relied on the alleged deceptive conduct and suffered harm as a result of that reliance. The district court denied the motion, holding that a plaintiff does not need to establish reliance under the catch-all provision of the Consumer Protection Law. Interlocutory review was granted.

The Third Circuit disagreed, focusing on the causation requirement in the Consumer Protection Law’s standing provision, the part permitting suit by private plaintiffs who suffer loss “as a result of” the defendant’s deception. A private plaintiff pursuing a claim under the statute must prove justifiable reliance, otherwise the loss is not as a result of the conduct. See, e.g., Schwartz v. Rockey, 932 A.2d 885, 897 n.16 (Pa. 2007) (“the justifiable reliance criterion derives from the causation requirement” which is express on the face of the statute’s private-plaintiff standing provision). The Pennsylvania intermediate Superior Court had also applied the Supreme Court’s standing rule to the catch-all provision, see Debbs v. Chrysler Corp., 810 A.2d 137, 156–58 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2002).

Pennsylvania thus rejects the approach of those states which interpret their consumer fraud acts, and the “as a result of” kind of language, to require only a mere and tenuous causal connection, which could be established by, for instance, proof that a misrepresentation supposedly inflated a product’s price, thereby injuring every purchaser because he paid more than he would have paid in the absence of the misrepresentation. [Even then, one wonders about proof that the plaintiff would not have happily paid the other price even knowing the info.] A justifiable reliance requirement, by contrast, requires the plaintiff to go further—he must show that he justifiably bought the product in the first place (or engaged in some other detrimental activity) because of the misrepresentation.

Indeed, the Third Circuit has already interpreted the justifiable reliance/standing requirement to apply to multiple substantive subsections of the Consumer Protection Law.  In Tran v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 408 F.3d 130, 139–41 (3d Cir. 2005), the court observed that the plaintiff was wise to retreat at oral argument from his contention that, because he alleged only unfair business practices and deceptive conduct, not fraud, he need not allege justifiable reliance.

Such a reading is especially appropriate because the justifiable-reliance requirement emanates not from the catch-all provision that the legislature added to the consumer fraud act in 1996, but rather from the private-plaintiff standing provision. A private-plaintiff standing provision, by its nature, applies to all private plaintiffs, whatever substantive subsection of the act they invoke, for its purpose is to separate private plaintiffs (who may only sue for harm they actually suffered as a result of the defendant’s deception) from the state Attorney General (who typically may sue to protect the public from conduct that is likely to mislead).

The Third Circuit then went on to find that Hunt had not adequately alleged reliance. Hunt’s complaint was that defendant’s alleged “deception, including its affirmative misrepresentations and omissions concerning the price of moist smokeless tobacco products, likely misled all consumers acting reasonably under the circumstances to believe that they were purchasing moist smokeless tobacco products at prices born[e] by a free and fair market.” No real reliance there. And the court rejected Hunt’s suggestion that he enjoys a presumption of reliance, as this suggestion is inconsistent with Pennsylvania case law. Hunt could not enjoy a presumption of what he must prove affirmatively—that is, under the Consumer Protection Law, Hunt must prove justifiable reliance affirmatively.

Case remanded for consideration whether plaintiff should get leave to amend.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal court has weighed in on the issue of exposure in a toxic tort property damages suit, denying summary judgment and finding the presence of vinyl chloride in the air, even if undetectable, may constitute a physical injury to property under a common law property damage claim. Gates v. Rohm and Haas Co., 2008 WL 2977867 (E.D.Pa., July 31, 2008 ).

Plaintiffs in this putative class action sued Rohm and Haas and others pursuant to CERCLA, and state law, for damages allegedly resulting from contamination of their drinking water by pollutants that the Defendants allegedly generated and released. The proposed property damage class consisted of  about 500 "persons who presently own real property within McCollum Lake Village (‘Village’), or who owned real property within the Village as of April 25, 2006 through the present.” Defendants filed a motion for partial summary judgment with respect to the plaintiffs' common law property claims: public and private nuisance, negligent and intentional trespass, strict liability, negligence and negligence per se for damages arising out of alleged continuing airborne vinyl chloride contamination and past groundwater contamination.

The plaintiffs contended that this alleged “physical invasion” of their property by a carcinogenic contaminant caused a diminution in value of their property, in part due to the stigma caused by the alleged contamination. Rohm and Haas argued that applicable (Illinois) law does not recognize a cause of action for “economic harm” absent physical damage. The plaintiffs' property damage claim thus should fail because there was no evidence in the record of any physical injury to accompany the alleged economic injury (the diminution in value of the property due to supposed “stigma” associated with the alleged contamination).

According to the court, the first issue was the basic factual question of whether there was sufficient evidence of “present” contamination. The second issue was whether any such contamination constitutes a “physical injury.” And, finally, the third issue was whether diminution in value is an appropriate measure of damages based on the type of harm alleged.

A. “Present” Contamination
It was undisputed that at present no vinyl chloride or vinylidene chloride has been detected in any well in McCollum Lake Village. And it is undisputed that any alleged groundwater contamination was purely historical. It was unclear, however, to the court whether under Illinois law such past physical injury, coupled with ongoing alleged economic harm, suffices to permit pursuit of economic losses in tort. The fundamental factual question here for the court was whether there was sufficient evidence of permanent or ongoing physical injury to the plaintiffs' property. Although defendants made a strong showing, the court found a genuine dispute as to whether present levels of airborne vinyl chloride in McCollum Lake Village are below background levels and, accordingly, whether there is current airborne vinyl chloride “contamination.”

B. “Physical” Injury
Even assuming past and present vinyl chloride exposure, the court had to determine whether such exposure constitutes a “physical injury” for purposes of stating common law tort claims. The court reasoned that the presence of harmful chemicals in property loss actions is treated differently than the presence of non-hazardous materials. Notably, there is no requirement that a hazardous chemical be perceptible to the senses. The presence of an undetected hazardous chemical can support a claim for nuisance, thought the court. That the chemical is not immediately perceptible to the senses is not dispositive when when there is evidence of actual physical invasion of class area property.

Moreover, said the court, in contrast to the standards for medical monitoring claims, the exposure level need not necessarily present a health risk to make out a property damage claim. Such a view is not unanimous in the courts. E.g., Rockwell Int'l Corp. v. Wilhite, 143 S.W.2d 604, 620, 627 (Ky.App.Ct.2003); Rose v. Union Oil Co., No. 97-2808, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 967, at *3-4, *17 (N.D.Cal. Jan. 29, 1999). Nevertheless, this court concluded that the physical presence of vinyl chloride in the air, even if undetectable, constitutes a physical injury to the property for purposes of common law property damage claims.

C. The Appropriate Measure of Damages
Third, the court concluded that in the context of the present case, diminution in value was an appropriate measure of damages. The categorization of harm as “permanent” or “temporary” is not always dispositive. Rather than a compelling legal analysis to respond to defendant's strong argument on this point, the court resorted largely to the the generic policy observation that courts must be mindful of the fact that rules governing the proper measure of damages in a particular case are guides only and should not be applied in an arbitrary, formulaic, or inflexible manner. 
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

At MassTortDefense we typically focus on litigation, with a touch of legislation thrown in. A newly proposed accounting rule – yes accounting – gets our attention today. The rule would modify the standard accounting provisions governing the disclosure of the costs and contingencies of ongoing litigation, and in so doing assist plaintiffs’ attorneys and threaten the attorney-client privilege.

The change (Exposure Draft, Proposed Statement of Financial Accounting Standards, Disclosure of Certain Loss Contingencies) was proposed by the Federal Accounting Standards Board earlier this year, and would expand the loss contingencies that are required to be disclosed, the disclosure of specific quantitative and qualitative information about the loss contingencies, and a tabular reconciliation of the loss contingencies. (FASB is a private organization that establishes standards used in preparing financial reports that are officially recognized by the SEC and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.)

Problems? It may require companies to disclose things that are very remote. The information is also going to have to be updated on a quarterly basis. That will require extensive effort by both outside and inside counsel, increasing costs significantly. More importantly, it will also impact litigation strategy. Mass tort litigation is driven by plaintiffs’ attorneys, more so than by law, science, or medicine. The new disclosure rules would undermine the attorney-client privilege and work product protection, especially to the extent they seem to expect the company to give its own assessment of what the results will likely be. They seem to require greater disclosure of the company’s litigation strategy and analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of its position to a far greater extent than ever seen before. The rules thus tilt the litigation balance in favor of disclosing info to companies’ litigation adversaries and, thus, work to the ultimate detriment of shareholders without providing meaningful disclosure to investors.

As anyone who has handled mass tort litigation can attest, budgeting for future contingencies is extremely difficult, with the number of cases, the jurisdictions involved, the courts’ case management techniques, and the number of trials, having huge impact on costs and all being outside defendants’ direct control. Estimating the costs of continuing litigation is highly subjective, subject to huge swings as underlying assumptions change, and unlikely to provide financial statement users with meaningful or reliable information

The proposed change also stipulates that companies may avoid disclosing certain information if the disclosure would be prejudicial to the ongoing legal proceeding, but it is unclear how this provision would protect companies in practice.  Almost all the new disclosures seem to be potentially prejudicial in that way.

Pharmaceutical companies are among those most affected by this proposal, because of the mass tort litigation that they face. Six leading drug makers sent a letter last Friday objecting to the proposed rule. The companies are currently defending a wide range of lawsuits, including tens of thousands of product liability lawsuits, many of the lawsuits class actions.

Here's hoping that comments cause a re-thinking of a rule that seems ignorant of the world of mass torts.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Ninth Circuit recently vacated a district court order certifying a class in litigation against American Honda Motor Co. See Bonlender v. American Honda Motor Co., 2008 WL 2873264 (9th Cir., 7/22/08). The named plaintiffs alleged that certain models of the Honda CR-V and Element were prone to under-hood oil-fed fires, despite a low incidence of such fires.

The plaintiffs had filed four putative statewide class actions, which were among the cases consolidated for pretrial purposes in a multidistrict litigation. In re American Honda Motor Co. Oil Filter Products Liability Litigation (C.D. Cal., No. 2:06-ml-01737).

Honda appealed the district court's order apparently certifying a nationwide class. The Ninth Circuit agreed that the district court abused its discretion by sua sponte certifying a nationwide class without making any findings regarding Rule 23's requirements for class certification, including 23(b)(3)'s requirement that common issues predominate over individualized ones.

Among other things, the district court failed to analyze whether variations in applicable state law defeated Rule 23(b)(3)'s predominance requirement. MassTortDefense has posted on the impact of choice of law issues on nationwide classes here and here.

The court further ordered that the case be reassigned to a different district court judge on remand.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal district court has rejected a proposed nationwide class action in the litigation alleging that Hewlett Packard engaged in unfair and deceptive conduct in connection with the “smart chip” technology in its ink cartridges. In re HP Inkjet Printer Litigation, 2008 WL 2949265 (N.D.Cal. July 25, 2008). According to Plaintiffs, the “smart chips” are programmed to indicate prematurely that replacement is needed, when in fact “hundreds of additional pages” of ink remain. The “smart chip” technology allegedly also renders cartridges unusable on a concealed, built-in “expiration date,” which is the earlier of thirty months after installation or thirty months after a factory-set “install-by” date, regardless of the amount of usable ink remaining. Plaintiffs claim that HP's “SureSupply” marketing campaign falsely promised consumers an easy way to maintain adequate printer supplies that saves time and money while failing to disclose the premature ink warnings and built-in expiration dates. HP makes some of the best printers in the world and stands behind its technology.

Plaintiffs asserted several claims for relief including: (1) breach of express warranty; (2) breach of implied warranty; (3) unjust enrichment; (4) violations of several California consumer fraud statutes. The court addressed competing motions – defendant's for summary judgment and plaintiffs' for class certification.

Defendant moved for summary judgment, contending that named plaintiffs did not have standing because they cannot prove that they ever received a “low on ink” warning. However, the court found an issue of fact based on their deposition testimony, despite the fact they could not remember the precise wording of the low ink message received and did not recognize the actual message when shown it by opposing counsel at the deposition. “While the evidence is weak,” a reasonable jury could find that each named plaintiff has suffered a cognizable injury, said the court.

Specifically regarding the warranty claim, while neither plaintiff identified the precise language of the statements upon which he allegedly relied, the court found that recitation of the precise language is not an element of an express warranty claim. Again, while Plaintiffs' evidence is weak, it was sufficient to survive summary judgment.

No Class

Importantly for readers of MassTortDefense, the court rejected the proposed class. First, plaintiffs were seeking to represent the claims of a nationwide class without addressing any of the complexities involved in doing so. Plaintiffs appeared to simply presume that California law should apply to all putative class members nationwide; they made no attempt to satisfy their burden of establishing that the application of California law to the entire proposed class would be appropriate under Rule 23(b)(3). Plaintiffs did not adequately address any of the potential jurisdictional and due process limitations upon the application of California law to the claims of non-resident class members. Second, the plaintiffs did not address the potential choice of law problems that would arise should the court certify a nationwide class, noting each class member's home state has an interest in protecting its consumers from in-state injuries caused by foreign corporations and in delineating the scope of recovery for its citizens under its own laws.

In contrast to plaintiffs' dropping the ball, HP submitted a detailed analysis of the variations in state consumer protection and deceptive trade practice laws. This analysis demonstrates the many differences among states with respect to, for example, statutes of limitations, scienter requirements, and calculation of damages. See, e.g., In re Bridgestone/Firestone, 288 F.3d 1012, 1017-18 (7th Cir.2002) (“State consumer-protection laws vary considerably, and courts must respect these differences rather than apply one state's laws to sales in other states with different rules.”).

Based on the record before it, the court concluded that the proposed nationwide class would be unmanageable.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a trial court’s ruling that a case involving plaintiffs alleging damages from chemicals escaping from a wood-processing facility is a “mass action” that belongs in federal court. See Bullard, et al. v. Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railway, et al., 2008 WL 2941359 (7th Cir. 2008).

A state court complaint by 144 plaintiffs sought damages from four corporations that had designed, manufactured, transported, or used chemicals that allegedly escaped from a Texas wood-processing plant and purportedly injured people living nearby. Among the plaintiffs’ claims are negligence, trespass, willful and wanton conduct, and fraudulent concealment, asserting that chemicals associated with creosote used to preserve wood were released into the environment through soil, ground water, and/or air mechanisms.

Defendants removed the suit, relying on the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005. CAFA expanded federal jurisdiction over various types of class actions. CAFA’s expanded jurisdiction was not limited to pure class actions, however. It also reaches a category of cases – “mass actions” – in which monetary claims of 100 or more persons are proposed to be tried jointly on the grounds that the plaintiffs’ claims allegedly involve common questions of law or fact. See 28 U.S.C. ¶1332(d)(11)(B)(i).

Plaintiffs moved to remand. They denied that the suit was a “mass action,” noting their complaint never proposed a trial. Thus, according to plaintiffs, defendants may remove a “mass action” only when a final pretrial order or equivalent document identifies the number of parties to the trial, which is to be “joint.” The district judge denied the motion for remand, and plaintiffs obtained interlocutory review “because the legal issue is novel.”

On appeal, plaintiffs argued they are entitled to litigate in state court because the Class Action Fairness Act has a loophole. Section 1332(d)(11)(B)(i) refers to “claims of 100 or more persons ... proposed to be tried jointly.” Complaints do not propose trials, plaintiffs insisted; they'd be happy to win by summary judgment or get a settlement. The case may never get to a trial. Cross that bridge when you come to it.

The Court rejected this reading. Plaintiffs' lawyers who want to avoid federal court, the Court said, have simply designed a class-action substitute. Their complaint alleges that several questions of law and fact are common to all 144 plaintiffs; it provides no more information about each individual plaintiff than an avowed class complaint would do. No one supposes that all 144 plaintiffs will be active; a few of them will take the lead, just as in a class action, and as a practical matter counsel will dominate, just as in a class action.

If the plaintiffs’ proposed strict reading were right, then, actually, §1332(d)(11) would be defunct, because it defines a class action to include a mass action. Taken to its logical end, in plaintiffs' view, no “mass action” could ever be a “class action”, for a suit cannot be officially identified as a “mass action” until the trial is finalized, not on the date of filing which, plaintiffs say, is the operative date. But “courts do not read statutes to make entire subsections vanish into the night,” said the Court.

A second reading would be to reject the date of filing as the only operative date and find that a case could become a “mass action” at any time. That could be long after filing, once plaintiffs are formally and explicitly proposed to be tried jointly. The prospect of this situation is why §1332(d)(11) allows the definition to be applied after the suits' filing date. But nothing in the statute says that the eve of trial is the only time when a “mass action” can be detected.

When plaintiffs take advantage of procedural rules that permit the joinder of multiple plaintiffs in a single suit where the claims arise out of “the same transaction or series of transactions” and “common questions of law or fact” are allegedly present, that's “exactly when a single trial is appropriate.” It does not matter whether a trial covering 100 or more plaintiffs actually ensues; the statutory question is whether one has been “proposed.” This complaint, which describes circumstances common to all plaintiffs, proposes one proceeding and thus, for statutory purposes, sufficiently alleges one trial.

And the Seventh Circuit went on to anticipate and reject plaintiffs' next likely reaction: A proposal to hold multiple trials in a single suit, or just one trial with 10 plaintiffs and the use of preclusion to cover everyone else, does not take the suit outside the language applying to any “civil action ... in which monetary relief claims of 100 or more persons are proposed to be tried jointly.” The question is not whether 100 or more plaintiffs answer a roll call in court, but whether the “claims” advanced by 100 or more persons are proposed to be tried jointly. A trial of 10 exemplary plaintiffs, followed by application of issue or claim preclusion to 134 more plaintiffs without another trial, is one in which the claims of 100 or more persons are being tried jointly, and this would bring the suit within federal jurisdiction.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Recently, MassTortDefense posted about a proposed class action alleging lead in lipstick. See Stella v. LVMH Perfumes and Cosmetics USA Inc., No. 1:07-cv-06509, 2008 WL 2669662 (N.D. Ill. 7/8/08). The Northern District of Illinois denied the motion to dismiss consumer fraud claims. Now, a federal judge has thrown out a purported class action against L’Oreal USA Inc. and Procter & Gamble Distributing LLC that accused the companies of selling Cover Girl and Maybelline lipsticks containing lead. Koronthaly v. L’Oreal USA, Inc., et al., No. 07-5588 (D.N.J. July 29, 2008), opinion found here.

The plaintiff brought various claims, including unjust enrichment, breach of implied warranty and violations of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act. The plaintiff asked the court to enjoin the companies from carrying the lipsticks at issue and requested compensatory damages to recover the money she allegedly spent on the products. She also asked for damages to cover the costs of medical monitoring to detect lead poisoning. Plaintiff contended she would not have bought the lipsticks if the defendants had revealed that they contained the lead.

In contrast to the ruling in Illinois, the New Jersey District Court found the plaintiff lacked standing to sue since she had alleged no injury, harm or ascertainable loss from having purchased the lipstick. Plaintiff's allegations of a merely potential future injury were too remote and abstract to qualify as a concrete and particularized injury. Plaintiff had not alleged any present injury. Plaintiff's mere demand for damages did not establish injury-in-fact either. Plaintiff bought lipstick and used the lipstick, only complaining that the lipstick's alleged levels of lead were unsatisfactory to her. The FDA does not provide limitations on lead levels in lipstick. The FDA does not otherwise regulate lipstick. The plaintiff's analogy to lead in candy was insufficient. Plaintiff cannot seek a remedy for a harm that she has not actually or allegedly suffered.

The plaintiff's allegation of economic injury in a products liability action is insufficient to establish an injury-in-fact. The plaintiff had suffered no ill effects from use of the product, and had not alleged that any future harm was expected. The so-called benefit of the bargain injury could not sustain a claim under these circumstances.

What is interesting is that the court's analysis focused not so much on the elements of the state statue, but the requirement of standing under Article III. The triad of injury in fact, causation, and redressability comprises the core of Article III's case or controversy requirement. Plaintiff's alleged injury was too conjectural and hypothetical to satisfy the injury in fact requirement. Plaintiff thus lacked standing to bring her claim. And standing cannot be "acquired through the back door of a class action."

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The California Supreme Court has agreed to hear a public nuisance case involving lead paint manufacturers that raises the important issue whether public entities can hire outside attorneys on a contingency fee basis in these kinds of cases. County of Santa Clara v. Superior Court (Atlantic Richfield), No. S163681 (Cal. S.Ct.).

In granting review last week, the Court stated: “This case presents the following issue: May a public entity retain private counsel to prosecute a public nuisance abatement action under a contingent fee agreement?”

Ten or so California cities and counties are plaintiffs in the case which accused several former lead paint manufacturers of fraud, strict liability, negligence, unfair business practices, and public nuisance. Eventually, the plaintiffs agreed to move forward with only the public nuisance question. In February, 2007, the defendants filed a motion to bar payment of contingency fees to private attorneys hired by the government plaintiffs. Under an agreement reached by the cities and counties, private counsel apparently were to receive only a small fee upfront, but then 17% of any net recovery.

The California superior court barred the public entities from compensating their private counsel through contingency fees. In April, 2008, the Sixth Appellate Court of Appeal overturned that decision, saying private counsel would only play a limited role in this particular litigation – so the arrangement was acceptable. The court of appeals' opinion tried to draw a distinction between situations where private counsel are performing tasks on behalf of and in the name of the government in a public nuisance abatement action – where private counsel must be absolutely neutral and cannot be compensated by a contingent fee arrangement – and the situation where private counsel are “merely assisting” government attorneys in the litigation of a public nuisance abatement action and are explicitly serving in a subordinate role. In the latter case, private counsel are not themselves acting in the name of the government and have no role in the balancing of interests that triggers the absolute neutrality requirement, the court stated. The defendants filed a petition for review.

When an attorney wields the power of the state in court, there are ethical and prudential concerns. Not only is a government lawyer's neutrality essential to a fair outcome for the litigants in the case in which he or she is involved, it is essential to the proper function of the judicial process as a whole. Our system relies for its validity on the confidence of society; without a belief by the people that the system is just and impartial, the concept of the rule of law cannot survive. When a government attorney has a personal interest in the litigation, the neutrality so essential to the system is violated. For this reason prosecutors and other government attorneys can be disqualified for having an interest in the case extraneous to their official function.

The justification for the prohibition against contingent fees seen in criminal actions has been extended to certain civil cases. In People ex rel. Clancy v. Superior Court, 39 Cal.3d 740, 218 Cal.Rptr. 24 (Cal. 1985), the Court did not adopt a per se ban on such contingency fees, but did note that there is a class of civil actions that demands the representative of the government be absolutely neutral. This requirement would preclude the use in that class of cases of a contingent fee arrangement.

The abatement of a public nuisance involves a balancing of interests. On the one hand is the interest of the people in ridding their community of the alleged obnoxious or dangerous condition; on the other hand is the interest of the landowner in using/selling his property or products. Thus, as with an eminent domain action, the abatement of a public nuisance involves a delicate weighing of values. Any financial arrangement that would tempt the government attorney to tip the scale cannot be tolerated, said Clancy. It will be interesting to see if the "merely assisting" distinction succeeds.

That type of distinction was adopted by the Rhode Island Supreme Court in State of Rhode Island v. Lead Industries Association, Inc., No. 2004-63-M.P. (R.I. July 1, 2008), found here. In that case, the fee agreement provided that, in return for their legal representation on behalf of the state in the lead paint litigation, counsel would be entitled to a fee reflecting 16 2/3 percent of any monies recovered. Although the Court ruled for the defendants on the merits, it addressed the fee issue as one of extreme public importance, and as capable of repetition but evading review. The Court noted that the propriety vel non of contingent fee agreements in the public sector is a much controverted and still developing area of the law. It concluded that the Attorney General is not precluded from engaging private counsel pursuant to a contingent fee agreement in order to assist in certain civil litigation, so long as the Office of Attorney General retains absolute and total control over all critical decision-making in any case in which such agreements have been entered into. Accordingly, in order to ensure that a contingent fee agreement is not adverse to the standards that an attorney representing the government must meet, it is vital that the Attorney General have absolute control over the course of any litigation originating in that office. The Attorney General’s discretionary decision-making must not be delegated to the control of outside counsel; rather, it is the outside counsel who must serve in a subordinate role.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal court has denied Whirlpool Corp.’s motion to dismiss in a proposed class action arising over allegedly defective ice chutes in the company’s side-by-side refrigerator models. Nessle v. Whirlpool Corp., No.1:07-cv-03009 (July 25, 2008 N.D. Ohio). See here.

Judge Christopher Boyko denied the motion, finding plaintiff had sufficiently pled the key elements required to allege a claim under the Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act. MassTortDefense has posted before on the growing impact of state-law based consumer fraud class actions.

Nessle purchased a Whirlpool-manufactured side-by-side refrigerator in May, 2006. The refrigerator came with a one-year limited warranty. It was sold under Whirlpool’s “Gold” label, which Nessle alleges she took to mean that the product was special and worth purchasing at a premium, or at a minimum would work properly, according to the opinion. Within a few weeks of purchasing the refrigerator, Nessle claimed, she began experiencing problems with the ice dispensing function of the refrigerator’s ice maker, including clogs in the ice chute. A service technician was dispatched to service the ice maker on several occasions, the complaint claimed. But plaintiff alleged that the ice chute would allegedly jam up and freeze again.

The lawsuit, filed in October, 2007, claims Whirlpool was aware of an alleged design defect in the refrigerators and failed to disclose the defect. It seeks to represent a statewide class consisting of all current and former Ohio residents who have, since 2000, purchased a side-by-side Whirlpool refrigerator with a purportedly defective ice chute. The complaint seeks an order requiring Whirlpool to repair or replace the defective ice chutes, as well as monetary relief.

Whirlpool argued that plaintiff failed to plead any act or omission by the company that would constitute an unfair or deceptive act under the OCSPA. Second, plaintiff had failed to adequately plead the element of proximate cause.

The court gave a narrow reading to the Supreme Court guidance in Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, 127 S.Ct. 1955 (2007), as requiring only enough facts to state a claim that is plausible on its face. Of course, the Court also has stated that, “Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Id. at 1965.

On the conduct element, and the use of the term “Gold,” the court relied on the purpose of the Act to compensate consumers and the need to “liberally construe” such legislation.  One would presume that beyond the motion to dismiss stage a serious challenge exists to plaintiff's alleged interpretation of the term "Gold." 

On the causation issue, defendant stressed that plaintiff did not contend the “Gold” label affected her decision to buy her refrigerator, and that Plaintiff did not read, hear, or see any statements of fact by Whirlpool prior to purchasing the refrigerator. Defendant’s argument, the court said, is “largely unpersuasive” because there is no provision in the statute itself requiring Plaintiff to show reliance on any statement of fact or omission. While proximate cause is an essential element of an OCSPA claim, the court relied on dicta from the Sixth Circuit that “a showing of subjective reliance is probably not necessary to prove a violation of the OCSPA.” Butler v. Sterling, Inc., No. 98-3223, 2000 WL 353502 at *4 (6th Cir. Mar. 31, 2000).

The court also relied on an intermediate appeals level state court opinion, which the court read to suggest  that individual reliance is not necessary with regard to class action suits under the state consumer fraud act. Amato v. General Motors Corp., 11 Ohio App. 3d 124, 126 (1982). In Amato, the court specifically noted: “[C]onsumer claims would amount to little if acceptance of the representations made for the product could be manifested only by one-on-one proof of individual exposure.”   MassTortDefense notes that that 25 year-old opinion actually held that proof of reliance may be sufficiently established by inference or presumption from circumstantial evidence to warrant submission to a jury without direct testimony from each member of the class. That does not mean that reliance is not relevant to the causation element. And how one proves causation in an alleged fraud case without showing reliance of some sort is an issue many state courts have refused to clarify in their desire to have the reliance element not defeat consumer class actions (as a dominant individual issue). 

Judge Boyko also let stand Nessle’s claim for breach of implied warranty of merchantability, and unjust enrichment, but dismissed the claim for breach of express warranty. “The written warranty contains no language pertaining to the reliability or performance of the ice maker, and provides only for repair or replacement of any defective parts during the one-year limited warranty period.”
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal court last week refused to certify two different classes of plaintiffs in multidistrict litigation that accuses ConAgra Foods Inc. of selling salmonella-contaminated peanut butter. In Re ConAgra Peanut Butter Products Liability Litigation, MDL-1845, 2008 WL 2885951 (N.D.Ga., July 22, 2008). 

The MDL transferee court ruled that the plaintiffs' economic claims (unjust enrichment) and personal injury claims were not suitable for class certification on predominance, manageability (choice of law), and superiority grounds (alternative means for resolution).

The litigation arises from the illness of several hundred people in numerous states; plaintiff class action lawyers allege the clients became ill from salmonella poisoning after eating ConAgra's peanut butter manufactured at its Sylvester, Ga., plant.

The plaintiffs had asked the court to certify two classes: a class of purchasers of the peanut butter, which was allegedly rendered “unusable and valueless” when the product was recalled; and a class of plaintiffs who consumed the peanut butter and claimed personal injury.

The court first rejected the plaintiffs' argument that it should apply Georgia's choice of law rules in the case. In multidistrict litigation, under 28 U.S.C. § 1407, the transferee court applies the state law that the transferor court would have applied. Murphy v. F.D.I.C., 208 F.3d 959, 965 (11th Cir. 2000). When this action was consolidated, separate actions had been filed in 10 different states. Thus, the MDL court needed to apply choice of law rules from each of the transferor courts, the court said. The obvious inference from that situation alone is that the class would be unmanageable.  Even if a class is not ipso facto unmanageable due to the application of different choice of law rules, there is substantial conflict between Georgia substantive law and other jurisdictions on the issues raised. On unjust enrichment, some states have a common law claim; others have a preemptive statute.  Privity is required in some; some but not all states require a direct benefit conferred by the plaintiff upon the defendant as a prerequisite; some but not all states have a state of mind requirement for recovery, etc. The court also found that proving damages under the unjust enrichment claim would require individualized determinations.

The un-manageability arsing from the choice of law issue also impacted the absence of superiority, what the court called the “inferiority of classwide resolution due to discerning the many differing legal standards.” Moreover, the defendant's refund program provided an alternate way of addressing the claim.

The court also declined to certify the class pursuing a personal injury claim, even a  limited "issues" class. The court found that such an issues class would not promote judicial economy or materially advance the litigation. “Although the defendant has not formally admitted liability, it is highly unlikely that it will deny that salmonella-contaminated peanut butter is a defective product and makes people sick who eat it,” the court said.

The importance of this reasoning to readers of MassTortDefense is that it points out that in balancing predominance, and assessing superiority and manageability, the court needs to take a realistic view of what issues will actually be litigated. The trial plan proposed by the parties has to reflect the real issues to be litigated.  The allegedly predominant common issue of defect or defendant negligence is immaterial if that is not an issue on which the parties will spend considerable time and effort.

Moreover, although the court focused on the predominance issue in denying the personal injury class, it made an important observation about the constitutional implications of an issue class or a bifurcated class proceeding. Denying the common issues personal injury class here also avoided "potential constitutional problems." Rule 23(c)(4) issues classes can violate the parties' Seventh Amendment jury trial rights, especially in personal injury cases. Many jurisdictions differ on the details of even a negligence claim.  Such nuances "can be important, and its significant is suggested by a comparison of differing state pattern instructions on negligence and differing judicial formulations of the meaning of negligence and the subordinate concepts.” In re Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, Inc ., 51 F.3d 1293, 1300 (7th Cir.1995).  And there is the very real risk that a second jury (even if just on damages) would have to reconsider some of the liability issues decided by the first jury: too substantial a risk to certify the issues class. The Court thus heeded the "binding authority" which cautions that separate trials of liability and damages must be approached "with trepidation” to avoid offending the Seventh Amendment. State of Alabama v. Blue Bird Body Co., Inc., 573 F.2d 309, 318 (5th Cir.1978).

Yet another important observation by the court was that the plaintiffs' case for class certification collapses when it confronts the fact that certification of a common issues class will not dispose of a single case or eliminate the need for a single trial. Any saving in judicial resources is speculative at best. See Castano v. American Tobacco Co., 84 F.3d 734, 749 (5th Cir.1996). Under the plaintiffs' trial plan, at least 6,000 individual trials on exposure, injury, causation, damages and other individual issues would have to be prosecuted whether or not a class is certified, presumably by the lawyers already retained by the personal injury claimants. The lesson here is the court was willing to "look down the road" to how the case would go.

Finally, another gem on the issue of superiority: While it would be possible, said the court, to have a common issues trial on the issue of, “Can eating peanut butter that is contaminated with the bacteria listed above cause illness?” (i.e. the general causation issue), "why bother having a trial on issues of such abstract generality?"  And a class trial of issues such as what the defendant allegedly knew or should have known and the adequacy of its general plant sanitation practices in relation to the onset of illness for thousands of people -- plaintiffs' quintessential "common" issues -- would require special interrogatories and a verdict form "of unimaginable complexity. I cannot imagine how to fashion a verdict form that would provide meaningful answers...."  

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A federal court earlier this month permitted a proposed class action to move forward with its central allegation that Christian Dior lipstick contains excessive levels of lead. See Stella v. LVMH Perfumes and Cosmetics USA Inc., No. 1:07-cv-06509, 2008 WL 2669662 (N.D. Ill. 7/8/08).

Named plaintiff Pamela Stella alleges that she purchased Christian Dior "Addict Positive Red" lipstick, manufactured by LVMH Perfumes and Cosmetics USA Inc., at a Nordstrom department store in June, 2007. The so-called “Campaign for Safe Cosmetics” group issued a report in October, 2007 claiming that tests showed a lead level in LVMH lipsticks which slightly exceeds the regulatory limit established by the Food and Drug Administration for lead content in certain products like candy.  In reality, the average amount of lead a woman would be exposed to when using cosmetics is 1,000 times less than the amount she would get from eating, breathing and drinking water that meets Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) drinking water standards, according to the Cosmetics, Toiletry and Fragrance Association (CTFA).

Plaintiff then sued LVMH in November, 2007 on behalf of a proposed nationwide class of lipstick purchasers. She alleged that the company violated the Illinois deceptive business practices statute and breached an implied warranty of merchantability. She also brought claims for strict liability, negligence per se, unjust enrichment, and injunctive relief.

Judge Elaine E. Bucklo of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois denied defendant’s motion to dismiss. She determined that Stella sufficiently alleged a claim under the deceptive trade practices law, including its requirement of actual damages. Stella sought to recover actual damages, the court said, "in the form of pecuniary damages (the cost of the lipstick).” The court also noted that plaintiff had alleged that her reliance on defendant's omission caused her to buy the lipstick and become exposed to lead. “This sufficiently alleges proximate cause.”

The court also agreed with plaintiff that Illinois law would permit medical monitoring as a remedy. The Illinois Supreme Court has not ruled on the question. But in Carey v. Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp., 999 F. Supp. 1109, 1118-19 (N.D. Ill. 1998), the district court had predicted that medical monitoring would be recognized as cognizable under Illinois law.

MassTortDefense has posted on medical monitoring before, here and here. The clear trend has been away from recognizing these claims, see Lowe v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., 344 Or. 403, 183 P.3d 181 (2008), or to narrow their scope. See Sinclair v. Merck & Co., 195 N.J. 51, 948 A.2d 587 (2008).

Where recognized, medical monitoring plaintiffs typically must prove:
1. exposure greater than normal background levels;
2. to a proven hazardous substance;
3. caused by the defendant's negligence;
4. as a proximate result of the exposure, plaintiff has a significantly increased risk of contracting a serious latent disease;
5. a monitoring procedure exists that makes the early detection of the disease possible;
6. the prescribed monitoring regime is different from that normally recommended in the absence of the exposure; and
7. the prescribed monitoring regime is reasonably necessary according to contemporary scientific principles.

Medical monitoring is almost always seen as a potential class action claim, for several reasons:
• First, the individual damages associated with periodic testing of a so-far healthy plaintiff may not be all that financially attractive to plaintiff attorneys.
• Secondly, a number of the elements of the claim (or remedy) of medical monitoring seem, on the surface, amenable to “common” proof in the form of epidemiological evidence. For example, the increased risk that typically must be shown.

When the issue is ripe, it should be clear that such claims are not appropriate for class treatment, as numerous individual issues will arise, including choice of law, properly viewed, in a nationwide class.

Defendant LVMH's also challenged the implied warranty claims, based on the absence of contractual privity between plaintiff and LVMH. But the court narrowly construed the privity requirement to say that Illinois law requires contractual privity as a prerequisite for breach of implied warranty claims only for recovery of economic losses. Voelker v. Porsche Cars North Am., Inc., 353 F.3d 516, 527 (7th Cir.2003). The medical monitoring claim, as "a form of personal injury claim," brought plaintiff out from under this privity requirement, said the court.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Oklahoma Supreme Court earlier this month upheld certification of a nationwide class in litigation alleging DaimlerChrysler Corp. should have provided repairs to steering systems on vehicles manufactured between 1993 and 2001. Masquat v. DaimlerChrysler Corp., Okla., No. 104971 (7/1/08), found here.

Plaintiffs alleged that LH platform vehicles contained a defect in the power rack and pinion steering system. These vehicles were sold as various Dodge and Chrysler models during model years 1993 through most of 2001. Plaintiffs alleged that shortly after production and sale of the LH vehicles began, Defendant began to receive reports from consumers of steering related problems. Defendant eventually introduced a newly designed steering system bolt, in late calendar year 2000.  Plaintiffs' theory is that the cure/repair to the problem developed by Defendant was never provided to already-produced LH platform vehicles, and consumers were not adequately informed that the fix was available and that the repair should be made.

Among the defenses asserted was the fact that the claims of most of the proposed class members seemed time-barred. Plaintiffs’ response was that the statute of limitations was tolled, based on alleged "active concealment" of the alleged defect in the steering system.

Following a hearing on the motion for class certification, the trial court certified a nationwide class of current owners of the vehicles. Class certification in Oklahoma is governed by Okla. Stat. Tit. 12 Sec. 2023, which provides for numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy in language similar to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a), and for predominance and superiority in the same manner as Rule 23(b)(3). Defendants appealed, continuing to assert that individual issues predominate, especially those raised by the choice of law issues. Nationwide classes typically are inappropriate because they require the class court to try to explain, and the jury to try to apply, the varying law of 51 different jurisdictions.

The Supreme Court first noted that the substantive law of Michigan would apply to all the breach of warranty claims in this matter. The class of plaintiffs is pursuing breach of warranty claims against a Michigan manufacturer. Under the "most significant relationship" test applied in Oklahoma, Michigan law applies. Furthermore, the factual issues associated with the breach of warranty claims appear to be essentially uniform across the class as they arise from the same event or course of conduct and give rise to the same legal or remedial theory, said the Court.

The more hotly contested issue was whether common issues predominate over individual issues in regard to Defendant's statute of limitations defense. Plaintiffs asserted that the statute of limitations was tolled because Defendant actively concealed information regarding the steering system tie rods from the class. Plaintiffs emphasized that they were not pursuing a common law fraud claim, which might require that the "law of 51 jurisdictions" be applied. Defendant, on the other hand, asserted that the choice of law rule applicable to the Court's determination of the proper limitation period, and thus the appropriate requirements for tolling that provision, must be found in Oklahoma's "borrowing statute." That act provided that the period of limitation applicable to a claim accruing outside of this state shall be that prescribed either by the law of the place where the claim accrued or by the law of this state, whichever last bars the claim. Defendant argued that application of the borrowing statute will require the comparison of Oklahoma's limitation period for a warranty claim to the warranty limitation period of each state in which a class member resides.

The Court agreed with Defendant, but only in part. The borrowing statute was the right approach, but because Michigan law applied to the warranty claims of the class, the Court need only compare the limitation period under Michigan law to that of Oklahoma and apply the one which "last bars" the claims.

Third, Defendant argued that predominance is defeated by the need to question each class member individually as to whether the class member exercised reasonable diligence in learning of the allegedly concealed defect. Some class members might well have been more diligent than others, and some class members may have known more about the alleged defect than others, based on their own experience, or the experience of people they know. In contrast to the choice of law issue, the Oklahoma Supreme Court admitted that it had never been presented with the opportunity to address the class action predominance requirement in the context of an asserted fraudulent concealment exception to the statute of limitations, with its possible factual roots.

The Court rejected the defense position, finding that the essence of fraudulent concealment is knowledge in possession of the person committing the fraud. Thus, in this matter, the principal focus on the statute of limitations defense will be Defendant's conduct, claimed the Court. The "common questions" supposedly arising from Plaintiff's assertion of fraudulent concealment were (1) whether Defendant affirmatively concealed the alleged defect, and thus concealed a breach of warranty, and (2) whether the class members, by exercising due diligence, could have determined that a breach had occurred.

On the latter point, which seems to MassTortDefense to raise basic individual issues, the Court stressed that common evidence included whether knowledge of the alleged defect was readily available so as to put an ordinary prudent class member on inquiry. This, of course, begs the question whether, even if not everyone should have known, some class members knew or should have known prior to the statutory period. But the Court concluded that any question of variation in individual reliance is eclipsed by the common questions surrounding the allegation of fraudulent concealment. “The mere presence of individual issues does not defeat predominance.”

Underlying this opinion may have been the factor that the trial court capped the amount of damages compensation at $310 for the bolt fix repair and $400 for other steering system repairs caused by the bolt problem, meaning that many class members might not pursue individual actions. The limited legal theories raised by class plaintiffs also limited the defense opportunity to unearth predominating individual issues.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Pfizer and the other defendants in the Mirapex litigation are seeking a bifurcated trial plan. In motions filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, where MDL-1310 is based, the defendants asked for separate liability and punitive damages phases. Defendants raised the legitimate concern that the jury may be swayed by financial considerations when determining liability.

In this litigation, plaintiffs allege that the drug causes a compulsive urge to gamble. The plaintiffs claim that Mirapex triggered compulsive behaviors, and that the defendants knew the risks but failed to properly study the effects or warn patients. As is so often the case, a label change (in February 2006) seems to have prompted litigation.

Defendants assert that bifurcation is warranted because evidence of defendants' finances is irrelevant to the issues of liability; introduction of such evidence during the liability phase would be unduly prejudicial. Bifurcation is thus necessary to prevent unfair prejudice to defendants during the liability determination. The motions note that the 8th Circuit has recognized bifurcated trial plans in a number of settings. Indeed, bifurcation is a common feature of pharmaceutical mass torts.

Plaintiffs oppose the proposal, arguing that the issue of liability and punitive damages are somehow “intertwined.” Meaning, of course, that they would like for the jury to consider the company’s financials when judging its conduct. Plaintiffs insist on a single trial where the fact finder considers “all the evidence at once.” To the extent some of that evidence should not be considered on the issues of liability, plaintiffs propose that the jury could be instructed to consider the financial information only in the proper context.

MassTortDefense has posted on the importance of proper trial plans here. The Mirapex motions present perhaps the most basic form of bifurcation or trial plan issue.  The timing of the punitive damages issues in class actions or other complex aggregated litigation can become highly complex and controversial. The questions as to punitive damages may include: a) whether they can be awarded; b) if so, whether as a lump sum, as a multiplier of individual compensatory damages, or on a per class member basis, c) whether they can be tried before individual liability as to specific class members, or as to absent class members, or non-bellwether plaintiffs has been decided; d) whether they can be awarded before the actual amount of compensatory damages has been determined; and e) how punitive damages are allocated among class members or the aggregated plaintiffs if not determined on a per plaintiff basis. State Farm Mutual Auto Insurance Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408 (2003). See In re Simon II, 407 F.3d 125 (2d Cir. 2005); Beck v. Boeing Co., 60 Fed. Appx. 38 (9th Cir. 2003); Allison v. Citgo Petroleum Corp., 151 F.3d 402 (5th Cir. 1998); Johnson v. Ford Motor Co., 35 Cal.4th 1191,113 P.3d 82 (Cal. 2005) (rejecting aggregate disgorgement); Engle v. Liggett Group, Inc., 945 So.2d 1246, 1265 (Fla. 2006); In re Chevron Fire Cases, 2005 WL 1077516, at *14-15 (Cal. App. May 6, 2005); Colindres v. QuitFlex Manufacturing, 235 F.R.D. 347, 378 (S.D. Tex. 2006).

Punitive damages are designed to punish a defendant for egregious conduct and deter future reprehensible conduct on the part of the defendant or others. Particularly in the context of juries unchecked by proper legal instructions and unorthodox trial plans that prematurely address the punitive damages issue, they constitute a serious litigation threat to product sellers today. In aggregated litigation, such damages have the potential to lead to crippling verdicts, and thus the threat of punitive damages may coerce “blackmail” settlements.

In recent years, the United States Supreme Court has identified a variety of constitutional limits on punitive damage awards. Specifically, such awards cannot be arbitrary punishments and cannot be grossly excessive. In Philip Morris USA v. Williams, 127 S.Ct. 1057 (2007), the Court confirmed a significant constitutional principle limiting punitive damages awards: the Due Process Clause prohibits juries from basing punitive damages awards in part upon the desire to punish a defendant for harm to persons that are not before the court. Williams arose from an Oregon trial wherein a jury awarded $821,000 in compensatory damages and $79.5 million in punitive damages against cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris. At trial, the plaintiff’s attorney had urged the jury to punish Philip Morris for alleged harm to smokers other than the plaintiff by referring to the defendant’s market share and the number of smokers not only in the state of Oregon, but nationwide, who had allegedly contracted a smoking-related illness in the last 40 years. The Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause forbids a jury from assessing punitive damages to punish a defendant for injury that it inflicts upon non-parties or “strangers” to this litigation. While a jury may consider the actual or potential harm to non-parties in the narrow context of determining “reprehensibility” of the conduct, which in turn is one of the factors relevant to an analysis whether the punitive damages award is excessive or not, it may not punish the defendant for the impact of its alleged misconduct on other people, who may bring lawsuits of their own in which other juries can resolve their claims. The Court cautioned state courts that they must make sure that the “jury will ask the right question, not the wrong one.” That is, evidence regarding alleged injuries of those not before the court must be used solely to judge the reprehensibility of the conduct, not to assess damages for the harm caused to those strangers. While the Court commented on the Oregon court’s refusal to give a jury instruction clarifying this distinction, it noted that state courts cannot authorize any procedures that create an unreasonable and necessary risk of any such confusion occurring. When evidence is introduced or argument made that risks this confusion, the state court must take steps to protect against that risk.

One implication of the Court’s emphasis on avoiding misuse of evidence of harm to “strangers” clearly relates to the employment of reverse-bifurcated trial plans in aggregated cases, in particular trial plans in which the entitlement and amount of punitive damages (by ratio or dollar amount) is set in an early phase of the trial, well before the jury has considered whether the vast bulk of the plaintiffs have actually been injured by the alleged conduct of the defendant. E.g., In re Tobacco Litigation, 624 S.E.2d at 740 (W. Va. 2005)(holding that an aggregated, reverse-bifurcated punitive damage multiplier trial before adjudication of any affirmative defense would not be per se invalid). Some state courts favor this approach because it puts pressure on defendants to settle by creating the risk of a huge punitive damages burden before it has even been established whether many or most of the plaintiffs have any compensatory damages. Such a trial plan clearly creates an unnecessary and unreasonable risk of a due process violation under Williams, one that a simple jury instruction about the distinction between entitlement and reprehensibility cannot hope to address adequately. See, e.g., In re Simon II Litig., 407 F.3d at 138 (“In certifying a class that seeks an assessment of punitive damages prior to an actual determination and award of compensatory damages, the district court’s Certification Order would fail to ensure that a jury will be able to assess an award that, in the first instance, will bear a sufficient nexus to the actual and potential harm to the plaintiff class, and that will be reasonable and proportionate to those harms.”); Allison v. Citgo Petroleum Corp., 151 F.3d at 417–418 (stating that “because punitive damages must be reasonably related to the reprehensibility of the defendant’s conduct and to the compensatory damages awarded to the plaintiffs, . . . recovery of punitive damages must necessarily turn on the recovery of compensatory damages”); Southwestern Ref. Co. v. Bernal, 22 S.W.3d at 433 (“Under the [trial plan], the jury would decide punitive damages for the entire class without knowing the severity of the offense or the extent of compensatory damages, if any, for each of the 885 plaintiffs…. the modified trial plan is … prejudicial because it fails to ensure that punitive damages have some understandable relationship to compensatory damages and are not grossly out of proportion to the severity of the offense for each of the 885 plaintiffs.”).

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

There has been significant discussion of preemption recently, particularly in the medical device and drug context. A recent decision under the Federal Railroad Safety Act offers some insight into potentially important aspects of the doctrine, and particularly when Congressional action may affect preemption.

In Lundeen v. Canadian Pac. Ry. Co., 2008 WL 2597958 (8th Cir. July 2, 2008), the Eighth Circuit confronted a situation in which a legislative amendment, which was retroactive to the date of the relevant incident, had the apparent effect of reinstating a suit which had been preempted.

In January, 2002, a freight train operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Co. derailed in North Dakota, releasing a cloud of anhydrous ammonia. Nearby residents sued in state court, alleging respiratory disease and eye damage. Defendants removed based on federal question jurisdiction, but plaintiffs amended their complaint to delete reference to federal law. The district court then ruled that the cases should be remanded to Minnesota state court. Canadian Pacific appealed the ruling, and the Eighth Circuit found that the claims were preempted under the Federal Railroad Safety Act. The cases were remanded to the district court, which dismissed on the merits.

Plaintiffs appealed, and while the appeal was pending, the Act was amended, retroactive to the date of the train derailment. The amendment stated that “nothing in this section shall be construed to preempt an action under State law seeking damages for personal injury, death, or property damage alleging that a party …has failed to comply with the Federal standard of care established by a regulation or order issued by the Secretary of Transportation (with respect to railroad safety matters), or … has failed to comply with a State law, regulation, or order that is not incompatible with [federal law].” This “clarifying” amendment reflected Congress's disagreement with the manner in which the courts, including the Eighth Circuit, had interpreted the Act to preempt state law causes of action whenever a federal regulation covered the same subject matter as the allegations of negligence in a state court lawsuit.

Defendants argued that applying the amendment here: 1) would violate the U.S. Constitution's separation of powers doctrine; 2) violate due process; 3) violate equal protection; and 4) violate the ex post facto clause.

The appeals court rejected the railroad's separation of powers argument, citing Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, 514 U.S. 211 (1995), for the notion that the doctrine is violated only when Congress tries to apply new law to cases which have already reached a final judgment. Here, the amendment became effective while these cases were on appeal and had not reached final judgments. The Supreme Court has reiterated that Congress possesses the power to amend existing law even if the amendment affects the outcome of pending cases.

The court also denied the due process challenge. The railroad had the burden of showing there is no rational basis for the law. See FCC v. Beach Communications, Inc., 508 U.S. 307 (1993). Indeed, the court noted it reviews legislation regulating economic and business affairs under a “highly deferential rational basis” standard of review. The sufficient rational basis for the amendment, said the court, was to give railroad accident victims the right to seek recovery in state courts when they allege railroads violate safety standards. Prior to the amendment, the relevant section had been interpreted in such a way that an injured person’s state law claims were preempted. It was “rational” for Congress to clarify this result was not an intended purpose of the Act.

No equal rights violation was recognized despite the amendment imposing different standards on railroads that caused harm before and after the effective date. Every retroactive statute, by necessity, imposes different standards on parties affected by the statute, and those differences are directly tied to the statute's effective date.

Finally, the court said, the amendment does not violate the Ex Post Facto clause, because there is no proof that Congress intended the amendment as a criminal penalty. The Ex Post Facto clause applies only to criminal penalties, and clear proof is needed to support the argument that a civil remedy is so “punitive” in purpose or effect as to be in essence a criminal penalty.

In an interesting dissent, Judge Beam disagreed with the majority view of retroactivity. Because the case had already been up on appeal on an issue of federal jurisdiction there was a final decision that could not be undone by legislation.

Of more interest to readers of MassTortDefense is his argument that the court should have followed Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc., 128 S.Ct. 999 (2008) and its discussion of the preemption precedent established in Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U.S. 504 (1992); Medtronic, Inc. v. Lohr, 518 U.S. 470 (1996); and Bates v. Dow Agrosciences LLC, 544 U.S. 431 (2005).

“I concede that the MDA as discussed in Riegel deals with a product or service different from that of the FRSA. But, for preemption analysis, any differences are immaterial-the preemption language and the regulatory requirements are analogous. For federal preemption purposes, a medical device manufactured and marketed under a regime employing specific federal safety requirements is little different from a railroad service formulated and delivered under specific federal safety regulations. Thus, Riegel provides the precedent we must apply.”

And “Like the medical device in Riegel, the railroad service in Lundeen is entitled to be delivered free of state requirements that differ from the federal regime. And, when the amended statute is properly construed, the limited state cause of action authorized by FRSA II fits within that paradigm. So, with minor exceptions not applicable in Lundeen, all state railroad safety requirements that are in addition to or different from those established under FRSA II are preempted. Paraphrasing Justice Scalia's comment in Riegel, excluding North Dakota common law duties from the scope of the FRSA II preemption scheme would make little sense.”

Thus, the dissent argued that Congress had authorized the creation of a state cause of action, but at the same time carefully protected the concept of federal uniformity established by the Act. This cause of action is limited to allegations regarding the failure of a defendant to comply with the federal standards of care established by regulation or order issued by the Secretary of Transportation, or the failure to comply with a plan, rule or standard created pursuant to regulation or order of the Secretary. This limited claim for damages preserves the federal uniformity demanded by the FRSA. Accordingly, any state law cause of action permitting railroad liability based upon more expansive state-based requirements than those directly established by the Secretary's regulations, rules or orders, does not pass muster under the amended Act, said the dissent. 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released the results of a study which it commissioned concerning formaldehyde levels in mobile homes provided to residents of the Gulf Coast affected by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The trailers, which were provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to survivors of the hurricane, have been the targets of a series of lawsuits around the United States. See In Re FEMA Trailer Formaldehyde Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 1873 (E.D. La.). CDC has been working with FEMA and other agencies to investigate possible levels of formaldehyde in the trailers and mobile homes.

RESULTS

The study was conducted by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, and concluded that the individual component parts of the trailers contained formaldehyde below federally regulated levels, but when combined, the formaldehyde level can rise higher than regulatory limits/industry standards. That is, in the study of four vacant trailers, CDC's contractor found that the amount of formaldehyde given off by each trailer part was not higher than the limit set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The higher overall total “may be because” the trailers use more composite wood products, such as thin particleboard, than site-built or manufactured houses, have more composite wood products in a smaller space than site-built or manufactured homes, and/or let in less fresh air than does a site-built or manufactured house. The study found that the trailers had more wood paneling in a more constricted space than other homes. “These findings indicate that elevated formaldehyde levels are most likely due to a construction/design issue in the trailers,” said the report.

Berkeley scientists focused on commercially available trailers and models built custom for FEMA by four makers. Scientists tested formaldehyde levels inside trailers for one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. LBNL then tested individual pieces of the trailer at the Berkeley, Calif. lab. for emissions from specific parts of each trailer, such as walls, floors, ceilings, tables and cabinets. Some 45 small material samples of wood products from the 4 units were collected to measure their material-specific emission rates for 33 compounds. Only three of the compounds tested for were detected, and formaldehyde was the only one considered to be of possible human health significance. An important finding was that only one material of the 45 tested exhibited formaldehyde emissions in excess of the HUD standard.

CAREFUL INTERPRETATION NEEDED

CDC said the study helped identify the sources of formaldehyde and other volatile organic compounds that may make the largest contributions to the indoor air quality. It also indicates that the amount of ventilation affects the concentrations found in the air. However, MassTortDefense notes that the study analyzed only 4 vacant, never-used trailers, which were provided by FEMA, including two trailers that were specifically designed to be used as temporary emergency housing and thus not commercially available. CDC admits that this study, because it only examined four travel trailers, did not provide results that could be applied to all FEMA-supplied travel trailers or to other types of temporary housing, such as park models or mobile homes. That will likely not stop plaintiffs from trying to misuse it in litigation.  

Such studies can present significant challenges in litigation because they may have the aura of credibility associated not only with an "independent" testing facility but also the government agency which commissioned the study. Generally speaking, parties facing such studies will want to carefully analyze the study, with expert assistance, to detect any issues with methodology, data, conclusions or application to the facts in the case at issue. For example, this study did not compare trailers purchased "off the lot" by FEMA to those designed specifically for FEMA use. Such flaws can point the way to investigations defendants may undertake to properly and more fully address issues in the litigation.  Similarly, CDC admits that "the results of the LBNL investigation described in this report are not definitive."   It would be arguably improper for plaintiffs' experts to place more reliance on the results than the agency that commissioned the study. Finally, defendants facing such studies will want to carefully explore potential sources of bias or interest on the part of the agency or testing facility.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

In a unanimous decision, the Rhode Island Supreme Court has rejected the state's public nuisance suit against three former lead pigment makers. See Rhode Island v. Lead Industries Association, No. 2006-158-Appeal; No. 2007-121-Appeal (July 1, 2008).

The decision represents the latest round in the ongoing battle surrounding the misapplication by plaintiffs of the traditional tort of nuisance. The Rhode Island action was the first suit filed by a state against the lead paint industry. Since then, appeals courts in New Jersey, Missouri, and Illinois all have rejected public nuisance claims against former lead pigment manufacturers.

The state sued a number of paint makers and the trade group Lead Industries Association Inc., in 1999. The state alleged that the manufacturers or their predecessors-in-interest had
manufactured, promoted, distributed, and sold lead pigment for use in residential paint, despite
that they allegedly knew or should have known, since the early 1900s, that lead is hazardous to human health. The state also contended that the LIA was, in essence, a co-conspirator of one or more of the manufacturers from at least 1928 to the present. The state asserted that defendants failed to warn Rhode Islanders of the hazardous nature of lead and failed to adequately test lead pigment. In addition, the state maintained that defendants concealed these hazards from the public or misrepresented that they were safe. 

Paint manufacturers voluntarily stopped selling lead-based house paint in the 1990’s after evidence began to suggest that it posed serious health risks. Particular to the nuisance claim,  defendants assert that they did not control the lead pigment at the time it caused harm to Rhode Island children and that, therefore, they cannot be held liable for public nuisance. The defendants also argue that there was no interference with a public right, as that term has been recognized under public nuisance law.

The Rhode Island trial judge declined to dismiss the state's public nuisance claims. Defendants had asserted that the state had not alleged and could not show that defendants' conduct interfered with a public right, or that defendants were in control of lead pigment at the time it allegedly caused harm to children in Rhode Island. The first trial in the case ended in a mistrial in 2002. Following a 15-week trial, the longest civil jury trial in the state’s history, the jury in state Superior Court in 2006 found Sherwin-Williams Co., NL Industries Inc., and Millennium Holdings LLC responsible for the public nuisance posed by lead in buildings. The jury found that the defendants should be ordered to abate the nuisance, the first time in the United States that a trial resulted in a verdict that imposed liability on lead pigment manufacturers for creating a public nuisance. The state offered a $2.4 billion abatement plan in September 2007.

On appeal, defendants argued that argued that the trial justice erred by: (1) misapplying the law of public nuisance; (2) finding a causal connection between defendants’ actions and lead poisoning in Rhode Island; and (3) failing to hold that the action was barred by the constitutional provision concerning separation of powers. In an 81-page ruling, the state's top court reversed the judgment of abatement.

The Restatement (Second) defines public nuisance, in relevant part, as follows:
1) A public nuisance is an unreasonable interference with a right common to the general public.   2) Circumstances that may sustain a holding that an interference with a public right is unreasonable include the following: “(a) Whether the conduct involves a significant interference with the public health, the public safety, the public peace, the public comfort or the public convenience….” 4 Restatement (Second) Torts § 821B at 87.

The Rhode Island Court accordingly recognized three principal elements that are essential to establish public nuisance: (1) an unreasonable interference; (2) with a right common to the general public; (3) by a person or people with control over the instrumentality alleged to have created the nuisance when the damage occurred. After establishing the presence of the three elements of public nuisance, one must then determine whether the defendant caused the public nuisance."  Causation is a basic requirement in any public nuisance action." In addition to proving that a defendant is the cause-in-fact of an injury, a plaintiff must demonstrate proximate causation.

The Rhode Island attorney general failed to prove that the companies interfered with a public right or had control of the lead paint when it harmed children in the state. Control at the time the damage occurs is critical in public nuisance cases, especially because the principal remedy for the harm caused by the nuisance is abatement. The responsibility for the harm that lead paint caused lies with property owners, as the state Legislature has already established. “The General Assembly has recognized defendants' lack of control and inability to abate the alleged nuisance because it has placed the burden on landlords and property owners to make their properties lead-safe.”

However grave the problem of lead poisoning is in Rhode Island, public nuisance law simply does not provide a remedy for this harm. The proper means of commencing a lawsuit against a manufacturer of lead pigments for the sale of an unsafe product is a products liability action. The law of public nuisance never before has been applied to products, however harmful. "Undoubtedly, public nuisance and products liability are two distinct causes of action, each with rational boundaries that are not intended to overlap." Public nuisance focuses on the abatement of annoying or bothersome activities. Products liability law, on the other hand, has its own well-defined structure, which is designed specifically to hold manufacturers liable for harmful products that the manufacturers have caused to enter the stream of commerce.

Courts presented with product-based public nuisance claims have expressed their concern over the ease with which a plaintiff could bring what properly would be characterized as a products liability suit under the guise of product-based public nuisance. Courts in other states consistently have rejected product-based public nuisance suits against lead pigment manufacturers, expressing a concern that allowing such a lawsuit would circumvent the basic requirements of products liability law. See American Cyanamid Co., 823 N.E.2d at 134; Benjamin Moore & Co., 226 S.W.3d at 116; In re Lead Paint Litigation, 924 A.2d at 503-05 (N.J.).

The battle now shifts to pending cases in Ohio and California.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Two recent decisions illustrate just how difficult Canada is becoming as a jurisdiction for class actions defendants, particularly companies in the pharmaceutical industry. Frequently, identical consumer products, drugs, and medical devices are marketed in Canada as well as the U.S.  When a product is recalled, or new science suggests risks in a product leading to American product liability and mass tort litigation, Canadian plaintiff attorneys have not been bashful about bringing copycat litigation, borrowing from U.S.-conducted theories and discovery.  However, Canada appears not to be mimicking the trend against personal injury class actions in the U.S.

Background

Quebec was the first Canadian province to enact class action procedures in 1978, and a 2003 amendment to the Quebec Code of Civil Procedure simplified the class “authorization” process. In practice, the amendment may have made it easier for plaintiffs to obtain certification. The requirements are that the claims of the members raise identical, similar or related questions of law or fact (true commonality not required); the facts alleged seem to justify the conclusions sought; the composition of the group makes joinder difficult or impracticable; and the member to whom the court intends to ascribe the status of representative is in a position to represent the members adequately. Not a daunting challenge in some fact patterns.  Notice the absence of predominance, superiority, and manageability as explicit factors.

In Ontario, class action procedures were developed much more recently, dating back only to 1992. They permit certification when there is an identifiable class of two or more persons that would be represented by the representative plaintiff or defendant; the claims or defenses of the class members raise common issues; a class proceeding would be the preferable procedure for the resolution of the common issues; and there is a representative plaintiff who would fairly and adequately represent the interests of the class, has produced a plan for the proceeding that sets out a workable method of advancing the proceeding on behalf of the class and of notifying class members of the proceeding, and does not have an interest in conflict with the interests of other class members.

Wyeth

First, in the latest ruling in the HRT litigation against Wyeth, the Supreme Court of British Columbia refused to dismiss a putative class action in which plaintiffs in Canada allege that Premarin and Premplus therapy treatments caused breast cancer. Stanway v. Wyeth Canada Inc., 2008 BCSC 847 (June 27, 2008). The company denies the claims alleged in the litigation, insisting the products have carried an adequate label warning of a heightened risk of breast cancer, based on state of the art. Indeed, HRT drugs are still approved by the FDA as safe and effective and remain on the market.

The Canadian plaintiffs asserted two causes of action against the defendants. The first is for negligence, and the second is a statutory cause of action for deceptive acts and practices under the province's Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act. Wyeth’s motion asserted that the court lacked “territorial competence” over the U.S. entities of the company pursuant to the Court Jurisdiction and Proceedings Transfer Act, S.B.C. 2003, c. 28 (the “CJPTA”).

The U.S. Wyeth entities offered the position that there is no real and substantial connection between British Columbia and the facts upon which the proceeding against the U.S. defendants is based. Wyeth presented affidavits showing that the executives and staff of the U.S. defendants have not managed and do not manage North America as a single market. They have not interfered and do not interfere with the Canadian market. The U.S. defendants do not play a controlling or decision-making role in the pharmaceutical operations of the Canadian defendants. Individuals within Wyeth Canada reported directly or indirectly to the president of Wyeth Canada, not to anyone at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Employees of Wyeth Canada may have liaised with counterparts at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals but did not answer to them. Wyeth Canada owns the Canadian patents and trademarks for Premarin, holds various approvals for Premarin from Health Canada.

Moreover, Wyeth Canada runs its own marketing campaign and designs its own packaging, independently from U.S. Wyeth. The U.S. defendants do not conduct any sales or promotional activity related to Premarin or Premplus in Canada. Wyeth Canada runs its own marketing campaigns and designs its own packaging. Wyeth Canada generates its own promotional literature and a copy review committee of Wyeth Canada signs off. Warnings and other information are the responsibility of Wyeth Canada. It has its own independent training group and there is no functional reporting relationship between Wyeth Canada and Wyeth. Wyeth Canada’s marketing employees meet with their worldwide counterparts to exchange ideas and practices. Wyeth Canada tracks sales and decides whether or not to market a particular product.

The only Premarin tablets sold in Canada during the period the plaintiff says that she was prescribed the product would have been manufactured in Canada. At no time have any packages of Premarin or Premplus sold in Canada identified any association with U.S. Wyeth.

The plaintiff’s allegation was that Premarin and Premplus were introduced into and maintained within the Canadian stream of commerce. She alleged that the defendants are jointly involved with or responsible for the negligent manufacturing, testing, marketing, labeling, distribution, promotion and sale of Premarin and Premplus to consumers in British Columbia, and that they failed to warn her about the dangers of taking these drugs.

The Court noted that the plaintiff must prove circumstances that constitute a real and substantial connection between British Columbia and the facts on which a proceeding is based. The statute gives a non-exhaustive list of relevant factors, including whether the tort was committed in British Columbia, and whether the claim concerns a business carried on in British Columbia.

Despite the powerful showing by Wyeth, the Court concluded that the plaintiff successfully established a link between British Columbia and the tort allegedly committed by the U.S. defendants under the CJPTA. The Court concluded that there is no dispute that the plaintiff alleges that she suffered damage in British Columbia. It is in the interest of the forum to protect the legal rights of its residents, and to allow injured plaintiffs "generous access" to litigation. The defendants engaged in “harmonization” and “coordination” of matters involving core monograph and labeling requirements, the efficacy of the products, and the collecting and sharing of other clinical research or trial information, said the Court.  Wyeth Pharmaceuticals’ role as a central repository and coordinator for adverse event reporting for all the Wyeth affiliates worldwide demonstrated, the Court concluded, a sufficient involvement of the U.S. defendants in promoting the efficacy of the drug and its safety.

Lilly
In the second recent decision, involving Eli Lilly and its Zyprexa schizophrenia drug, an Ontario appeal court affirmed the lower court's decision that class action plaintiffs may proceed with an attempt to recover damages tied to company sales rather than individual damages. Andrea Heward vs. Eli Lilly & Co., No. 181/07, Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Divisional Court (Toronto) (July 2, 2008).

Plaintiffs accused Lilly of failing to warn that Zyprexa may allegedly cause diabetes and other disorders. Zyprexa is approved by the FDA and Canadian regulators to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The proposed national class (excluding British Columbia and Quebec) has an estimated 575,000 members. In addition to claims sounding in negligence, plaintiffs allege a so-called “waiver of tort” theory that resembles an unjust enrichment theory seeking disgorgement of profits and/or a constructive trust of the proceeds of the defendants’ sale of the drug. The interlocutory appeal was confined to the issues whether the motion court had erred in concluding that the damages (accounting, disgorgement, constructive trust) was a common issue, and whether the class proceeding is the preferable procedure to resolve the claim of waiver of tort.

Defendants asserted that the amount of damages would implicate individual issues because all class members would not have taken Zyprexa even if they had been warned as plaintiffs asserted they should have been, and plaintiffs could not show that Health Canada would not have approved Zyprexa for sale if the warnings had been different. Indeed, Zyprexa continued to be used for years after the label was amended to change the language about diabetes risks.

 
The Superior Court noted that “waiver of tort” is confusing nomenclature. It does not refer to waiving a right to sue, but an election to base a claim in restitution. The Court acknowledged the debate over whether the waiver of tort theory constitutes an independent cause of action or a remedy in Ontario. It is an “uncertain area of law” raising “policy concerns” which “require clarification in our jurisprudence.”

However, the Court concluded that the embryonic nature of the waiver of tort doctrine simply meant that no decisions should be made absent a full evidentiary record. The class action procedures provide options for the common issues phase to create subclasses, and craft the boundaries of the remedy of disgorgement to fit the requisite causal link, and even decertify common issues when necessary. The Court concluded that individual issues that factor into the determination of the quantum of the restitutionary disgorgement or constructive trust would not undermine the applicability of waiver of tort on a class-wide basis. This seems to confuse two issues: individual issues on quantum of damage might not alone defeat certification, but that does not make them common questions, which was the issue on appeal.

 
Regarding the second issue, the Court concluded that even if the amount of relief based in waiver of tort cannot be assessed in aggregate, a class action remains the preferable procedure for this claim. In potentially troubling language for defendants, the Court noted that “the only necessary evidence with respect to waiver of tort may well be simply the wrongful conduct of the defendants.” While conditional, such an interpretation of this type of claim may affect future certification decisions and stands to make future defendants liable for truly enormous amounts of damages unless clarified.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The U.S. Supreme Court has issued an opinion reducing the amount of the award of punitive damages against Exxon Mobil Corp. related to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill – from $2.5 billion to just $507 million, an amount equal to the compensatory damages in the case. Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, 2008 WL 2511219 (U.S., June 25, 2008).

In a 5-3 decision, the Court found that a 1-to-1 ratio of compensatory to punitive damages was appropriate in the case, in which more than 32,000 fishermen and Alaska native citizens sought remedies after the tanker accident spilled approximately 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound. At Phase I of the trial, the jury found Exxon and the ship’s Captain Hazelwood reckless (and thus potentially liable for punitive damages) under instructions providing that a corporation is responsible for the reckless acts of employees acting in a managerial capacity in the scope of their employment. In Phase II, the jury awarded compensatory damages to some of the plaintiffs; others had settled their compensatory claims. In Phase III, the jury awarded $5,000 in punitive damages against Hazelwood and $5 billion against Exxon. The punitive issue has yo-yoed between the District Court and the Ninth Circuit, which eventually in December 2006, reduced the award to $2.5 billion, saying ExxonMobil’s conduct was not intentional and that the rate of punitive damages to actual economic harm exceeded what was appropriate under recent Supreme Court precedent.

Supreme Court View

The Court addressed several issues:

1. Because the Court was equally divided on whether maritime law allows corporate liability for punitive damages based on the acts of managerial agents, it left the Ninth Circuit's opinion undisturbed in this respect (the Ninth Circuit found that ExxonMobil was not exempt from punitive damages).

2. The Clean Water Act's water pollution penalties do not preempt punitive-damages awards in maritime spill cases. Nothing in the statute points to that result, and the Court had rejected similar attempts to sever remedies from their causes of action. There is no clear indication of  congressional intent to occupy the entire field of pollution remedies, nor is it likely that punitive damages for private harms will have any frustrating effect on the CWA's remedial scheme.

3. The punitive damages award against Exxon was excessive as a matter of maritime common law. In the circumstances of this case, the award should be limited to an amount equal to compensatory damages.

And it is this last point likely of most interest to readers of MassTortDefense. Since maritime
law falls under federal jurisdiction, the Court served as a common law court in the case. Rather than the constitutional due process analysis seen in recent punitive damages decisions, see, e.g., State Farm Mut. Automobile Ins. Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408, the approach was one of fashioning federal common law, giving observers, perhaps, some insight into the Court’s views of punitive generally.

The Court observed that one of the real problems with punitive damages is the stark unpredictability of punitive awards. Courts ought to be concerned with fairness and consistency, and the available punitive damages data suggest that the spread between high and low individual awards is unacceptably large. The spread in state civil trials is especially great, and the outlier cases subject defendants to punitive damages that dwarf the corresponding compensatories. These ranges might be acceptable if they resulted from honest efforts to reach a generally accepted optimal level of penalty and deterrence in specific cases involving a wide range of circumstances, but evidence suggests that is not the case.

The unpredictability of high punitive awards is in tension with their punitive function because of the implication of unfairness that an eccentrically high punitive verdict carries. A penalty should be reasonably predictable in its severity, so that even Justice Holmes's proverbial “bad man” can look ahead with some ability to know what the stakes are in choosing one course of action or another. And a penalty scheme ought to threaten defendants with a fair probability of suffering in like degree for like damage. Justice Souter thus argued that reducing punitive damages actually will better allow them to achieve their goal of acting as a deterrent and a punishment – by making them more predictable.


The Court was skeptical that verbal formulations are adequate insurance against unpredictable outlier punitive awards, and the option of setting a hard-dollar punitive cap was rejected because there is no “standard” tort or contract injury, making it difficult to settle upon a particular dollar figure that would be appropriate across the board. The most promising alternative was to peg punitive awards to compensatory damages using a ratio. This is the approach used in many states and in analogous federal statutes allowing multiple damages.

Based on studies of thousands of cases as to what punitive awards were appropriate in circumstances from the most blameworthy down to the least blameworthy conduct, from malice and avarice to recklessness to gross negligence, compensatory award exceed the punitive award in most cases. Accordingly, the Court found that a 1:1 ratio is a fair upper limit in maritime cases such as this.

Though the decision technically dealt only with maritime liability, some are hailing it as a reasonable way to assess punitive damages generally, particularly on a company that did not intentionally harm the environment. Time will tell whether the decision could have an effect far beyond federal maritime law, cabining unpredictable punitive damages (the way Metro-North Commuter R. Co. v. Buckley, 521 U.S. 424 (1997) impacted medical monitoring claims in the states).

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

In a very disturbing opinion, the Supreme Court of Arkansas rejected General Motor's appeal of a trial court decision to certify a class in a case involving allegedly defective parking brakes in GM vehicles. General Motors Corp. v. Bryant, et al., No. 07-437 (Ark., June 19, 2008). The case was originally brought in 2005 by named plaintiff Boyd Bryant, who alleged that a defectively designed parking brake incurred excessive wear after only 2,500 to 6,000 miles of use. GM allegedly discovered the defect in 2000 and redesigned the part, a spring clip, in 2001. The proposed class included owners of "1500 Series" pickups and utilities that were registered in the U.S. and were originally equipped with an automatic transmission and a PBR 210x30 Drum-in-Hat parking-brake system utilizing the high-force spring clip retainer. Plaintiff alleged that some 4,000,000 pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles sold by General Motors 1999-2002 were equipped with the defectively designed parking brakes. As causes of action, Bryant alleged breach of express warranty, breach of implied warranty of merchantability, violation of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, unjust enrichment, and fraudulent concealment/failure to disclose.

After a hearing, the trial court certified the class. GM appealed.

The Class Rule

Rule 23 of the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure governs class actions and requires, like the federal rule, numerosity, commonality of questions of law or fact, typicality of the claims or defenses, and adequacy of representation by named parties and their counsel. A class action may be maintained if the court finds that the questions of law or fact common to the members of the class predominate over any questions affecting only individual members, and that a class action is superior to other available methods for the fair and efficient adjudication of the controversy.

The Appeal

General Motors asserted three main points on appeal worthy of our discussion: (1) that extensive legal variations in state laws defeated predominance; (2) that extensive factual variations in the millions of claims defeated predominance; (3) that class certification was not superior.

Choice of Law

General Motors noted that the significant variations among the fifty-one pertinent product defect laws should defeat predominance. [Most courts have accepted this notion.] The trial court had provided four reasons for its finding that the potential application of multiple states’ law did not create predominance concerns. First, the court noted that, unlike the federal rule which requires a rigorous analysis of class certification factors including the impact state law variations may have on predominance, no such rigorous analysis is required in Arkansas. Second, the potential application of many states’ laws was not germane to class certification, but was instead a task for the trial court to undertake later in the course of exercising its autonomy and substantial powers to manage the class action. Third, the trial court found that assessing choice of law was a merits-intensive determination and thus inappropriate at the certification stage. “It would be premature for the Court, at this stage in the case, to make the call on choice of law.” Fourth, if application of multiple states’ laws was eventually required, and it proved too cumbersome or problematic, the circuit court could always consider decertifying the class.

The state Supreme Court found that whether or not the class members’ vehicles contained a defectively designed parking-brake system, and whether or not General Motors concealed that defect, are predominating questions, notwithstanding the various states’ laws that may be required in determining the allegations of breach of express warranty, breach of implied warranty, a violation of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, unjust enrichment, fraudulent concealment, damages, and restitution. The mere fact that choice of law may be involved in the case of some claimants living in different states is not sufficient in and of itself to warrant a denial of class certification. The Court viewed any potential choice of law determination and application as being similar to a determination of non-predominating individual issues, which would not defeat certification.

On the issue whether an Arkansas court must first conduct a choice of law analysis before certifying a multistate class action, the Court declined to follow the precedent of other jurisdictions, and rejected any requirement of a rigorous inquiry by the trial courts. Instead, it found that the circuit courts have broad discretion in determining whether the requirements for class certification have been met, recognizing the caveat that a class can always be decertified at a later date if necessary. Moreover, the Court believed that requiring the circuit court to conclude at this stage precisely which law should be applied could potentially stray into the merits of the action itself, which should not occur during the certification process.

The concurring opinion noted that this idea extended far past the holdings of prior case law, and potentially foreclosed analysis that could conceivably be required in some cases. A conclusion that choice-of-law issues not related to recovery or defenses will never predominate over common questions of law or fact is impermissibly overbroad.

MassTortDefense would suggest that most courts and commentators do not equate a choice of law analysis with an impermissible examination of the merits of the plaintiffs’ claims. Choice of law is a threshold question that ultimately permits a court to reach the merits of the dispute by establishing the governing legal rules. The selection of the proper law cannot fairly be termed a “merits-intensive determination” Moreover, the trial court need not make any determination about the merits of the causes of actions alleged in order to assess, based on relevant contacts, which state’s law ought to apply to those claims. Nor does the trial court even have to “make the final call” on what law will apply to each and every claim by every class member. It is sufficient for class certification for the trial court to discover that the law of many other states will likely have to be applied to many class members’ claims, and factor that into superiority and manageability of the proposed class.

Factual Variations

General Motors asserted that many factual variations preclude a finding of predominance, including issues of defect, causation, damages (was a parking brake repaired already under warranty and, if not, why not), notice of breach, class member knowledge about a potential parking-brake problem at the time of purchase, reliance, materiality, and affirmative defenses, such as comparative negligence.

The state Supreme Court found that the issue of defect was a predominating common issue. The Court viewed any need for individual inspections and/or the individual use factors merely as individual determinations relating to right to ultimate recovery or damages that pale in comparison to the purportedly common issues surrounding GM’s alleged defectively designed parking brake and alleged cover up to avoid paying warranty claims. (Of course, a proper choice of law analysis would have revealed that the issue of defect is not truly common.)

As is not uncommon, the trial court did not really address the question of how it would conduct a class trial, especially one involving legal standards from different states. But the Supreme Court stated, “We have repeatedly recognized that conducting a trial on the common issue in a representative fashion can achieve judicial efficiency.” The Court expressed general approval for the bifurcated approach to the predominance element by allowing circuit courts to divide a case into two phases: (1) certification for resolution of the preliminary, common issues; and (2) decertification for the resolution of the individual issues. Here, whether the parking-brake system installed in the class members’ vehicles was defective and whether General Motors attempted to conceal any alleged defect were “overarching issues” that could be resolved before the circuit court reaches any of the individualized questions raised by General Motors.

MassTortDefense notes that the courts rarely, if ever, focus on the manageability issues and due process concerns raised by this suggestion – devoid of analysis – that bifurcation of the trial and/or decertification following the “common” issues phase will somehow resolve all concerns. If separate juries are involved – and how can they not be with potentially millions of class members – the results of the first trial must be applied by the later juries. Fault of the defendant found in phase one must be compared with comparative fault of the plaintiff. The defect found in phase one must be shown to cause the injury and damages shown in the individual trial. False statements proven in phase one must be shown to have been relied on in the later phase. But the first trial, the common issues trial, is never tried in such a fashion (with verdict form and jury findings) that will allow that linking up to occur.

What is really happening is the transformation of class certification from a procedural tool for adjudicating large numbers of nearly identical claims into a device that aggregates disparate claims for the sole purpose of leveraging settlement. A grant of class status can put considerable pressure on the defendant to settle, even when the plaintiff’s probability of success on the merits is slight. Blair v. Equifax Check Servs., Inc., 181 F.3d 832, 834 (7th Cir. 1999); see also In re Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Inc., 51 F.3d 1293, 1298 (7th Cir. 1995) (companies facing millions of dollars in potential liability “may not wish to roll the dice. That is putting it mildly.”). Certifying a class without knowing whether it satisfies the requirements of Rule 23 misuses a procedural device to create settlement pressure where none should exist.

Superiority

General Motors contended that the superior method of handling a claim that particular  vehicles are defective is by petition to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The Court observed that the superiority requirement is satisfied if class certification is the more efficient way of handling the case, and it is fair to both sides. In determining whether class-action status is the superior method for adjudication of a matter, it may be necessary for the circuit court to evaluate the manageability of the class. The court assumed that opt outs and summary dispositions would shrink the class, and at the same time, that the proposed class of approximately 4,000,000 members makes it at least likely that without a class action, numerous meritorious claims might go unaddressed. [What happened to the hard and fast rule not to consider the merits?] While not the sole basis for certifying the class, the smallness of the individual claims is another factor to be considered in deciding superiority.

In any event, NHTSA twice rejected petitions dealing with the allegations made in the instant case, so resolution by that agency cannot be superior to a class action when the agency has made such a rejection, observed the Court. Moreover, the rule was not intended to weigh the superiority of a class action against possible administrative relief. The superiority requirement was intended to refer to the preferability of adjudicating claims of multiple-parties in one judicial proceeding.

MassTortDefense would suggest that the repeated references to the trial court’s ability to later decertify the class smacks of the improper, rejected, concept of conditional certification – a practice that has been soundly rejected in recent years by state and federal courts and is now prohibited under both the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure and the federal rules on which they are modeled. After considerable time and effort is expended, courts are reluctant to decertify. Here, for example, GM presented the court with a thorough analysis of conflicts of laws regarding the state-law fraud claims, breach of warranty, applicable statutes of limitations, and unjust enrichment. It seems unlikely that the trial court (after its certification was affirmed) will ever seriously revisit this issue in the context of a new predominance determination. If the court’s approach were correct, class certification would be a meaningless exercise since courts would not address the most difficult and important class certification-related questions – i.e., whether a class trial is fair or feasible – until long after certification. 

MassTortDefense wonders, along with amicus the Chamber of Commerce, if Arkansas is likely become the latest “magnet” jurisdiction for the plaintiffs’ bar, imposing huge costs on companies that do business in the state and placing an unnecessary strain on Arkansas courts by forcing them to devote substantial resources to managing large-scale litigation matters that have only a minimal connection to Arkansas consumers.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Third DCA appeals court in Florida ruled last week that a class action involving consumers who bought Sephia model vehicles with allegedly defective brake systems from Kia Motors should not have been certified. Kia Motors America Corp. v. Butler, 2008 WL 2356354 (June 11, 2008, Fla. App. 3rd Dist.).

The panel held that the trial court in Miami-Dade County had abused its discretion by certifying the class. The named plaintiff, Yvonne Butler, had filed the proposed class action on behalf of all Florida purchasers of 1999-2001 Kia Sephia model passenger motor vehicles. The complaint alleged that all Sephias manufactured during those years contain a brake system design defect that causes premature wear of the brakes, as a result of which the vehicles fail to meet a U.S. market brake-wear expectation of 20,000-30,000 miles. According to the complaint, the defect caused the cars to be unable to stop, or to suffer impaired stopping performance, increased stopping distances, brake shudder, brake vibration, or brake lockup and loss of control. The class sought damages to each class member for economic losses, including the difference between the price paid for each vehicle and the value of the vehicle, reduced resale value, and any out-of-pocket repair costs on the cars. It was estimated that about 18,000 Sephia vehicles were sold or leased in the state during the class period.

Consumer Fraud Claim Made

Plaintiffs sought to proceed under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (FDUTPA), Fla. Stat. §§ 501.201-.213, as well as breach of statutory, implied and express warranty. That makes the case one of the recent trend in which plaintiffs bring consumer fraud claims for what in the past might have been traditional products liability claims for product defects, under the theory that consumer fraud claims are easier to get certified as class actions. Not this time.

The Decision

The appeals court noted that class actions are an exception to the general rule that litigation is conducted by, and on behalf of, individual named parties only. For that reason, the trial court must conduct a rigorous analysis to determine whether the elements of the class action rule have been met. The first set of these requirements are referred to as the numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy of representation elements of class certification. But in addition to satisfying those, a plaintiff also must satisfy one of the three subdivisions of Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.220(b). The relevant subdivision in this case was subsection (b)(3), which requires that common questions of law or fact predominate over any individual questions of the separate members, and that class representation is superior to other available methods for the fair and efficient adjudication of the controversy. Thus, to certify a class, this rule requires not only that common questions exist, but that those common questions predominate over individual questions; and that the class action to be manageable and superior to other proceedings. (much like the federal rule)

To determine if these requirements have been met, a trial court must envision how a class action trial would proceed. (MassTortDefense has frequently urged trial judges to "look down the road" and not blindly accept plaintiffs' bold assertions about trial procedures.) Under this analysis, the trial court must determine whether the purported class representatives can prove their own individual cases and, by so doing, necessarily prove the cases for each one of the thousands of other members of the class. If they cannot, a class should not be certified.

Predominance Lacking

The class certification in this case failed, first, to satisfy the predominance criteria. While plaintiffs alleged a common defect, the evidence demonstrated that the brake systems found in the three Kia Sephia models in this case were far from uniform. The disc braking process in an automobile is a complicated mechanical and hydraulically assisted process. The Kia Sephia vehicle disc brakes installed during the model years at issue were comprised of component parts specific to that model year. For example, the pad material was changed, the pad shim material was changed, the pad shim protector was removed, and rotor material modified. The 2000 model Sephia was manufactured with a different brake pad design from the prior model. Additionally, the rotor thickness was changed. For the 2001 model-year, the Sephia's front brake system was completely redesigned.

Thus, the court concluded that the component and design changes resulted in significant  differences in the performance of the Kia Sephia's front brakes over the three model years at issue here. “It is therefore scientifically and logically impossible to conclude that any performance issues for these three model years were the result of a common design.”  And it follows that even if there existed a difference between the price paid for each vehicle and the value of the vehicle as delivered for any design period, that difference cannot be proven on a class-wide basis.

Due Process Concerns

Importantly, the court took on plaintiffs' vague trial plan assertions, noting that to proceed at the level of abstraction urged by plaintiffs would raise due process concerns. See Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Epstein, 516 U.S. 367, 377-78 (1996). The Third DCA cited the famous language from Broussard v. Meineke Disc. Muffler Shops, Inc., 155 F.3d 331, 344 (4th Cir.1998), about a trial plan denying a class action defendant a fair trial when it is forced to defend against a composite “perfect plaintiff” pieced together for litigation. The court went on to note that due process requires that class actions not be used to diminish the substantive rights of any party to the litigation. See generally Moller, The Rule of Law Problem: Unconstitutional Class Actions and Options for Reform, 28 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol. 855 (2005); Epstein, Class Actions: Aggregation, Amplification, and Distortion, 2003 U. Chi. Legal F. 475 (2003).

Consumer Fraud Act Analysis

A claim for damages under FDUTPA has three elements: (1) a deceptive act or unfair practice; (2) causation; and (3) actual damages. The FDUPTA class claim failed in this case on both the causation and actual damages elements. Among the individual questions that can be reasonably envisioned in the prosecution of this count, said the court, are: (1) whether the purchaser had knowledge of the alleged brake defect and purchased the vehicle despite such knowledge; (2) whether a deficiency attributable to Kia manifested itself; (3) whether an individual vehicle suffered diminished value as a result of the alleged deficiency if the deficiency was repaired; and (4) whether the purchase price of the vehicle reflected the alleged defect at the time it was purchased. These issues are compounded by the fact that the class representative in this case sought compensation not only for class members whose brakes have manifested a deficiency, but also for those whose brakes have performed satisfactorily. In certifying the class, the trial court had deviated from the majority of jurisdictions which consistently have denied class recovery on this type of theory.

The court concluded that without individual inquiry, there is no way to adjudicate this case to determine whether the need for a particular repair made by a class member was based on normal wear, a defective original part, a defective after market part, environmental factors, such as weather or road conditions, the presence of foreign objects in the braking system, the failure of parts other than the braking system, poor workmanship by a third party, or individual driving habits.

Superiority Lacking Too

To find superiority, a court must find all other methods of resolving the issues in a case to be inferior to a class action. Here, fewer than half of the class members reported brake difficulty. An individual inquiry and an inestimable number of mini-trials would be necessary to identify the class. Class certification is not ipso facto required where there exist multiple claims and potentially low dollar recovery.

Accordingly, the class was decertified.  And a decision product sellers may be able to use.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The United States Supreme Court has just decided a case that may have significant impact on mass tort defendants. In Bridge v. Phoenix Bond & Indem. Co., 2008 WL 2329761 (U.S. June 9, 2008), the Court held that a plaintiff asserting a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) claim predicated on mail fraud need not show, either as an element of his claim or as a prerequisite to establishing proximate causation, that he relied on the defendant's alleged misrepresentations.

Why should readers of MassTortDefense care about RICO cases? Traditional claims such as strict liability and negligence still serve as the foundation of many mass torts. Increasingly, however, plaintiffs are looking for opportunities to bring novel and non-traditional claims as well, or instead of the traditional theories. Medical monitoring expands the pool of potential plaintiffs to those exposed to, but not yet injured by, a hazardous product. Consumer fraud claims may involve those with no personal injuries but only economic losses, and are, in the view of plaintiffs’ attorneys, theoretically easier to certify as class actions than traditional personal injury claims. A recent survey indicates that securities fraud cases filed against life sciences companies were up significantly in 2007 from the year before, often as plaintiffs try to turn a failure to warn claim into a securities class action. (When the market reacts to negative press about a product, the stock of a company could drop, opening it up to such claims.) And then there are civil RICO claims.

The Bridge case arose from the annual Cook County Treasurer's Office public auction to sell its tax liens on delinquent taxpayers' property. To prevent any one buyer from obtaining a disproportionate share of the liens, the county adopted the “Single, Simultaneous Bidder Rule,” which requires each buyer to submit bids in its own name, prohibits a buyer from using agents, employees, or related entities to submit simultaneous bids for the same parcel, and requires a registered bidder to submit a sworn affidavit affirming its compliance with the Rule. Respondents filed suit, alleging that petitioners (defendants below) fraudulently obtained a disproportionate share of liens by filing false documents, allegedly violating RICO through a pattern of racketeering activity involving mail fraud.

Defendants/petitioners argued that when basing a civil RICO claim on fraud, it is not sufficient for a plaintiff to show merely that some violation of a federal fraud statute has occurred. Rather, the plaintiff must show, like any other fraud plaintiff, that the plaintiff itself was defrauded. There is no indication that Congress, in authorizing a civil RICO action based on fraud, intended to permit such actions by persons who were not themselves defrauded. Here, because the alleged pattern of racketeering activity is predicated on mail fraud, respondents must show that they relied on petitioners' fraudulent misrepresentations, which they cannot do because the misrepresentations were made to the county. They argued that a proximate cause requirement inherent in the “by reason of” language of the statute demands that a civil RICO plaintiff asserting a claim based on fraud establish his reliance on a misrepresentation by the defendant. In the context of a civil RICO claim predicated on fraud, the required causal link demands a showing that the plaintiff relied on an alleged misrepresentation made to the plaintiff by the defendant. Otherwise, the causal relationship between the alleged injury and the alleged fraud is too attenuated.

The Court disagreed, finding that nothing on the statute's face imposes such a requirement. Using the mail to execute or attempt to execute a scheme to defraud is indictable as mail fraud, and hence a predicate racketeering act under RICO, even if no one relied on any misrepresentation. The Court rejected petitioners' arguments that under the “common-law meaning” rule, Congress should be presumed to have made reliance an element of a civil RICO claim predicated on a violation of the mail fraud statute. And rejected the argument that a plaintiff bringing a RICO claim based on mail fraud must show reliance on the defendant's misrepresentations in order to establish proximate cause. The Court felt it had no ability to respond to the policy argument that RICO should be interpreted to require first-party reliance for fraud-based claims in order to avoid the “overfederalization” of traditional state-law claims.

The Court noted that there is no general common-law principle holding that a fraudulent misrepresentation can cause legal injury only to those who rely on it. Of course, misrepresentation can cause harm only if a recipient of the misrepresentation relies on it. And a RICO plaintiff who alleges injury by reason of a pattern of mail fraud cannot prevail without showing that someone relied on the defendant's misrepresentations. But that does not mean that the only injuries proximately caused by the misrepresentation are those suffered by the recipient. There is a proximate cause element, and it requires a sufficiently direct relationship between the defendant's wrongful conduct and the plaintiff's injury. But here plaintiffs’ alleged injury --the loss of valuable liens-- is the direct result of petitioners' alleged fraud. It was a foreseeable and natural consequence of petitioners' scheme to obtain more liens for themselves, and that is sufficient.

The Court’s decision on reliance was based on statutory interpretation, rather than logic or common sense. It seems likely that it will create additional litigation in the lower courts over the meaning of the proximate cause element of a civil RICO claim. But the absence of a clear reliance requirement may in fact make this type of claim even more popular with mass tort plaintiffs. Product sellers, and especially those involved in RICO litigation already, will need to comb the opinion for ammunition to support their causation arguments.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

An interesting class action opinion came out this week a suit claiming certain residents of St. Croix suffered personal injury and property damage during a hurricane due to negligent storage of toxic materials. In Henry et al. v. St. Croix Alumina LLC, No. 1:99-cv-00036 ( D.V.I), the District Court decertified a class of plaintiffs seeking past damages, but granted class certification to residents of certain neighborhoods on St. Croix who allege they may suffer injuries or property damages from future exposure to bauxite and red mud released from an aluminum refinery on the island.

The case arose out of the effects of Hurricane Georges, which hit the Virgin Islands in 1998. The plaintiffs filed suit in1999, alleging that during the storm two materials, bauxite and red mud, were distributed around the island. Bauxite is a red colored ore with the consistency of dirt or dust from which alumina is extracted and used to produce aluminum. A by-product of the alumina extraction process is a substance called red mud, which was stored in piles outside the refinery using a method known as dry-stacking.

The court originally granted certification in 2000 of a class defined as all individuals who lived or worked in six communities adjacent to and downwind from the refinery. The district court certified subclasses of plaintiffs seeking recovery for property damages and personal injury and those seeking medical monitoring and punitive damages. See 2000 WL 1679502 (D.V.I. Aug. 7, 2000).

In 2006, the district court decertified all subclasses but held that liability for personal injury and/or property damage, as well as whether punitive damages are appropriate, may be determined on a class-wide basis. Plaintiffs then submitted a trial plan: in Phase 1, plaintiffs would litigate liability and the possibility of a punitive damages multiplier on a class-wide basis, and in Phase II, individual plaintiffs would have the opportunity to prove "individual causation and all damages issues" independently in separate trials.

In late 2007, the district court began to express doubts about the class, noting that the formulation of a workable trial plan was elusive. Of course, a district court retains the authority to modify or decertify completely a class at any time before final judgment.  Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(c)(1)(C); In re Warfarin Sodium Antitrust Litig., 391 F.3d 516, 537 (3d Cir. 2004). Indeed, the Advisory Committee Notes on Rule 23 envision modification of a class certification if, upon fuller development of the facts, the original determination appears unsound. Zenith Labs., Inc. v. Carter-Wallace, Inc., 530 F.2d 508, 512 (3d Cir. 1976).

Decertification

In this week’s opinion, the court began by noting that class certification is ordinarily inappropriate in mass tort claims which present questions of individualized issues of liability, because such cases are unlikely to satisfy the requirements of Rule 23(b)(3). In actions for personal injury resulting from a sudden release of toxic chemicals, federal courts have regularly denied class certification for failure to satisfy the predominance requirement of Rule 23(b)(3). Here, even in the seeming mass accident context, whether defendants owed and breached specific duties to the plaintiffs also may not be common questions. The existence and scope of defendants' duties to warn or to protect, for instance, may depend on the exact path the hurricane took and the distance between the refinery and a particular plaintiff's dwelling.  Hurricane Georges buffeted St. Croix for over twenty-four hours, during which time the wind's speed and direction changed several times, as did the rain's severity. It is certainly not a given that the hurricane affected the people and properties in the neighborhoods of the proposed class in the same way over the entire course of the storm.

Readers of MassTortDefense know that courts have rejected classes in these contexts largely for reasons having to do with the concerns over issues of causation. The fact of each class member's personal injury and the causal link between that individual's injury and the spill are questions that cannot be answered meaningfully on a class-wide basis. Noting the general/specific causation distinction, the relevant question can be not whether the substance at issue has the capacity to cause harm, but whether it did cause harm and to whom.

Thus, with respect to personal injury claims, each plaintiff must prove causation. Each will need to prove the duration and nature of his or her exposure to the two released substances, bauxite and red mud. Some plaintiffs may have been exposed to only one substance, while those exposed to both may have been exposed in differing degrees or combinations. The possibly differing levels of toxicity of bauxite and red mud will further complicate matters. Defendants were able to show through discovery that among the seventeen named plaintiffs, the onset, duration, and severity of the alleged injuries varied enormously. Moreover, the possibility of alternative explanations for plaintiffs' injuries is real and can be explored only in light of a given plaintiff's pre-existing medical conditions whose symptoms may have matched the injuries allegedly caused by defendants' conduct.

Regarding property damage, the court found that each plaintiff’s property will be damaged to a different degree, if at all, based on its proximity to the plant site, topography, and the off-site migration or dispersal patterns of the toxic substances. Individual litigants will have to establish injury and causation in order to succeed on the merits. Each plaintiff will have to prove whether the substance that accumulated in and around his or her home or workplace was bauxite, red mud, or some combination of the two.

The court also commented on the plaintiffs’ “stigma” theory. Plaintiffs' expert asserted that the diminution in property value attributable to defendants' conduct is likely uniform across neighborhoods and can be estimated at roughly 30%. He further concluded that homes in the neighborhoods continue to suffer from a "stigma" as a result of the alleged contamination such that even uncontaminated houses show a marked drop in property value. Yet, discovery revealed that his approach excludes dozens of distinct factors that could impact the value of any particular house. So, the questions of causation as well as damages with respect to property damage claims do not predominate as required under Rule 23(b)(3).


Equitable Relief Class
However, the district court took a different approach to plaintiffs’ motion for certification of a new class which seeks only equitable relief, requiring defendants to remove the piles particulates from the island of St. Croix. While 23(b)(2) class actions have no predominance or superiority requirements, the class claims must be “cohesive." Barnes v. Am. Tobacco Co., 161 F.3d 127, 143 (3d Cir. 1998). Courts will deny certification in Rule 23(b)(2) cases in the presence of
disparate factual circumstances. There is case law that a court should be more hesitant in accepting a (b)(2) suit which contains significant individual issues than it should under subsection 23(b)(3). E.g., Santiago v. City of Phila., 72 F.R.D. 619, 628 (E.D. Pa. 1976).

While the court found the demand for injunctive relief to be unclear, it boiled down to two elements: safe containment of the bauxite and red mud as it currently exists on the refinery property; and removal from St. Croix of all bauxite and red mud from wherever it exists on the island. Citing the principle of cohesiveness, courts have granted certification where plaintiffs sought to have a single defendant cease emissions of toxic substances, see, e.g., Olden v. LaFarge Corp., 203 F.R.D. 254, 269 (E.D. Mich. 2001), aff'd, 383 F.3d 495 (6th Cir. 2004), but denied certification where plaintiffs sought individualized remediation in the form of real property cleanup for release of toxic substances, see, e.g., In re Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether ("MTBE") Prods. Liab. Litig., 209 F.R.D. 323, 341-49 (S.D.N.Y. 2002). By contrast, only a handful of district courts have certified classes seeking individualized remediation under Rule 23(b)(2).

In this case, plaintiffs' request for remediation with respect to their real property would force the court to confront a host of heavily individualized factual questions for each parcel, including the nature and extent of contamination as well as the necessity and feasibility of remediation. But by contrast, the alleged nuisance stemming from the storage of possibly toxic substances at the refinery can likely be abated, said the court, with respect to all plaintiffs without separate determinations of individual causation, liability, or damages. A class seeking such relief is cohesive enough and can be the subject of an action under Rule 23(b)(2) -- only insofar as the plaintiffs seek cleanup, abatement or removal of the substances currently present on the refinery property.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

In an earlier post on the "year of China recalls," MassTortDefense noted legislative changes to the Consumer Product Safety Act and enhanced resources of the CPSC as a response to the spate of recalls.  The commission has announced it is now seeking public comments on a draft report, on Import Safety Strategy.

The Executive Summary notes that imports currently account for about 44 percent of all consumer products sold in the United States today, but they comprise over three-fourths of all product recalls administered by the agency. The value of all imported consumer products under the jurisdiction of the CPSC was an estimated $639 billion in 2007. Last year, approximately 42 percent of these
products were from China, and the value of these imports from China nearly quadrupled from
1998 to 2007.

The report describes a four-pronged strategy to deal with the issue if safety of imported products:

I.  Engage the private sector and foreign governments to foster both compliance with relevant safety standards and adoption of more effective techniques of identifying  potential product hazards;
II.  Build safety assurances into the production processes by promoting the use of safety standards by manufacturers, and verifying compliance through third-party testing and inspections where appropriate;
III.   Prevent unsafe products through strategically redeploying CPSC resources according to  principles of hazard analysis and risk management to target surveillance and inspection of the distribution chain; and
IV.   Identify and remove quickly product hazards in the market and provide real-time
communications to consumers, foreign governments, and the private sector.

Public comments are due  by May 30, 2008, and can be sent  via e-mail to
cpsc-os@cpsc.gov

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

In the previous post, MassTortDefense began exploration of some of the issues associated with the "year of China recalls."  During fiscal year 2007, the CPSC announced 473 recalls, of which 288 were from China.

We continue in Part Two with some practical tips that may be considered to mitigate the risks of using China-based suppliers.

TO DO LIST

U.S. products sellers have to respond with proactive planning:

Testing and Sampling
A report from two Canadian researchers notes that since 1988, a majority of recalls of toys were related to design issues as opposed to poor manufacturing. But, assuming a prudent design, adherence to specifications becomes the focus. US importers have at times in the past chosen products from a showroom, such as in Hong Kong. At other times, products from China are purchased through one or several middlemen, with the ultimate U.S. buyers having little information about the manufacturing or QC of the products.  And importers have relied on purchase orders - a looming battle of the forms scenario -- rather than on a comprehensive contract.

Now, companies may need to turn to be more involved in the process upstream. Random sampling rather than relying on test certificates from their sellers may be wise. Companies may need to negotiate vendor and supply contracts to require those counterparts to test products for compliance with specifications and U.S. regulations. Such a compliance program may include third-party testing and a system to track products in the retail stream of commerce. If self-testing is employed, it may be prudent to have it conducted by a group of employees incentivized to make the testing accurate and thorough.  Companies need to ensure that they have strong process controls at the key risk points of the distribution chain. QC can involve early warning systems, and includes making corrections, documenting results. The timing and scheduling of QC interventions may need to be modified. Even "sealed" products may need to be randomly inspected.

Management

There can be surprisingly high management turnover rates in China, and local management is often the source of fraud when it occurs. Multi-national product sellers may explore returning to use of expatriate management where possible, although they may lack the level of understanding of the local environment.   Importers may also seek to get a better sense of the sub-contracting activities of their suppliers.  Indeed, tracking vendors, subs, and components supplied for the product can be important, even as the supply chain is a moving target.

Note, in this setting, it may be a mistake to leave negotiations and contract management to less senior people. The audit structure employed by management should also be of a design to detect and deter fraud and nepotism at the local management level. This may require not only more inspectors, but a different kind of inspector/on the ground agent.

Risk Sharing
Contracts can be both a risk reduction and dispute resolution mechanism. It is imperative that the contract clearly lay out responsibilities and rights on QC, specifications, delivery, testing, sub-contractors, performance milestones.  U.S. companies are seeking to add arbitration clauses to new contracts, and as existing supply deals expire. Arbitration in a forum that Chinese courts will recognize may be a means to share the burden of a potential recalls, which for the most part has fallen on U.S. importers. China does not generally recognize ad hoc arbitrations. Some importers are looking at CIETAC, the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission as a possibility.  In a CIETAC arbitration, there will still be limited discovery, and short document-focused hearings. Another possibility is the Hong Kong International Arbitration Center.

Companies may think about choice if language provisions in their arbitration clauses, the nationality of the arbitrators, discovery rights, injunctive relief the parties consent to. Choice of law clauses are also key in renegotiated contracts.

Importers are also seeking bonding from their Chinese partners as a way of ensuring financial sharing of the cost of recalls.

The most important kind of risk sharing, however, may be the risk of non-payment, which is only viable when the U.S. importer has good knowledge of the supply chain -- who are the suppliers, and what are they supplying.

It may increasingly make sense to provide for litigation support in the contract, so that the U.S. importer has access to needed records and witnesses should legal issues arise.

Many companies have a crisis management team in place, trained to handle problems with their products, should any arise.  The team may include legal, HR, PR, QC, and regulatory members.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The Cook County, Illinois Circuit Court gave preliminary approval recently to a proposed settlement related to RC2 Corporation’s recall of toys tainted with lead. (A hearing on final approval is set for August.) The settlement relates to claims of consumers who purchased a recalled Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway product. This is another step towards resolution of one of the major 2007 recalls of toys made in China.

RC2 Corporation had announced last summer that it was voluntarily recalling five toys from the Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway product line due to levels of lead in surface paint that may exceed U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission requirements. There have been no reports of illness or injury related to any of the recalled toys.

This is a good reminder to readers of MassTortDefense concerning the risks of outsourcing to China, and an opportunity to comment on mitigation of those risks.

The Year of the China Recall

The year 2007 has been dubbed the year of China recalls because of the significant recalls of toys with lead, as well as tainted pet food, and toothpaste with chemical contamination. In fact, toy recalls had been stable (at about 30 per year) until 2007, which saw a huge spike in toy recalls to more than 80, involving 25 million units. [There have been about 50 already in 2008.]

Overall product recalls have been on the rise for several years. China’s share of total product recalls in the U.S. rose significantly (to about 67% overall), and China accounted for about 98% of all toy recalls in 2007. As recently as 1999, China accounted for less than half of U.S. toy recalls. Overall U.S. imports from China have increased steadily, and China supplies most of our imported toys, but recently the recalls of China-made toys has outpaced the increases in imports of toys.

And the presence of lead was the leading cause of products made in China being recalled. Overall, lead-focused recalls increased 10x in the last 4 years.

The number of products removed from the European Union market in 2007 increased by 53 percent, with more than half of the items coming from China. The EU notes that toys were the products most often removed from markets in the 27 EU member states. About 80 percent of all toys sold in Europe come from a Chinese manufacturing facility. (The EU has a rapid alert system known as RAPEX. The RAPEX report on goods pulled from the market in 2007 can be found  here.


IMPACT OF RECALLS

Recalls have direct and indirect costs to product sellers. The costs of notice, labor costs, disposal costs, lost inventory value, refunds and repair costs, and legal fees are some of the direct costs. Indirect costs include bad publicity, damage to goodwill and reputation, loss of sales, increased production costs and testing costs in the future, diversion of management and employees from normal duties, potential legal liability (personal injury, medical monitoring, punitive damages), and increased insurance premiums. The recall may spawn shareholder derivative lawsuits if the stock price is affected by the recall. An interesting report from Lucy Allen at NERA looks at the market cap impact of recalls. Government fines are possible. The CPSC recently issued a $1 million civil penalty against athletic-shoe maker Reebok International Ltd. related to company-issued charm bracelets with toxic levels of lead. It is not unusual for recalls to cost companies tens of millions of dollars.

REGULATION
Congress has already taken steps in response to the spate of recalls. The House passed the Consumer Product Safety Modernization Act, H.R. 4040, in December, and the Senate passed its own CPSC Reform Act, S.2663 in March. The two bills will be reconciled, and the CPSC budget, staff, and enforcement powers will be increased. Both bills mandate reduction of the amount of lead in toys; third-party testing of certain children's products; raise allowable penalties for violations; and give state attorneys general enforcement authority. Empowering state attorneys general is likely to generate more enforcement claims against companies, as state AGs have been willing to take an aggressive stand on other recent issues, beginning with tobacco. This provision might also undermine uniformity of enforcement of the CPS Act. State attorney generals may simply create a confused patchwork of standards.

The Senate provision would require the CPSC to post on Internet-searchable database the reports it receives about product-related injuries. This seems of limited use to the average consumer, but may encourage additional litigation; just like plaintiffs’ attempt with ADE reports in pharmaceutical litigation, this could be misused in product liability litigation.


WHAT CAN BE DONE
In some quarters, there is a notion that the market will force China to make improvements in quality control to avoid a repeat of the year of recalls. That is, if the products cannot be trusted, then importers will stop buying them. But the fact remains that regulation of product safety in China is not as advanced as it is in Europe and the United States. In essence the growth of their economy may have outpaced their ability to regulate product quality control.

Is there an ability to hold the Chinese companies accountable for the QC issues? Frequently, mass litigation arising from a large product recall will involve numerous parties within the chain of distribution, if not originally, then through indemnification and contribution claims. The original manufacturer of the allegedly defective product rarely is not involved. But plaintiff attorneys/consumers rarely try to pursue Chinese companies, forcing the U.S. importer/seller to try to pursue them.  But U.S. companies invariably may have difficulty pursuing the chain to a Chinese company that doesn't have assets or an office in the United States. Most Chinese companies have no assets in the United States, and will ignore U.S. complaints.

In the case of Menu Foods, the pet food manufacturer whose China-sourced ingredients allegedly contaminated dozens of brands of American pet food, several putative class-action suits were filed. See In re Pet Food Products Liability Litig., MDL No. 1850. But the Chinese defendants reportedly have not responded.

• There can be issues of personal jurisdiction. Asahi Metal Indus.. Co. v. Superior Court of Calif., 480 U.S. 102 (1987)(plurality suggesting that placement of product in stream of commerce, without more, may not be the substantial connection between defendant and forum state necessary for finding of minimum contacts). 
• Second, especially if the manufacturer is state owned, Chinese defendants may also assert defenses based on principals of sovereign immunity and international comity. Service of a Chinese company must be conducted in accordance with the Hague Convention, which can be cumbersome. Authorities in China frequently cannot locate the accused companies because the firms are often dissolved and the factories are under new ownership.
• Discovery is extremely limited in China. Even if a damage award is entered against a Chinese company, enforcement of the judgment may be impossible if the Chinese company does not have significant assets in the U.S.. There is no treaty between China and the United States that requires reciprocal enforcement of judgments. (Although a U.S. judgment may not be enforced in China, there may be assets of the Chinese company in other countries that enforce U.S. judgments...worth thinking about)

 

How about suits in China? Its nearly infeasible to file a lawsuit against a Chinese company in China. It can be impossible to get an expert to testify. There is limited discovery, if any. There is tolerance or lenient views of perjury.  Precedent can be irrelevant. The damages obtainable are often insufficient, with lost profits seemingly a lost concept. There are a variety of practical realities that favor the “home team.”  Foreign lawyers typically cannot be utilized.

More of what can be done in the next posting.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Here at MassTortDefense, the focus is often on developments in ongoing mass torts and significant product liability litigation. How interesting to be able to report on the Second Circuit’s decision to reject plaintiffs’ attempt to create “in essence a mass tort for making inaccurate statements.” In Benzman v. Whitman, No. 06-1166, 2008 WL 1788401 (2d Cir. 4/22/08), the court ordered the dismissal of a putative class action seeking to hold the former EPA administrator liable for her erroneous reassuring statements about the health risks of the World Trade Center dust in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack.

Background
The class action lawsuit was brought on behalf people who lived, attended school, or worked in lower Manhattan or Brooklyn following the attack. The class alleged under a variety of theories that Christine Todd Whitman and EPA officials acting at her direction made statements regarding air quality  that failed to report health risks associated with WTC dust or misrepresented the nature of those risks, thereby violating the Plaintiffs' Fifth Amendment substantive due process right to be free from government-created health risks. The district court denied Whitman's motion to dismiss the claim against her as an individual for misleading the public about the air quality.

2d Circuit Reverses
The Second Circuit rejected any individual liability claim, pointing out that no court has ever held a government official liable for denying substantive due process by issuing press releases or making public statements. Such a suit against a federal official for decisions made as part of federal disaster response and cleanup efforts implicate the special judgment and policy factors that counsel against creation of a litigation remedy. Plaintiffs' allegations fell far short of showing either the type of special relationship between governmental actor and victim or a state-created danger arising from the relationship between the state and the private assailant.

The 2d Circuit noted the evidence “that the agency's performance in discharging its responsibilities in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, which involved an attack on America's largest city unprecedented in our history, was flawed. But legal remedies are not always available for every instance of arguably deficient governmental performance.” Id. at *11.

The nuances of a Bivens Fifth Amendment claim, and intricacies of the APA, are perhaps not frequent aspects of mass torts. But the 2d Circuit clearly recognized the potential impact of recognizing the claim alleged. Plaintiffs alleged a state-created danger, sufficient to impose liability, based on a senior official's public statements that offered assurances of environmental safety that turned out to be substantially exaggerated. The Court called this an attempt to create “in essence a mass tort for making inaccurate statements.” Id. at *5. The 2d Circuit would have no part of creating such a novel mass tort.

That type of policy hesitation ought to at least be part of the analysis of new causes of action (like medical monitoring), attempts to expand existing causes of action (CFA claims), and application of important legal defenses (preemption).

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks