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

A federal court last week denied class certification in a lawsuit over insect parts allegedly found in baby formula, recognizing that the claims raised multiple individual issues. Brandner v. Abbott Laboratories, et al., No. 2:10-cv-03242 (E.D. La. 1/23/12).

Plaintiff filed this suit in connection with Abbott’s September, 2010 recall of Similac brand infant formula because of the concern that insect parts may have been observed in a batch of finished product.  Brandner asserted that she purchased, and her child consumed, Similac that was
part of the product recall.  Plaintiff contended that during this period her child suffered alleged gastrointestinal problems, which symptoms required numerous visits to a physician, and that she allegedly experienced severe emotional distress upon learning she had fed her child infant formula containing beetles and beetle larvae.

Plaintiff's Rule 23 (b)(2) class allegations were dismissed, but plaintiff then sought monetary damages and moved to certify a class on her products liability and redhibition claims under
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3). Defendant opposed this certification motion on the grounds that she failed to satisfy the commonality, typicality, and adequacy of representation requirements of Rule 23(a), as well as the predominance and superiority requirements of Rule 23(b)(3). The court's focus was on the predominance and superiority issues, and found no need to reach all the other questions.

Predominance of individual issues under the product liability claim-

Louisiana law requires a plaintiff to demonstrate that the product was unreasonably dangerous when it left the manufacturer’s control. Whether each class member actually purchased contaminated Similac was subject to individualized, not collective proof. Second, each putative class member would need to establish that Abbott’s actions were a proximate cause of his or her injury. Jefferson v. Lead Indus. Ass’n, Inc., 106 F.3d 1245, 1247 (5th Cir. 1997).  The plaintiff's cause of action here would require proof of medical causation, which has two components, general causation, which establishes that a substance has the capability of causing the injury or disorder in humans, and specific causation, which focuses upon whether the substance caused a particular injury to a particular individual. E.g., Ridgeway v. Pfizer, Inc.,, 2010 WL 1729187, at *2 (E.D. La. Apr. 27, 2010).  Even assuming general causation, proving specific causation would require a determination of an individual’s family and medical history; age; gender; diet; the timing of ingestion of the product; whether that individual suffered an injury, when the injury occurred, the type of injury suffered, and the number of occurrences of injury; and more. See In re Vioxx Prods. Liab. Litig., 239 F.R.D. 450, 459 (E.D. La. 2006)(citing In re Phenylpropanolamine (PPA) Prods. Liab. Litig., 208 F.R.D. 625, 631-32 (W.D. Wash. 2002)).

This highly individualized inquiry led the court to conclude that issues common to the class did
not predominate.   Interestingly, the court went on to note that all plaintiffs who claimed emotional distress (an issue that plaintiff contended was common to the class) would have to establish not only the distress but also the attendant damages. The damages issue required a determination  whether plaintiffs sought medical treatment, psychiatric treatment, the degree to which plaintiffs manifested generalized fear, and the severity of plaintiffs’ emotional distress. See Howard v. Union Carbide Corp., 897 So.2d 768, 774 (La. App. 2005). Because the determination of whether each member suffered emotional distress turned on a highly individualized assessment, questions of fact regarding individual members predominated over common issues of fact.  While the individual nature of damages alone does not necessarily preclude class certification, class treatment may not be suitable where the calculation of damages is not susceptible to a mathematical or formulaic calculation. Establishing emotional damages would entail the exact type of “mini-trials” the courts have cautioned against. Indeed, the very nature of these damages, compensating plaintiffs for emotional and other intangible injuries, necessarily implicated the subjective differences of each plaintiff’s circumstances; they were an individual, not class-wide, remedy.  See Allison v. Citgo Petroleum Corp., 151 F.3d 402, 417 (5th Cir. 1998). See also In re Katrina Canal Breaches Litig., 401 Fed. Appx. 884, 887 (5th Cir. 2010) (class certification not appropriate when individualized issues, such as the nature and extent of a class member’s damages, will predominate).

Superiority- 

The court also found that plaintiff made no showing of how she would try these claims on a class-wide basis. She thus failed to demonstrate how she would overcome the manageability problems posed by claims that require such disparate proof. Accordingly, she had not satisfied the requirement that a class action be superior to other available methods of adjudicating the controversy.

Other claims-

Plaintiff's redhibition claims also could not be certified as a class because common issues did not predominate, and a class action was not a superior mechanism for trying these claims. Plaintiff argued, in essence, that defendant admitted defect in recalling lots of the product.  But the court found that the recall notice was far from an admission that every unit contained a
redhibitory defect. Indeed, the press release actually stated that there was only a “remote possibility” of contamination in the products subject to recall. Plaintiff could not show through common proof that each class member purchased a defective product.  Plaintiff's expert did not convince the court otherwise. The overall rate of contamination in tested samples was only 0.16%.  The expert admitted there was no scientific way to evaluate contamination in units that were recalled but not tested.  And even if the product was considered “adulterated” per the FDCA, a food product is adulterated, inter alia, if it has been prepared, packed, or held under insanitary
conditions whereby it may have become contaminated with filth, or whereby it may have been rendered injurious to health. So a product can be “adulterated” under the FDCA without being contaminated or defective.

Class certification denied under (b)(3).

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The Ninth Circuit last week reversed the certification of a nationwide class raising consumer fraud claims against an auto maker. See Mazza, et al. v. American Honda Motor Co., No. 09-55376 (9th Circuit). 

Honda appealed the district court’s decision to certify a nationwide class of all consumers who purchased or leased Acura RL's equipped with a Collision Mitigation Braking System (“CMBS”). The plaintiffs alleged that certain advertisements misrepresented the characteristics of the CMBS and supposedly omitted material information on its limitations. The complaint stated four claims under California Law, specifically the California Unfair Competition Law (UCL), Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200 et seq., False Advertising Law (FAL), Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17500 et seq., the Consumer Legal Remedies Act (CLRA), Cal. Civil Code § 1750 et seq., and a claim for unjust enrichment.  Readers know those are the typical claims in a consumer fraud case in the popular forum of California.

The Ninth Circuit held that the district court erred because it erroneously concluded that California law could be applied to the entire nationwide class, and because it erroneously concluded that all consumers who purchased or leased the relevant Acura RL can be presumed to have relied on defendant’s advertisements, which allegedly were misleading and omitted material information.

In 2007, plaintiffs bought Acura RL's from authorized Acura dealerships, and the vehicles were equipped with the CMB System. In December 2007, they filed a class action complaint alleging
that Honda misrepresented and concealed material information in connection with the marketing and sale of Acura RL vehicles equipped with the CMBS. According to Plaintiffs, Honda did not warn consumers (1) that its CMB collision avoidance system’s three separate stages may "overlap,"  (2) that the system may not warn drivers in time to avoid an accident, and (3) that it allegedly shuts off in bad weather.

The district court certified a nationwide class of people in the United States who, between August 17, 2005 and the date of class certification, purchased or leased new or used Acura RL vehicles
equipped with the CMBS. The district court concluded that California law could be applied to all class members because Honda did not show how the differences in the laws of the various states were material, how other states might have an interest in applying their laws in this case, and how these interests were implicated in this litigation. It also held that class members were entitled to an
inference of reliance under California law.

Before certifying a class, the trial court must conduct a rigorous analysis to determine whether the party seeking certification has met the prerequisites of Rule 23.  The party seeking class certification has the burden of affirmatively demonstrating that the class meets the requirements
of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. And, under Rule 23(b)(3), a plaintiff must demonstrate the
superiority of maintaining a class action and show that the questions of law or fact common to class members predominate over any questions affecting only individual members.  Here, Honda contended that common issues of law did not predominate because California’s consumer protection statutes may not be applied to a nationwide class with members in 44 jurisdictions.
It further contended that common issues of fact did not predominate because the court  impermissibly relied on presumptions that all class members were exposed to the allegedly
misleading advertising, that they relied on misleading information in making their purchasing decision, and that they were damaged as a result.

First, choice of law. Under California’s choice of law rules, the class action proponent bears the initial burden to show that California has significant contact to the claims of each class member. Also, California law may only be used on a class-wide basis if the interests of other states are not found to outweigh California’s interest in having its law applied.  Honda argued that the district court misapplied the three-step governmental interest test.  The Ninth Circuit agreed. The district court abused its discretion in certifying a class under California law that contained class members
who purchased or leased their car in different jurisdictions with materially different consumer protection laws.  For example, some state consumer fraud laws have no scienter requirement, whereas many other states’ consumer protection statutes do require scienter. See, e.g., Colo.
Rev. Stat. 6-1-105(1)(e), (g), (u) (knowingly); N.J. Stat. Ann. § 56:8-2 (knowledge and intent for omissions); Debbs v. Chrysler Corp., 810 A.2d 137, 155 (Pa. Super. 2002) (knowledge
or reckless disregard).  Some states require named class plaintiffs to demonstrate reliance, while some other states’ consumer protection statutes do not.  These differences are "not trivial or wholly immaterial."  

The court of appeals reminds us that consumer protection laws are a creature of the state in which they are fashioned. They may impose or not impose liability depending on policy choices made by state legislatures. Each state has an interest in setting the appropriate level of liability for companies conducting business within its territory.  Maximizing consumer and business welfare, and achieving the correct balance for society, does not inexorably favor greater consumer protection; instead, setting a baseline of corporate liability for consumer harm requires balancing these competing interests.  Getting the optimal balance between protecting consumers and attracting foreign businesses, with resulting increase in commerce and jobs, is not so much a policy decision committed to a federal appellate court, or to particular district courts where a plaintiff may sue, as it is a decision properly to be made by the legislatures and courts of each state. More expansive consumer protection measures may mean more or greater commercial liability, which in turn may result in higher prices for consumers or a decrease in product availability.  Here, the district court did not adequately recognize that each foreign state has an interest in applying its law to transactions within its borders and that, if California law were applied to the entire class, foreign states would be impaired in their ability to calibrate liability to foster commerce.

The court of appeals also found that the district court abused its discretion in finding that common issues of fact predominated, because the scale of the advertising campaign here did not support a presumption of reliance, even if one were legally available.  It was likely that many class members were never exposed to the allegedly misleading advertisements, insofar as advertising of the challenged system was very limited. And it was not dispositive that Honda’s advertisements were allegedly misleading because of the information they omitted, rather than the information they claimed.  For everyone in the class to have been exposed to the omissions, it was necessary for everyone in the class to have viewed the allegedly misleading advertising. Here the limited scope of that advertising makes it unreasonable to assume that all class members viewed it.
Honda’s product brochures and TV commercials fell short of the extensive and long-term fraudulent advertising campaign that might support a presumption in the eyes of some courts.  Even if Honda allegedly might have been more elaborate and diligent in disclosing the limitations of the CMB system, its advertising materials did not deny that limitations exist. A presumption of reliance does not arise when class members were exposed to quite disparate information from various representatives of the defendant.  California courts have not allowed a consumer who was never exposed to an alleged false or misleading advertising campaign to recover damages under California’s UCL.  

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A Missouri federal court last week denied the class certification motion of consumers suing defendants in the multi-district litigation over the use of bisphenol-A in baby bottles and sippy cups. In re: Bisphenol-A Polycarbonate Plastic Products Liability Litigation, No. 4:08-md-01967 (W.D. Mo.).

As we have posted before, the federal judge in the MDL involving BPA in baby bottles refused last Summer to certify three proposed multistate classes in this multidistrict litigation. In re: Bisphenol-A Polycarbonate Plastic Products Liability Litigation, No. 08-1967 (W. D. Mo. July 7, 2011).   That decision offered an interesting discussion of choice of law, and of the notion of commonality after Dukes v. Walmart, and included an important reminder that while individual issues relating to damages do not automatically bar certification, they also are not to be ignored. E.g., In re St. Jude Medical, Inc., 522 F.3d 836, 840-41 (8th Cir. 2008) (individual issues related to appropriate remedy considered in evaluating predominance); Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Ass’n, Inc. v. New Prime, Inc., 339 F.3d 1001, 1012 (8th Cir. 2003), cert. denied, 541 U.S. 973 (2004) (individual issues related to damages predominated over common issues); see also In re Wilborn, 609 F.3d 748, 755 (5th Cir. 2010).

The court gave plaintiffs an opportunity to show that a class of Missouri-only consumers should be certified, and plaintiffs then moved for certification of three classes of Missouri consumers. Plaintiffs alleged three causes of action: violation of the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act (MMPA), breach of the implied warranty of merchantability, and unjust enrichment.

The court focused first on standing. A court may not certify a class if it contains members who lack
standing. In re Zurn Pex Plumbing Products Liability Litigation, 644 F.3d 604, 616 (8th Cir. 2011). Plaintiffs’ proposed classes here could not be certified because they included individuals who had not suffered an injury-in-fact.  Individuals who knew about BPA’s existence and the surrounding controversy before purchasing defendants’ products had no injury. There was a potential for the proposed classes to include a large number of such uninjured consumers. Plaintiffs admitted that parents often carefully research baby care product purchases, and defendants submitted proof that information regarding BPA was in the media (including popular press such as "20/20") as early as 1999.

The opinion also offers an instructive discussion of reliance. Plaintiffs argued the issue of knowledge goes only to consumers’ reliance on defendants’ alleged nondisclosure, and plaintiffs always contend reliance is not an element of their consumer fraud claims. The court explained that the hypothetical posed by the question of reliance – whether the plaintiff would have purchased the product if she/he had known – presupposes the consumer did not know the relevant information. Thus, the question of knowledge logically precedes the question of reliance.

Even consumers who were unaware of BPA when they purchased defendants’ products may not have suffered an injury. Consumers who fully used defendants’ baby bottles and other products without physical harm before learning about BPA suffered no injury, and could not assert a claim under consumer protection statutes or for breach of warranty. Plaintiffs asserted that none of the proposed class members received what they intended to obtain, because plaintiffs were not provided material information before making their purchases. But plaintiffs were bargaining for baby products at the time of transaction, not for a certain type of information. Those who fully used the products before learning about BPA would have received 100% use (and benefit) from the products.

In the Rule 23 analysis proper, the court also noted that plaintiffs’ proof of what defendants failed to disclose would not be common for all class members, at least with respect to the scientific debate concerning BPA. Class-wide evidence cannot be used to show what defendants knew or should have known because their knowledge and the available information about BPA changed during the
class period. Plaintiffs' proposed trial plan stated they intended to show defendants' alleged awareness and nondisclosure of various scientific studies from 1997 to at least 2006.

The court's observation on materiality is also worth noting. A material fact for state consumer fraud liability includes a fact which a reasonable consumer would likely consider to be important in making a purchasing decision.  Even if this is an objective inquiry, that does not mean it can always be proven with class-wide evidence. A 2006 study allegedly showing BPA's effect on the endocrine systems of snails, even if material, would not be probative of defendants' liability in 2002. Similarly, a reasonable consumer may be less likely to consider a scientific study from 1997 significant if that consumer learned that federal agencies over the years – the FDA in particular – considered that study, and nevertheless still concluded BPA could be safely used to make baby products.

Finally, the court considered superiority and manageability, with a key issue of concern how to determine who was in the class (some courts do this analysis under the ascertainability rubric). Identifying himself or herself as a purchaser would not prove a person is in the class. A plaintiff in a typical case is not allowed to establish an element of a defendant’s liability merely by completing an affidavit swearing the element is satisfied, and this should be no different for a class action.  Defendants would be entitled to cross-examine each and every alleged class member regarding his or her memory and story.

For all these reasons, class certification denied.

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Louisiana's Supreme Court last week reversed the certification of a class action brought by property owners over the alleged release of contaminants from a wood-treating site. See Price, et al. v. Martin, et al., No. 2011-C-0853 (La. 2011).  What should catch readers' eyes is the court's reliance on the U.S. Supreme Court's Wal-Mart v. Dukes decision in this mass tort case. we have been following the lower courts' treatment of that decision, and this case represents a sensible application of the Court's commonality analysis.

Several  individuals residing in the vicinity of the Dura-Wood Treating Company filed a proposed class action on behalf of persons who allegedly suffered damages as a result of operations at the wood-treating facility.  The petition alleged that the Dura-Wood facility was primarily engaged in the production of creosote-treated railroad ties. Plaintiffs alleged that various environmentally unsound practices caused a significant amount of hazardous and toxic chemicals to be released into the environment, including the air, soil, and water, of the communities in which plaintiffs resided.  For example, according to the petition, from 1940 to mid-1950, significant quantities of creosote sludge were deposited into area canals and ponds. According to plaintiffs, the allegedly negligent releases increased their risk of disease, caused property damage, and diminished property values. Plaintiffs also alleged that defendants’ activities constituted a nuisance.

Plaintiffs filed a Motion for Class Certification, asserting that more than 3,000 persons, firms, and entities had been damaged by defendants’ conduct and that the issues common to the
class -- generally liability issues --  predominated over individual issues.  The trial court granted plaintiffs’ motion, certifying a class defined as “property owners who owned property within the class area at the time the property was damaged during the years of 1944 through the present.   The court of appeals affirmed and the state supreme court granted cert.

The court began by noting that the class action rules do not set forth a mere pleading standard; rather, a party seeking class certification must affirmatively demonstrate his compliance
with the rule – that is, he must be prepared to prove that there are in fact sufficiently numerous parties, common questions of law or fact, etc. citing Dukes, 131 S.Ct. at 2551.  That a class can be decertified or later amended does not excuse a failure to take a rigorous look at prerequisites. Taking that careful look, the supreme court found that lower court erred in ruling that the commonality prerequisite was met and, further, in determining that the requirements that common issues predominate over individual issues and that the class device be superior were also satisfied.

The requirement that there be questions of law or fact common to the class (in La. C.C.P.
art. 591(A)(2) and in federal Rule 23(a)) is in language that is “easy to misread" since any competently crafted class complaint literally raises common questions. Dukes, 131 S.Ct. at 2551, quoting Nagareda, Class Certification in the Age of Aggregate Proof, 84 N.Y.U.L. Rev. 97, 131-32 (2009). The mere existence of common questions, however, will not satisfy the commonality requirement. Commonality requires a party seeking certification to demonstrate the class members’ claims depend on a common contention, and that common contention must be one capable of class-wide resolution – one where the determination of its truth or falsity will resolve an issue that is central to the validity of each one of the claims in one stroke. Dukes, 131 S.Ct. at 2551. In the context of mass tort litigation, said the court, each member of the class must be able to prove individual causation based on the same set of operative facts and law that would be used by any other class member to prove causation.

Here, thousands of property owners sued for alleged damage caused from 1944 to the present by the alleged emission of toxic chemicals from operations at the wood treating facility. The
essence of the causes of action was that the named defendants conducted activities which harmed the class members by depositing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and dioxins in the attic dust of their residential and commercial properties. Plaintiffs argued this presented common questions, as they alleged that injury could be shown not by examining individual
residences, but by showing that elevated toxin levels emanated from the defendants’ facility “on an area-wide basis,” and that this issue, when decided for one class member, would thus be decided for all.

This represented a misinterpretation of the law and of plaintiffs’ burden of proof. To establish the “common issue” they posited, plaintiffs would be required to present evidence not simply that emissions occurred, but that the emissions resulted in the deposit of unreasonably elevated levels of chemicals on each plaintiff's property. And this issues must   be  capable  of common resolution for all class members based on common evidence. Moreover, the proof of commonality must be “significant.”

The court then proceeded to list some of the many reasons why the issues were not common.  The facility had three owners in the span (although only two were sued). These owners engaged in independent and varying operations throughout the approximately 66-year period of alleged emissions. The specific operations that plaintiffs alleged resulted in off-site emissions were varied –such as overflow, runoff,  and the burning of wood -- and occurred at varied and unspecified times during the period in question. Moreover, the facility’s operations changed over time. For example,certain burning processes ceased in or around 1982. Also, the chemicals used at the facility changed over time.

In an important, but often overlooked point, the court noted that the legal standards applying to the operations of the wood-treating facility have changed over time. For example, whether principles of strict liability or negligence would govern the conduct of defendants depended on the
year the damaging emission occurred. Likewise, exemplary damages were not available for some years, by statute. The applicable standards for air emissions varied also, with the enactment of the Clean Air Act decades after the class period began, and various amendments to it over time. Time raised another individual issue: while the attic dust from various properties was tested for contaminants, there was no attempt to determine when contaminants were deposited in the attics of the buildings that were tested.  Finally, over time there were varying alternative sources of the contaminants, including myriad area-wide and property-specific alternative sources of PAHs and dioxins in the defined class area.

For class certification to be appropriate, there must be some common thread which holds the claims together. With regard to causation and injury, plaintiffs thus failed to present sufficient evidence to prove the existence of that common thread.

For many of the same reasons, common issues did not predominate, and the class was not a superior method of resolving the dispute.  The court also noted the existence of potential conflicts between current owners and prior owners of the respective properties.  Also militating against class certification was the fact that several class members had already brought individual claims against these same defendants for personal injuries and property damage allegedly caused by the same facility emissions.

Class certification reversed.  

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The Third Circuit last week affirmed a lower court decision denying class certification in a medical monitoring case alleging vinyl chloride exposures. Gates v. Rohm & Haas Co., No. 10-2108 (3d Cir.,  8/25/11).

Readers may recall we posted on this case at the trial court level last year.  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 alleged 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 were higher than the background level.

Plaintiffs sought certification of two classes: (1) a class seeking medical monitoring for Village residents exposed to the airborne vinyl chloride between 1968 and 2002, and (2) a liability-only issue class seeking compensation for property damage from the exposure. (We will focus on medical monitoring.)

The district court denied certification; it found the medical monitoring class lacked the cohesiveness needed to maintain a class under Rule 23(b)(2), and that common issues of law and fact did not predominate as required under Rule 23(b)(3). Both failed for the same reason—the “common” evidence proposed for trial did not adequately typify the specific individuals that composed the two classes. In particular, the court found plaintiffs failed to present common proof of three issues critical to recovering on the medical monitoring claim—(1) that plaintiffs suffered from exposure greater than normal background levels, (2) the proximate result of which is significantly increased risk of developing a serious disease, and (3) whether the proposed medical monitoring regime is reasonably medically necessary.  The court also found the remaining individual issues would require individual trial proceedings, undoing any efficiencies of class treatment and possibly leading a second jury to reconsider evidence presented to the jury in the class proceeding.

Plaintiffs took an interlocutory appeal under Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(f) from the denial of class certification. The court of appeals affirmed.

The Third Circuit offered a number of important points for readers that may be confronting putative medical monitoring class actions:

1) what is a medical monitoring class?

A medical monitoring cause of action allows those exposed to toxic substances to recover the costs of periodic medical appointments and the costs of tests to detect the early signs of diseases associated with exposure. The few states that recognize medical monitoring as a remedy recognize it as a cause of action, like Pennsylvania, Redland Soccer Club, Inc. v. Dep’t of the Army, 696 A.2d 137, 142 (Pa. 1997), or treat it as a type of relief granted in connection with a traditional tort cause of action, see, e.g., Bourgeois v. A.P. Green Indus., Inc., 716 So.2d 355, 359 (La. 1998).

The remedy of medical monitoring has divided courts on whether plaintiffs should proceed under Rule 23(b)(2) or Rule 23(b)(3), said the court. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has talked about awarding medical monitoring damages as a trust fund which “compensates the plaintiff for only the monitoring costs actually incurred.” Redland Soccer Club, 696 A.2d at 142 n.6. But it has not yet clearly decided whether or when medical monitoring awards can be in the form of a lump-sum verdict.

The appeals court noted, however, that some guidance may have come from the fact that the Supreme Court recently clarified that Rule 23(b)(2) applies only when a single injunction or declaratory judgment would provide relief to each member of the class. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2541, 2557 (2011). In light of the Supreme Court's recent decision, the Third Circuit would "question whether the kind of medical monitoring sought here can be certified under Rule 23(b)(2)."  If the plaintiffs here prevailed, class members' regimes of medical screenings and the corresponding cost would vary individual by individual. A single injunction or declaratory judgment would seem to not be able to provide relief to each member of the class proposed here. Rule 23(b)(2) “does not authorize class certification when each class member would be entitled to an individualized award of monetary damages.” Wal-Mart, 131 S. Ct. at 2557. But it did not need to reach the issue, because certification was improper under either category of Rule 23 for reasons apart from the monetary nature of plaintiffs' claims.

2) Cohesion and (b)(2) Certification

Although Rule 23(b)(2) classes need not meet the predominance and superiority requirements of Rule 23(b)(3), it is well established that the class claims must be cohesive. A key to the (b)(2) class is the indivisible nature of the injunctive or declaratory remedy warranted—the notion that the conduct is such that it can be enjoined or declared unlawful only as to all of the class members or as to none of them. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc, 131 S. Ct. at 2557 (quoting Richard A. Nagareda, Class Certification in the Age of Aggregate Proof, 84 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 97, 132 (2009)). Indeed, a (b)(2) class may require more cohesiveness than a (b)(3) class. As all class members will be bound by a single judgment, members of a proposed Rule 23(b)(2) injunctive or declaratory class must have strong commonality of interests. The Supreme Court in Wal-Mart recently highlighted the importance of cohesiveness in light of the limited protections for absent class members under subsections (b)(1) and (b)(2) of the class rule. 

3) Individual Issues in Medical Monitoring Class

Because causation and medical necessity often require individual proof, medical monitoring classes may founder for lack of cohesion. See In re St. Jude Med. Inc., 425 F.3d 1116, 1122 (8th Cir. 2005); Ball v. Union Carbide Corp., 385 F.3d 713, 727-28 (6th Cir. 2004); Zinser v. Accufix Research Inst., Inc., 253 F.3d 1180, 1195-96, amended, 273 F.3d 1266 (9th Cir. 2001); Barnes, 161 F.3d at 143-46; Boughton v. Cotter Corp., 65 F.3d 823, 827 (10th Cir. 1995). Frequently the rigorous analysis of common and individual issues  will entail some overlap with the merits of the plaintiff‟s underlying claim.  Wal-Mart Stores, Inc, 131 S. Ct. at 2551.  The trial court may consider the substantive elements of the plaintiffs' case in order to envision the form that a trial on those issues would take.  The District Court here did so and found individual issues were significant to certain elements of the medical monitoring claims here.

Readers will recall that to prevail on a medical monitoring claim under Pennsylvania law, plaintiffs must prove:
(a) exposure greater than normal background levels;
(b) to a proven hazardous substance;
(c) caused by the defendant‟s negligence;
(d) as a proximate result of the exposure, plaintiff has a significantly increased risk of contracting a serious latent disease;
(e) a monitoring procedure exists that makes the early detection of the disease possible;
(f) the prescribed monitoring regime is different from that normally recommended in the absence of the exposure; and
(g) the prescribed monitoring regime is reasonably necessary according to contemporary scientific principles.
Redland Soccer Club, 696 A.2d at 145-46.  “Expert testimony is required to prove these elements.” Sheridan v. NGK Metals Corp., 609 F.3d 239, 251 (3d Cir. 2010).

Here, the District Court identified individual issues that would eclipse common issues in at least three of the required elements, noting several potential variations in proving exposure above background, a significantly increased risk of a serious latent disease, and the reasonable necessity of the monitoring regime.

4) Exposure

Plaintiffs proposed to show the exposure of class members through expert opinions on air dispersion modeling that mapped concentrations of vinyl chloride exposure (isopleths) that allegedly could provide average exposure per person. But in fact those isopleths only showed average daily exposure, not minimum exposure, used average exposure over very long periods of time when exposure likely varied, and thus could not show that every class member was exposed above background.  Instead of showing the exposure of the class member with the least amount of exposure, plaintiffs proof would show only the amount that hypothetical residents of the village would have been exposed to under a uniform set of assumptions without accounting for differences in exposure year-by-year or based upon an individual's characteristics. At most, the isopleths showed the exposure only of persons who lived in the village for the entire period the isopleth represents and who behaved according to all assumptions that the experts made in creating the isopleth.

5) Composite Proof
Plaintiffs cannot, said the court,  substitute for evidence of exposure of actual class members evidence of hypothetical, composite persons in order to gain class certification. The evidence here was not  truly common because it was not shared by all (possibly even most) individuals in the class. Averages or community-wide estimations would not be probative of any individual's claim because any one class member may have an exposure level well above or below the average.
Attempts to meet the burden of proof using modeling and assumptions that do not reflect the individual characteristics of class members have been met with skepticism, noted the court of appeals. See In re Fibreboard Corp., 893 F.2d 706, 712 (5th Cir. 1990); In re “Agent Orange” Prod. Liab. Litig. MDL No. 381, 818 F.2d 145, 165 (2d Cir. 1987); see also 2 Joseph M. McLaughlin, McLaughlin on Class Actions: Law and Practice § 8:9, at 8-55 to -57 (3d ed. 2006).

Plaintiffs have traditionally loved medical monitoring in part because they think that class certification may come more readily given their alleged ability to use epidemiological or group or aggregate proof to establish some the elements of the medical monitoring claim.  That is why it is significant that the Third Circuit recognized that plaintiffs' aggregate proof in the form of exposure isopleths did not reflect that different persons may have different levels of exposure based on biological factors or individual activities over the class period. Factors which affect a person's exposure to toxins can include activity level, age, sex, and genetic make-up. See Federal Judicial Center, Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence 430 (2d ed. 2000).  For example, some people will have higher breathing rates per body weight which would create a disparity between the concentrations of vinyl chloride (based on estimated exposure as opposed to actual exposure).
Each person's work, travel, and recreational habits may have affected their level of exposure to vinyl chloride. Differences in the amount of time spent outside the village would create different average concentrations to which the class members were exposed. A person who worked outside the village would have been exposed less than a stay-at-home parent, or retiree. The isopleths approach simply assumed exposure to the same concentration for class members who may have spent very different amounts of time in the village.

6) Significant Increased Risk

Plaintiffs were unable to prove a concentration of vinyl chloride that would create a significant risk of contracting a serious latent disease for all class members. Nor was there common proof that could establish the danger point for all class members. The court rejected plaintiffs' attempted use of a regulatory threshold by the EPA -- for mixed populations of adults and children—as a proper standard for determining liability under tort law. Even if the regulatory standard were a correct measurement of the aggregate threshold, it would not be the threshold for each class member who may be more or less susceptible to diseases from exposure to vinyl chloride.  Although the positions of regulatory policymakers are relevant in litigation, their risk assessments are not necessarily conclusive in determining what risk an exposure presents to specified individuals. See Federal Judicial Center, Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence 413 (2d ed. 2000) (“While risk assessment information about a chemical can be somewhat useful in a toxic tort case, at least in terms of setting reasonable boundaries as to the likelihood of causation, the impetus for the development of risk assessment has been the regulatory process, which has different goals.”); id. at 423 (“Particularly problematic are generalizations made in personal injury litigation from regulatory positions. . . . [I]f regulatory standards are discussed in toxic tort cases to provide a reference point for assessing exposure levels, it must be recognized that there is a great deal of variability in the extent of evidence required to support different regulations.”).  Plaintiffs proposed a single concentration without accounting for the age of the class member being exposed, the length of exposure, other individual factors such as medical history, or showing the exposure was so toxic that such individual factors are irrelevant. The Third Circuit concluded that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in concluding individual issues on this point make trial as a class unfeasible, defeating cohesion.

7) Necessity of Monitoring

Nor did the lower court abuse its discretion in determining individual issues defeat cohesion with respect to whether the proposed monitoring regime is reasonably medically necessary. Many courts have been skeptical that the necessity for individuals' medical monitoring regimes can be proven on a class basis. See Barnes, 161 F.3d at 146; see Principles of the Law of Aggregate Litigation § 2.04 reporter‟s notes cmt. b, at 126 (2010). Plaintiffs' experts had no compelling answer to the point that the negative health effects of screening may outweigh any potential benefits. For example, the proposed regime of serial MRIs would be contraindicated and potentially risky because the contrast agent used for MRIs poses dangers to those with kidney disease.

8) Certification under (b)(3)

Courts have generally denied certification of medical monitoring classes when individual questions involving causation and damages predominate over (and are more complex than) common issues such as whether defendants released the offending chemical into the environment. See In re St. Jude Med., Inc., 522 F.3d 836, 840 (8th Cir. 2008).  Here, the same the inquiries into whether class members were exposed above background levels, whether class members faced a significantly increased risk of developing a serious latent disease, and whether a medical monitoring regime was reasonably medically necessary all required considering individual proof of class members' specific circumstances.  Common issues did not predominate.

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A state court recently denied the motion of a group of Michigan residents to certify a class action regarding their dioxin claims against Dow Chemical Co. See Henry v. Dow Chemical Co., No. 03-47775-NZ (Saginaw County, Mich., Cir. Ct.,  7/18/11).

Here at MassTortDefense we typically focus on appellate decisions, but we thought it interesting that this court relied heavily on the Supreme Court's decision in Dukes v. Wal-Mart  to re-analyze the prerequisites for class certification under state law.

Plaintiffs live in an area along the Tittabawassee River near Dow's plant in Midland, and allege their properties were contaminated by dioxin from the plant.

The trial court originally certified a class, and on appeal the Michigan Supreme Court vacated the decision and remanded the issue in 2009, calling for the trial court to clarify its evaluative framework, particularly for the general prerequisites of typicality, adequacy, and commonality.

On remand, the court concluded that Dukes has “far-reaching implications for certification of class action lawsuits, including the present case.”  Accordingly the court “must reanalyze whether the commonality prerequisite to class certification was satisfied in this case."

Relying on the Supreme Court analysis in Dukes, the court changed its mind and denied certification based on a failure by plaintiffs to establish the commonality element, because of the absence of a “glue” to hold all of the plaintiffs’ claims together. The only common issue, said the court, was whether the defendant negligently released the chemical, so whether and how each class member was injured involved a highly individualized inquiry regarding issues such as the level and type of contamination allegedly on the specific properties, the different remediation needs of the properties, and the varying stages of ongoing remediation.

Similarly, even under the nuisance claim, it was clear that individual plaintiffs used and enjoyed their properties in different ways. “Whether plaintiffs have suffered an interference with or loss of use and enjoyment of their property requires an individualized factual inquiry into each plaintiff’s use and enjoyment of their property.”

The court rejected plaintiffs' argument that the allegation of "one defendant" with a supposedly singular act of pollution in "one discrete geographic area" distinguished this case from the Supreme Court's commonality concerns in the discrimination context. 

In light of the commonality failing, the court did not reach the reconsideration of the other factors, such as typicality and adequacy.

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The second of our Supreme Court trilogy for the week.  The Court ruled last week in Smith v. Bayer Corp., No. 09-1205, that a federal district court was prevented by the the Anti-Injunction Act from enjoining a state court from entertaining plaintiff's motion to certify a class action even when that federal court had earlier denied a similar motion to certify an overlapping class in a closely related case.

Generally, the Anti-Injunction Act bars a federal court from granting injunctions to stay proceedings in state courts except where specifically authorized by Congress, or "where necessary in aid of its jurisdiction, or to protect or effectuate its judgments."  Most of our readers hoped that the Court would agree with the lower courts' ruling that this was just such an exception.

The Smith case involved the issue whether a federal court can enjoin class members from bringing a product liability class suit in a state court after the federal court declined to certify a similar class. Specifically, the Baycol MDL court in Minnesota had denied class certification, and the court of appeals upheld the injunction barring plaintiffs from bringing virtually the same suit in West Virginia state court. The federal court of appeals in fact unanimously affirmed, holding that the injunction was authorized by the All Writs Act and the re-litigation exception to the Anti-Injunction Act, and that petitioners did not have a due process right to re-litigate class certification.

The Supreme Court, unfortunately, reversed, in a decision that may encourage forum shopping.

-The decision encourages "creative" case structuring strategies by the plaintiffs' bar to give themselves a second bite at the apple (or more) in class claims, even after the federal court properly denies certification, and even when the state class law mirrors Federal Rule 23; here, the Court found that an application of West Virginia's Rule 23 did not present the same exact issue as the application of the federal rule version, even though the language of the rules is nearly identical.

-The decision highlights the double-edged sword that is federalism; now, the preclusive effect of a certification denial, if any, will be decided by state courts applying the notions of res judicata rather than by the enjoining court.  This comports with the general notion that the second court looking back decides the impact, not the first court looking forward.  But readers are well aware of the hard-to-fathom preclusion decisions some state courts have fashioned in the class action context.  E.g., the Engle class in Florida. And, as plaintiffs told Justice Ginsburg in oral argument of the case, a state has the right to apply and interpret a rule of civil procedure "as it sees fit to manage its own docket and administrate its own docket as it sees fit."

-As a practical matter, it invites "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again," with plaintiffs seeking to bring similar cases again and again, shopping for a forum or judge that will finally agree to certify something. Plaintiffs will recruit a new named plaintiff, and recreate the risks associated with class certification, even after the defendant has seemingly won that important battle. Justice Alito asked petitioners at oral argument whether after a class certification denial is entered in one federal court, a plaintiff's attorney could simply substitute the name of a new named plaintiff and file the same complaint in another federal court. Plaintiffs answered that an attorney could do that.

-Note that petitioners had not been foreclosed from seeking relief on their individual claims, but only from seeking to represent other people through a class action. Whether a class should be certified had been fully and fairly litigated in proceedings that ought to be binding on petitioners and in which petitioners’ interests were adequately represented by an identically situated named plaintiff -- one whom plaintiff's counsel promised was an adequate representative, was typical, with common claims and no adverse interests. The Court apparently did not consider the possible argument that an absent class member who is adequately represented might be in sufficient privity with the named plaintiff such that he can be precluded from litigating the certification decision a second time.

-Even though in dicta, the Court discouraged the application of preclusion to absent class members.   It may be of little comfort to defendants faced with the costs and risks of serial class claims that, as the Court put it, the "legal system generally relies on principles of stare decisis and comity among courts to mitigate the sometimes substantial costs of similar litigation brought by different plaintiffs."

-The Court agreed that the policy concerns were the defendant's "strongest argument, " and seemingly recognized the mischief it was permitting, because the opinion noted that nothing in this holding forecloses legislation to modify established principles of preclusion should Congress decide that CAFA does not sufficiently prevent re-litigation of class certification motions. Nor does the opinion at all address the permissibility of a change in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure pertaining to this question.  The Court said the trial court could not call on the "heavy artillery" of an injunction, but perhaps an even mightier weapon is needed.

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Three new Supreme Court decisions to comment on this week.  Let's take one at a time and start with Dukes v. Wal-Mart, 564 U.S. __ (2011). The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday overturned a lower-court decision that had certified a massive class action against retailer Wal-Mart. The suit was filed by current or former employees of petitioner Wal-Mart, who sought judgment against the company for injunctive and declaratory relief, punitive damages, and backpay, on behalf of themselves and  a class of some 1.5 million female employees.  They claimed that local managers exercised their discretion over pay and promotions disproportionately in favor of men.

The District Court certified the class, finding that respondents satisfied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(2)’s requirement of showing that “the party opposing the class has acted or refused to act on grounds that apply generally to the class, so that final injunctive relief or corresponding declaratory relief is appropriate respecting the class as a whole.”  The Ninth Circuit substantially affirmed,and ruled that the class action could be "manageably" tried without depriving Wal-Mart of its right to present its statutory defenses.

We will leave to our colleagues on the Labor team how this decision impacts employee discrimination claims.  But let's talk about the larger potential significance of the decision for mass tort class actions.

The Court began where we always like to begin in class certification briefing, reminding everyone that a class action is an exception to the usual rule that litigation is conducted by and on behalf of the individual named parties only.  In order to justify a departure from that rule, a class representative must be part of the class and possess the same interest and suffer the same injury as the class members. Rule 23(a) ensures that the named plaintiffs are appropriate  representatives of the class whose claims they wish to litigate. The Rule’s four requirements—numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequate representation—effectively limit the class claims to those fairly encompassed by the named plaintiff’s claims, when applied correctly.

The crux of this case, said the Court, was commonality—the rule requiring a plaintiff to show that “there are questions of law or fact common to the class.”  But that language, warned the Court, is "easy to misread" as any competently crafted class complaint can raise seemingly common questions. (citing the late mass tort scholar R. Nagareda, Class Certification in the Age of Aggregate Proof, 84 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 97, 131–132 (2009)). Such as the standard ones relating to defendant's alleged conduct.  But simply reciting these questions is not sufficient to obtain class certification. Commonality requires the plaintiff to demonstrate that the class members have suffered the same injury, which in turn does not mean merely that they have all suffered a violation of the same provision of law. The allegedly common contention must be of such a nature that it is capable of class-wide resolution—which means that determination of its truth or falsity will resolve an issue that is central to the validity of each one of the claims in one stroke.  So, what matters is not the raising of seemingly common questions, but, rather, the capacity of a class-wide proceeding to generate common answers apt to drive the resolution of the litigation. Thus, the Court came down on the side of the lower courts that have applied the commonality rule with rigor and with common sense, requiring meaningful common questions.  And commonality thus becomes a more potent weapon in your efforts to defeat mass tort class actions.

Second, the Court re-emphasized that a party seeking class certification must affirmatively demonstrate his compliance with the Rule.  Sometimes it may be necessary for the trial court to probe behind the pleadings before coming to rest on the certification question. Certification is proper only if the trial court is satisfied, after a rigorous analysis, that the prerequisites of Rule 23(a) have been satisfied.  And frequently that “rigorous analysis” will entail some overlap with the merits of the plaintiff’s underlying claim. "That cannot be helped." The class determination generally involves considerations that are enmeshed in the factual and legal issues comprising the plaintiff’s cause of action.  Not completely new, but an important reminder.

Third, the Court noted that the parties disputed whether plaintiffs' expert's testimony met the standards for the admission of expert testimony under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U. S. 579 (1993). The District Court concluded that Daubert did not apply to expert testimony at the certification stage of class action proceedings. Although dicta, the Court went out of its way to note, " We doubt that is so."  A signal to the lower courts who somehow think junk science is acceptable at the class certification hearing, and a green light to those that apply Daubert.

Fourth, the Court also concluded that respondents’ claims for backpay were improperly certified under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(2), holding that such claims cannot be, at least where (as here) the monetary relief is not incidental to the injunctive or declaratory relief.  One possible reading of this provision is that it applies only to requests for injunctive or declaratory relief and does not authorize the class certification of monetary claims at all. The Court did not have to reach that question because, at a minimum, claims for individualized relief (like the backpay at issue here) do not satisfy this Rule. The key to the (b)(2) class is “the indivisible nature of the injunctive or declaratory remedy warranted—the notion that the conduct is such that it can be enjoined or declared unlawful only as to all of the class members or as to none of them.”  Thus, Rule 23(b)(2) applies only when a single injunction or declaratory judgment would provide relief to each member of the class. It does not authorize class certification when each individual class member would be entitled to a different injunction or declaratory judgment against the defendant. Similarly, it does not authorize class certification when each class member would be entitled to an individualized award of monetary damages. The Court said it was "clear that individualized monetary claims belong in Rule 23(b)(3)."  While not deciding in this case whether there are any forms of truly  “incidental” monetary relief that are consistent with this interpretation of Rule 23(b)(2) and that comply with the Due Process Clause, the Court's ruling may impact mass torts such as medical monitoring claims in which the plaintiffs try to avoid the predominance test of Rule 23(b)(3) by seeking a so-called court administered fund to pay for medical monitoring for the class rather than individual medical monitoring damages.  When the "program" sought is in essence an injunction ordering defendant to pay for each class member's individual medical screening tests, (b)(2) should not be available.

Fifth, the Court noted that the 9th Circuit had found the trial of the proposed class action to be manageable and in accord with due process by ignoring the traditional procedures and proceeding "with Trial by Formula."  In other words, a sample of the class members would be selected, as to whom liability for sex discrimination and the backpay owing as a result would be determined in depositions supervised by a special master. The percentage of claims determined to be valid would then be applied to the entire remaining class, and the number of (presumptively) valid claims thus derived would be multiplied by the average backpay award in the sample set to arrive at the entire class recovery—without further individualized proceedings. This extrapolation methodology has been proposed by many mass tort plaintiffs (including in asbestos) as a means to make the class trial "manageable."  The Supreme Court was clear: "We disapprove that novel project." Because the Rules Enabling Act forbids interpreting Rule 23 to abridge,enlarge or modify any substantive right, a class cannot be certified on the premise that the defendant will not be entitled to litigate its defenses to individual claims.  The same issue applies to the trial plans proposed by many mass tort plaintiffs, which try to use the class rule to prevent defendants from ever having an opportunity to litigate individual defenses as to individual class members. 

Lots to think about.

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A federal court in New York last week denied plaintiffs' motion for class certification in a case alleging that the run-flat tires on defendant BMW's MINI Cooper S were defective. See Oscar v. BMW of North America LLC, No. 1:09-cv-00011-RJH (S.D.N.Y. 6/7/11).

Oscar purchased a new 2006 MINI Cooper S from BMW-MINI of Manhattan, an authorized MINI dealership, but prior to purchasing the MINI did not do any sort of research. Nor did he take the car for a test drive. The car came with run-flat tires (RFTs), an innovation that allows drivers to drive to the nearest service station even after the tire was flat. As of December 2, 2009, a period of about three years, Oscar had had five flat tires.  Plaintiff alleges that  his troubles stemmed from the fact that his car was equipped with RFTs rather than with standard radial tires. He considered the number of flat tires he experienced to be evidence of a widespread defect.

Plaintiff proposed a nationwide class (or a New York class) of all consumers who purchased or leased new 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 MINI vehicles equipped with Run-Flat Extended Mobility Technology tires manufactured by Goodyear and sold or leased in the United States whose Tires have gone flat and been replaced.

On the first prerequisite of Rule 23(a), the court offered an interesting discussion arising from the fact that most of plaintiff's evidence of numerosity did not correlate directly to his class definition: data that may have included other vehicles, or non-RFT tires, or makers other than Goodyear. But the opinion noted that courts have relied upon "back-of-the-envelope calculations in finding numerosity satisfied."  Conservative assumptions leading to a likelihood of numerosity have at times sufficed. This case fell "right on the border between appropriate inference and inappropriate speculation."  Accordingly, numerosity was satisfied for the proposed national class but not the New York class.

Turning to the Rule 23(b)(3) requirements, the court confronted the choice of law issues inherent in a national class. Although plaintiff conceded that the law of the fifty states plus the District of Columbia would apply to the members of the nationwide class, he argued that the differences between the states’ laws on implied warranty claims were negligible because the implied warranty is a Uniform Commercial Code claim. But numerous courts have recognized that there are significant variances among the interpretation of the elements of an implied warranty of merchantability claim among the states. See Walsh v. Ford Motor Co., 807 F.2d 1000, 1016 (D.C. Cir. 1986); In re Ford Motor Co. Ignition Switch Litig., 194 F.R.D. 484, 489 (D.N.J. 2000).  In particular, several states still require privity; so, plaintiff advanced a theory of privity-by-agency. But this theory has not been accepted in all states. Readers know that choice of law issues impact, among other things, the manageability of the class and the superiority of the use of the class device.

The court also found that plaintiff failed to demonstrate that common questions of fact predominate. Plaintiff was unable to articulate and allegedly common defect, merely hypothesizing that the failure rate could stem from the RFTs’ "stiffness" and stating that further discovery would be necessary to ascertain the precise nature of the defect. Plaintiff did not provide the court with any evidence that Goodyear RFTs are likely to fail because of a particular common defect. The failure to specify an alleged common defect provided a further basis for concluding that plaintiff had not demonstrated predominance. See Am. Honda Motor Co. v. Allen, 630 F.3d 813, 819 (7th Cir. 2010) (holding predominance was not satisfied where forty-one plaintiffs owners alleged that their motorcycles wobbled, but failed to provide competent evidence that a common defect underlay their claims).

Even if Oscar had put forth evidence of a common defect, breach of warranty suits like this one often involve complicated issues of individual causation that predominate over common questions regarding the existence of a defect. See, e.g., In re Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., 288 F.3d 1012, 1018-19 (7th Cir. 2002) (noting that class treatment of tire defect litigation was unmanageable in part because individual factors could affect the alleged tire failure); Sanneman v. Chrysler Corp., 191 F.R.D. 441, 451-52 (E.D. Pa. 2000) (declining to certify a class of vehicle owners whose paint had delaminated allegedly because of faulty painting process in part because the paint could delaminate for reasons other than the alleged defect); In re Ignition Switch Litig., 194 F.R.D. at 490-91 (declining to certify a class of vehicle owners whose passenger compartments caught on fire allegedly because of a faulty ignition switch because issues of individual causation would predominate); Feinstein v. Firestone Tire and Rubber Co., 535 F. Supp. 2d 595, 603 (S.D.N.Y. 1982) (declining to certify a class of tire purchasers because of “myriad [individual] questions,” including “other possible causes of the problem encountered”); see also Wolin v. Jaguar Land Rover N. Am., LLC, 617 F.3d 1168, 1172-74 (9th Cir. 2010).

Here, individualized issues of causation would swamp the common inquiry into an as yet to be identified tire design defect.  Even if the plaintiffs were to show that the Goodyear RFTs suffered from a common defect, they would still need to demonstrate that this defect caused each class member’s RFT to puncture. But tires can puncture for any number of reasons, and not all of these reasons will relate to the alleged defect. RFTs can go flat for reasons that would also cause a standard radial tire to go flat -- for example, if the driver ran over a nail, tire shredding device, or large pothole, or if a vandal slashed the tire. In order to demonstrate liability, plaintiff would have to demonstrate in each individual class member's case that the tire punctured for reasons related to the defect, rather than for a reason that would cause any tire to fail.

Similarly, under the state consumer fraud law claim, where the link between the defendant’s alleged deception (about the tires) and the injury suffered by plaintiffs is too attenuated and requires too much individualized analysis, courts will not certify a class. See, e.g., Pelman v. McDonald’s Corp., 272 F.R.D. 82 (S.D.N.Y. 2010) (declining to certify a class allegedly misled by McDonald’s claims that its food was healthy).  Again, determining whether each tire failed as a result of the allegedly concealed defect or as a result of unrelated issues, e.g., potholes or reckless driving habits, would devolve into numerous mini-trials.

Certification denied.

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A federal court in New Jersey last week joined the small but growing trend (call it a simmer not a boil) of courts putting some real meaning into the prerequisites to class certification found in Rule 23(a).  The court in Coyle v. Hornell Brewing Co., No. 1:08-cv-02797-JBS-JS (D.N.J. 2011) found that the factual inaccuracies and/or inconsistencies in the proposed class representative's testimony constituted fatal flaws under Rule 23(a)(4) requiring an adequate class representative.

Plaintiff alleged that she was misled by labels on bottles of Arizona brand beverages touting “All Natural” ingredients, and thereby induced into buying bottles of Arizona beverages that contained High Fructose Corn Syrup (“HFCS”), which she claimed is not “natural”. Plaintiff sought to certify, under Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2), a class of consumers who purchased similarly labeled Arizona beverages that contained HFCS, seeking only declaratory and injunctive relief.  The underlying claims were based on the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act (“NJCFA”). [Full disclosure, we are partial to their Arizona Sports thirst-quenchers.]

The court denied plaintiff’s motion for class certification because she could not satisfy the adequacy requirement of Rule 23(a)(4).  The reasoning is instructive. During the course of discovery in this case, plaintiff produced a retainer agreement she signed in anticipation of this lawsuit. But, the agreement was signed on August 9, 2007, more than seven months before plaintiff alleged that she was first misled by defendants’ “all natural” labeling in her product purchase on March 30, 2008.  Indeed, plaintiff repeated the 3/08 purchase date in her deposition.

Problem. Solution? Nearly two months after her deposition, plaintiff produced a signed declaration that contradicted her deposition testimony (and prior answers to interrogatories and the allegations in both her original Complaint and subsequent Amended Complaints).  She now said she meant to claim the alleged purchase occurred in March, 2007 rather than on March 30, 2008. But she offers no explanation for why she had previously alleged the March 30, 2008 date in her Complaints and in certified answers to interrogatories.

The court noted that in the procedural posture, the substantive allegations of the complaint must be taken as true.  But class certification questions are sometimes enmeshed in the factual and legal issues comprising the plaintiff's cause of action, and courts may delve beyond the pleadings to determine whether the requirements for class certification are satisfied.  The Third Circuit calls for a “rigorous analysis”  of a motion to certify a class. In re Hydrogen Peroxide Antitrust Litig., 552 F.3d 305, 309 (3d Cir. 2008). Specifically, the district court must make findings that each Rule 23 requirement is met.  Id. at 310. Plaintiff has the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence that she has met each and every element of Rule 23.

Rule 23(a)(4) seeks to ensure “that the representatives and their attorneys will competently, responsibly, and vigorously prosecute the suit and that the relationship of the representative parties’ interests to those of the class are such that there is not likely to be divergence in viewpoint or goals in the conduct of the suit.”  Bogosian v. Gulf Oil Corp., 561F.2d 434, 449 (3d Cir. 1977). On the subsidiary question whether the named plaintiff has interests antagonistic to those of the class, courts often have to evaluate attacks on the named plaintiff’s credibility.

Here, defendants argued that plaintiff’s inconsistent allegations and testimony regarding the date of her qualifying purchase of an Arizona product render her an inadequate class representative. See Friedman-Katz v. Lindt & Sprungli (USA), Inc., 270 F.R.D. 150, 159 (S.D.N.Y. 2010). Plaintiff  responded that, to the extent that defendant raised a problem of plaintiff’s credibility, such a credibility question is one for the jury to decide; it would be improper for the court to make a credibility determination, on the factual dispute of when plaintiff last purchased an Arizona product, at this certification stage of the litigation.  However, the court properly recognized it had an independent obligation at the class certification stage to make findings on whether the named plaintiff satisfied each of the Rule 23 elements. The court thus had an obligation to look at whether the credibility problems raised by plaintiff’s contradictory testimony and subsequent declaration rendered her an inadequate class representative.

The court observed that it need not find plaintiff to have intentionally lied to hold that she does not meet the adequacy element of Rule 23(a)(4). The issue was not simply whether plaintiff in fact lied, but whether her inconsistent testimony makes her vulnerable to a unique factual or legal defense not faced by other class members, thereby rendering her interests potentially too antagonistic to the interests of the other class members.  And that is exactly the case; the court found that plaintiff’s factual inconsistencies raised sufficiently grave credibility problems as to prevent her from serving as an adequate class representative.

First, she filed three separate Complaints alleging with specificity that she was misled by  defendants’ labeling when she first purchased an Arizona beverage in March, 2008, but she had retained an attorney on this issue seven months previously.  She repeated these claims in at least two answers to interrogatories, assisted by counsel, and again repeated the claim in her  deposition, even after being confronted with the apparent inconsistency of such a claim. Her subsequent declaration, in which she attempted to “clarify” the time-line in her deposition, did not explain how she had repeatedly asserted the incorrect date in her Complaints and discovery answers.  This level of inconsistency logically demonstrated either (1) an effort to disguise the fact that she did purchase the Arizona beverage in 2008 as alleged, but for the sole purpose of bringing the lawsuit she had already hired a lawyer for, or (2) a significant carelessness about the specific highly material facts she has alleged in the case, said the court.

Under either scenario, the court would find that plaintiff was not an adequate class representative.  Were she to be a class representative, she would be required to address defendants’ argument that she made her only documented purchase of Arizona iced tea in March of 2008 solely for the purpose of bringing the instant lawsuit and therefore suffered no ascertainable loss. This argument would divert attention from the substance of the claims advanced on behalf of the class.  That would risk that the class could fail in its claim because its representative was unable to prove she made a qualifying purchase, noted the court.

Finally, the court found, as an alternative basis to deny class certification, that plaintiff’s counsel’s adequacy was also brought into question through the existence of these material discrepancies. Under the "most charitable interpretation" of these facts, counsel submitted three separate Complaints to the court alleging an incorrect date of purchase, at least two answers to interrogatories repeating the same purportedly incorrect purchase date. The court thought that was insufficient attention to detail to show the ability to effectively represent the interests of a class.

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A proposed class representative who voluntarily dismisses his individual claims lacks standing to appeal the denial of certification of the class claims, according to the Fourth Circuit.  Rhodes v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., No. 10-1166 (4th Cir.,  4/8/11).

The plaintiffs were residents of the City of Parkersburg in Wood County, West Virginia, and  customers of the Parkersburg City Water Department  which supplied water to homes located in Wood County.  DuPont operated a manufacturing facility in Wood County. For an extended period of time, DuPont’s plant  allegedly discharged perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) into the environment
surrounding the plant. Measurable quantities of PFOA were allegedly detected in the water that is pumped by the Water Department into the plaintiffs’ residences.

In 2006, the plaintiffs filed a complaint against DuPont in the Circuit Court of Wood County, West Virginia. Defendant removed. The plaintiffs asserted six common law claims, individually and on behalf of a class of customers of the Water Department, addressing the contamination of their municipal water supply and the alleged resulting presence of PFOA in their blood. The plaintiffs sought damages and injunctive relief to obtain medical monitoring for latent diseases on behalf of a class of Water Department customers allegedly exposed to PFOA beginning in 2005.

After conducting a hearing on the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b), the district court concluded that the elements of a medical monitoring claim could not be proved on a class-wide basis using the type of evidence presented by the plaintiffs. The district court therefore denied the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification of their stand alone medical monitoring claims. The district court further held that the plaintiffs had not met their burden under Rule 23 for certification of a class to pursue medical monitoring relief based on the plaintiffs’ claims of negligence, gross negligence, battery, trespass, and private nuisance, the common law torts. The district court then denied the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification of the traditional common law tort claims for damages also.

DuPont filed motions seeking summary judgment on all the plaintiffs’ claims. The district court granted in part and denied in part DuPont’s motions. The district court granted DuPont’s
motions with respect to all the plaintiffs’ traditional common law tort claims, Rhodes v. E.I. Du Pont De Nemours and Co., 657 F. Supp. 2d 751, 762-73 (S.D.W. Va. 2009), but denied summary judgment with respect to the plaintiffs’ individual claims of medical monitoring.

Rather than proceed to trial on those remaining individual claims, in order to appeal immediately the adverse summary judgment and certification rulings, the plaintiffs filed a stipulation of voluntary dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1) of their individual claims for medical monitoring.

The court of appeals affirmed the summary judgments, but what will be of more interest to our readers is DuPont’s argument that the 4th Circuit lacked appellate jurisdiction to address the merits of plaintiff’s appeal of the denial of class certification of their medical monitoring claims. DuPont asserted that the plaintiffs no longer had standing to advance this argument on appeal because, by voluntarily dismissing their individual claims for medical monitoring, the plaintiffs abandoned their interest in litigating the certification question. As a result, DuPont contended, the plaintiffs had no personal stake in this issue and did not satisfy the requirements for Article
III standing.

In response, the plaintiffs maintained that litigants routinely are permitted to dismiss various claims in order to appeal other claims and, that under federal precedent, this court could review the denial of class certification for a particular claim even though no plaintiff presently was advancing individual claims asserting that cause of action. The plaintiffs further argued that by its plain terms, their stipulated dismissal applied only to their individual medical monitoring claims. Thus, the plaintiffs contended that they did not abandon their stake in the certification question.

As a general matter, circumstances may change while a case is pending, thereby leaving a plaintiff
without the personal stake necessary to maintain Article III standing. For example, claims can expire, or parties can settle or dismiss their claims entirely. In such situations, the district court or appellate court must dismiss the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. On the other hand, generally, a class representative not only has a "personal stake" in the substantive claim he or she asserts, but also a distinct procedural right to represent the interests of similarly situated individuals. This second, representative interest sometimes gives a putative class representative a sufficient "stake" in the class certification question to appeal an adverse certification ruling even after the putative class representative’s claim is mooted by intervening events.

Two conditions must be met, however, to retain Article III jurisdiction, according to the 4th Circuit. The imperatives of a dispute capable of judicial resolution must be sharply present, and there must be self-interested parties vigorously advocating opposing positions.

Other federal circuit courts addressing this issue have reached different conclusions on the question whether a plaintiff may voluntarily settle or dismiss his or her individual claims and still
appeal a certification denial. Some courts have held that standing is maintained when a named plaintiff expressly reserves the right to appeal a certification denial. See Richards v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 453 F.3d 525 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (express reservation of class claim preserves standing of class
representative to appeal certification denial); Dugas v. Trans Union Corp., 99 F.3d 724 (5th Cir. 1996) (reservation of right sufficient to give putative class representative who settles individual claims standing to appeal denial of class certification). Cf. Narouz v. Charter Commc’ns, LLC, 591 F.3d 1261 (9th Cir. 2010) (putative representative retains standing to appeal unless releases interest in class claims in settlement agreement). Other courts have held that even an express reservation of right is not sufficient to satisfy Article III standing requirements. See Muro v. Target Corp., 580 F.3d 485 (7th Cir. 2009) (recitation in settlement agreement that plaintiff reserves right to appeal denial of class certification not sufficient to create concrete interest in class certification issue); Anderson v. CNH U.S. Pension Plan, 515 F.3d 823 (8th Cir. 2008) (same).

Although several of these cases held that the language of a plaintiff’s settlement agreement is determinative of that plaintiff’s "stake" in an appeal, the 4th Circuit seemed less concerned about the language of the dismissal than the fact of dismissal. It concluded that when a putative
class plaintiff voluntarily dismisses the individual claims underlying a request for class certification, as happened in this case, there is no longer a "self-interested party advocating" for class treatment in the manner necessary to satisfy Article III standing requirements.

The court held that it thus did lack jurisdiction to decide the issue whether the district court abused its discretion in denying the plaintiffs’ request for class certification of their medical monitoring
claims.

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The Fifth Circuit has vacated the decision of the trial court in granting class status to a group of plaintiffs alleging that a refinery exposed them to toxic dust. Madison v. Chalmette Refining LLC, No. 10-30368 (5th Cir. 4/4/11).

Back in 2007, a number of schoolchildren, chaperoned by parents and teachers, participated in a historical reenactment at the Chalmette National Battlefield, the site of the January 8, 1815, Battle of New Orleans, the last great battle of the War of 1812 and “the site along the Mississippi River where Andrew Jackson gave the British their comeuppance.” D. BRINKLEY, The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America,p. 414 (2009). Adjacent to the battlefield is the Chalmette Refinery, which allegedly released an amount of petroleum coke dust that migrated over the battlefield. Plaintiffs sued on behalf of a class of all persons or entities located at the Chalmette National Battlefield in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, in the early afternoon of Friday, January 12, 2007 and who sustained property damage, personal injuries, emotional, mental, or economic damages and/or inconvenience or evacuation as a result of the incident.

The District Court granted the motion to certify, and defendants appealed. The court of appeals reviews the district court's decision to certify a class for an abuse of discretion. See, e.g., McManus v. Fleetwood Enters., Inc., 320 F.3d 545, 548 (5th Cir. 2003). The decision to certify is within the discretion of the trial court, but that discretion must be exercised within the framework of Rule 23. Castano v. Am. Tobacco Co., 84 F.3d 734, 740 (5th Cir. 1996).  The Supreme Court requires district courts to conduct a rigorous analysis of Rule 23 prerequisites.

The crux of this appeal was the legal basis for and sufficiency of evidence supporting the district court’s findings of superiority and predominance under Rule 23(b)(3). Before certifying a class under Rule 23(b)(3), a court must determine that 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 fairly and efficiently adjudicating the controversy. Determining whether the plaintiffs can clear the predominance hurdle set by Rule 23(b)(3) requires district courts to consider how a trial on the merits would be conducted if a class were certified.

Chalmette Refining cited the advisory committee note to Rule 23(b)(3), which has been quoted numerous times by the Fifth Circuit as highlighting the “relationship between predominance and superiority in mass torts.” See Castano v. American Tobacco Co., 84 F.3d 734, 745 n.19 (5th Cir. 1996). According to the note, a  “mass accident” 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 into multiple lawsuits separately tried.

Here, the district court abused its discretion by failing to afford its predominance determination the “rigorous analysis” that Rule 23 requires. In particular, the district court did not meaningfully consider how plaintiffs’ claims would be tried.  Plaintiffs cited, and the trial court relied on, two cases that are among the very few certifying a tort injury class action. In Watson v. Shell Oil, the court certified a class of over 18,000 plaintiffs seeking damages stemming from an explosion at a Shell plant. 979 F.2d 1014, 1016 (5th Cir. 1992). Notably the court of appeals now clarified that "whether Watson has survived later developments in class action law–embodied in Amchem and its progeny–is an open question."  But even in Watson, the district court had a detailed four-phase plan for trial. Similarly, in Turner v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc., the district court granted class certification to a class of plaintiffs who suffered damages resulting from a post-Hurricane Katrina oil storage tank spill. 234 F.R.D. 597, 601 (E.D. La. 2006). Critical to the court’s predominance inquiry was the fact that plaintiffs had submitted a detailed proposed trial plan to the court, calling for bifurcation of certain issues.

In contrast, here there was no analysis or discussion regarding how the court would administer the trial.  Robinson v. Tex. Auto. Dealers Ass’n, 387 F.3d 416, 425–26 (5th Cir. 2004). The court failed to identify the substantive issues that would control the outcome, assess which issues will predominate, and then determine whether the issues are common to the class. Absent this analysis, it was impossible for the court to know whether the common issues would be a significant portion of the individual trials, much less whether the common issues predominate.  Instead, the trial court appears to have "adopted a figure-it-out-as-we-go-along approach." 

Even among the named class representatives, significant disparities existed, in terms of exposure, location, and whether mitigative steps were taken. The primary issues left to be resolved would turn on location, exposure, dose, susceptibility to illness, nature of symptoms, type and cost of medical treatment, and subsequent impact of illnesses on individuals.

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The 11th Circuit earlier this month vacated the district court's premature certification of a class of property owners allegedly harmed by releases from a nearby industrial facility.  Sher v. Raytheon Corp., No. 09-15798 (11th Cir. 3/9/11).

Plaintiffs alleged that Raytheon, through improper disposal and/or storage of hazardous waste at its St. Petersburg, Florida facility, was responsible for the release of toxic waste into the  groundwater of surrounding neighborhoods.

To demonstrate the predominance of common issues under Rule 23(b)(3), plaintiffs’ offered a groundwater expert, Dr. Philip Bedient, who identified the impacted area as a toxic underground plume stretching approximately one mile long and 1.7  miles wide from the Raytheon facility. The need to show on an individual basis the impact of the pollution on each property is a major reason these kinds of property damage class claims are not certified. To try to show here that damages for alleged property injury to 1000 class members could be appropriately resolved in a single class action, plaintiffs presented the affidavit of their damages expert, Dr. John A.  Kilpatrick, who stated that he could develop a hedonic multiple regression model to determine diminution-in-value damages without resorting to an individualized consideration of each of the various properties.

Defendants, in turn, challenged Dr. Bedient’s methodology for defining the impacted area, or really the putative class, as “inconsistent with applicable professional standards.”  Dr. Bedient’s area of impact apparently encompassed many properties on which no contamination had been detected at all.  Raytheon also introduced its damages expert, Dr. Thomas O. Jackson. Dr. Jackson’s report stated that the Plaintiffs’ expert’s “proposed method of analysis of property value diminution using mass appraisal/regression modeling would be unacceptable for this purpose, and would not eliminate the need to evaluate each property in the proposed class area on an individual basis.”

So, notwithstanding the general rule that the court should not delve too deeply into the merits at the class certification stage, the court was confronted with dueling experts, and, more importantly, a serious challenge to the methodology of plaintiffs' experts.

As a threshold matter, the district court punted-- finding that it was not necessary at this stage of the litigation to declare a "proverbial winner in the parties’ war of the battling experts" or choose between the dueling statistics and chemical concentrations. This type of determination would require the court to weigh the evidence presented and engage in a Daubert-style critique of the proffered experts qualifications, which would be "inappropriate" at this stage of the litigation.  More specifically, an inquiry into the admissibility of plaintiffs’ proposed expert testimony as set forth in Daubert would be inappropriate, "because such an analysis delves too far into the merits of Plaintiffs’ case."

On appeal of the certification order, the court of appeals found the Seventh Circuit’s opinion in American Honda Motor Co., Inc., 600 F.3d 813 (7th Cir. 2010), to be persuasive. We posted on that before. The issue before the Seventh Circuit in American Honda was whether or not the district court should have conclusively ruled on the admissibility (versus the weight of, as also in this case) of expert opinion prior to certifying the class. In American Honda, the Seventh Circuit found that “when an expert’s report or testimony is critical to class certification, as it is here . . . , a district court must conclusively rule on any challenge to the expert’s qualifications or submissions prior to ruling on a class certification motion.” Id. at 815-16. The American Honda court found that, if the situation warrants, the district court must perform a full Daubert analysis before certifying the class. Id. at 816. “A district court is the gatekeeper. It must determine the reliability of the expert’s experience and training as well as the methodology used." Id. “The [district] 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.” Id.

Accordingly, here, in its Rule 23 analysis, the district court erred as a matter of law by not sufficiently evaluating and weighing conflicting expert testimony on class certification. It was error
for the district court to decline to declare a proverbial, yet tentative winner of the Daubert issue. Plaintiffs are required to prove, at the class certification stage, more than just a prima facie case, i.e., more than just a “pretty good case.” A district court must make the necessary factual and legal inquiries and decide all relevant contested issues prior to certification. Thus, the court erred in granting class certification prematurely. Tough questions must be faced and squarely decided, said the court, not side-stepped in an overly cautious attempt to avoid the merits. 

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This week, we are going to explore some of the more interesting cases pending before the Supreme Court. In Smith v. Bayer Corp., No. 09-1205 (U.S., oral argument 1/18/11), the Court took up a case involving the preclusive impact of a decision denying class certification. We recently posted on a case involving the significant problem of plaintiffs hopping from court to court, state to state, shopping for a court that will certify their class after it has already been denied.

The Smith case involves the issue whether a federal court can enjoin class members from bringing a product liability class suit in state court after the federal court declined to certify a similar class.  Specifically, the Baycol MDL court in Minnesota had denied class certification, and the court of appeals upheld the injunction barring plaintiffs from bringing the same suit in state court. The court of appeals in fact unanimously affirmed, holding that the injunction was authorized by the All Writs Act and the re-litigation exception to the Anti-Injunction Act, and that petitioners did not have a due-process right to re-litigate class certification.

Plaintiffs have argued that they should not be enjoined, nor barred under the doctrine of collateral estoppel, because the state's (West Virginia's) rule for class certification is not identical to the federal rule:  while a putative class may not meet one test, it may meet the other. As plaintiffs told Justice Ginsburg, a state has the right to apply and interpret that rule of civil procedure "as it sees fit to manage its own docket and administrate its own docket as it sees fit."

The defendants argue that class members were adequately represented in the first class action, and whatever the technical differences may be, the heart of the West Virginia rule is substantively identical to the federal rule. Petitioners have not been foreclosed from seeking relief on their individual claims, but only from seeking to represent other people through a class action. Whether a class should be certified has been fully and fairly litigated in proceedings that are binding on petitioners and in which petitioners’ interests were adequately represented by an identically situated named plaintiff.  The plaintiffs' position is that class certification is a “heads-I-win, tails-you-lose” proposition. Under this theory, every unnamed plaintiff could re-litigate class certification, no matter how large the putative class, no matter how many times certification had already been denied, and no matter how adequately the class members’ interests were represented in the prior proceedings.

Part of the issue facing the Court is the application of preclusion to a non-party (as the class was not certified, absent class members were not "parties" for some purposes), and this was explored at oral argument. In response to questioning from the Court, plaintiffs argued that the re-litigation exception to the Anti-Injunction Act did not apply here. Because the plaintiffs are not the same "parties" that litigated the federal class action, and because the same issues were not litigated in the prior case -- that is, West Virginia's own class certification rule vs. Federal Rule 23.  Counsel argued that the state court has said "we do not want our legal analysis to be nothing more than a mere Pavlovian response to Federal decisional rules."

A number of Justices wondered what were the supposed differences, and part of the response to Justice Sotomayor was that the federal "court's not only trying to bind us on the procedural ruling, but is also trying to bind us in a substantive ruling as to what the elements of the claims in West Virginia are and as to what's needed to prove those claims." The state court was free to disagree with that federal ruling, counsel argued. In response to Justice Kagan, Bayer noted that the predominance requirement under the West Virginia version of Rule 23 is essentially identical to the Federal version, and there is no evidence of any content that's different from the Federal version on this point. But Justice Ginsburg pressed defendant on the issue that "sometimes Federal judges, they try their best, they're not the last word on what the State law is."

Several Justices raised the issue of forum shopping in their questions for petitioners' counsel. Justice Alito asked petitioners, whether after a class certification denial is entered in one federal court, a plaintiff's attorney could simply substitute the name of a new named plaintiff and file the same complaint in another federal court. Plaintiffs agreed that an attorney could do that.

Justice Alito asked about some of the possible implications of the plaintiffs' argument. If part of the issue is notice, would that compel federal courts to engage in a lengthy and expensive class notice period even in cases in which the class is denied? Plaintiff responded that notice would be required to bind the absent class members. Bayer argued in response to similar questions from Justice Sotomayor that the preclusion test focuses on whether the parties' interests are aligned, and the class members' interests were identical,  the first named plaintiffs understood that they was acting in a representative capacity, and the federal court took normal steps to protect the interests of non-parties, i.e., absent class members.  All that was met here. But Justice Scalia asked whether the counsel had ever been found adequate since the class was denied certification on other grounds.

Justice Kagan asked about CAFA, and Congressional intent to prevent forum shopping with classes and keep state courts from too freely certifying these kinds of class actions, which plaintiff had to concede.

Plaintiff had a hard time with the Court's questions about due process and how it affects procedural rights as opposed to substantive or property rights, particularly, as Justice Sotomayor asked, where the Federal litigation has applied essentially the same standard that the State has, and there has been adequate representation on the procedural question, and where no substantive right of a plaintiff has been extinguished. Chief Justice Roberts similarly asked about line-drawing, with a hypo about the second court limiting discovery because of what happened in the first court: "So now it's not only that you're entitled to your day in court substantively; you're entitled to your day in court procedurally as to some procedural aspects but not others?"

Justice Ginsburg asked counsel for Bayer whether there was a difference between preclusion being applied by the state court and the federal court issuing the injunction based on preclusion, calling the latter a "heavy gun.”  Meaning we're "not going to trust the West Virginia court to apply issue preclusion. We're going to stop that court from proceeding altogether."  Bayer replied that the injunction was very important because trial courts in West Virginia need not follow other trial courts, and there is no intermediate appeals court.  Thus plaintiff could go from county to county until they found a court that refused to apply preclusion.  

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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.)

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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.

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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.  

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.
 

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