Justia Class Action Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs, six current and former African-American employees, brought suit against Nucor alleging racial discrimination in violation of 42 U.S.C. 1981 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e-2000e-17. The district court denied plaintiffs' requests for class certification, granted summary judgment in favor of Nucor on several claims and the case proceeded to trial. A jury returned verdicts against Nucor and awarded each plaintiff monetary damages. The parties appealed and cross-appealed, contesting various rulings by the district court. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in believing that evidence of a previous enforcement action alleging race discrimination at the Blytheville plant was relevant to the credibility of plaintiffs' allegations. The court also held that the district court properly admitted certain statements at issue. The court further held that because Nucor failed to renew its motion under Rule 50(b), the court was without power to disturb the district court's entry of judgment on the jury's punitive damages award. The court finally held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by concluding that plaintiffs had not met their burden of demonstrating the commonality of their claims and that summary judgment was warranted on plaintiffs' disparate impact claims, failure-to-train disparate treatment claims, and failure-to-promote disparate treatment claims. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

Costco appealed the district court's order granting class certification in a class action brought by Shirley Ellis, Leah Horstman, and Elaine Sasaki (plaintiffs), alleging that Costco's promotional practices discriminated based on gender. The court held that at least one plaintiff (Sasaki) had standing to bring suit. The court also held that the district court abused its discretion by applying the wrong legal standard in its analyses of commonality and typicality under Rule 23(a). Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's findings on those issues and remanded for application of the correct standard. The court further held that, although the district court correctly determined that Sasaki was an adequate class representative, the court held that Ellis and Horstman were inadequate representatives for pursuing injunctive relief, given that they were former employees, and remanded for the district court to consider whether they were adequate representatives if a (b)(3) class was certified. Therefore, the court vacated the district court's certification of a class pursuant to Rule 23(b)(2) and remanded for reconsideration.

Plaintiff foster children appeal the dismissal of their class action lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, in which they alleged that the caseloads of the Sacramento County Dependency Court and court-appointed attorneys were so excessive as to violate federal and state constitutional and statutory provisions. The district court abstained from adjudicating plaintiff's claims. The court held that the district court properly abstained from consideration of the claims plaintiff raised here based on O'Shea v. Littleton. Accordingly, the court affirmed the dismissal of the complaint.

Plaintiffs appealed the district court's dismissal pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) of their putative consumer class action against defendants. Plaintiffs also appealed the district court's denial of leave to amend their second amended complaint, alleging that the design of defendants' retail gasoline dispensers was fundamentally flawed due to a residual fuel occurrence: when plaintiffs purchased premium grade fuel, they received between two and three-tenths of a gallon of residual fuel from the previous transaction, and therefore were overcharged when the previous purchaser had selected mid-range or regular grade fuel. The court agreed with the district court that plaintiffs' well-pleaded factual allegations, accepted as true, did not give rise to a reasonable inference that defendants have committed any misconduct for which the court could grant relief. Accordingly, further amendment would be futile and the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying leave to amend.

Thirteen present and former female inmates of various New York state prisons appealed from the dismissal of their class action complaint brought under 42 U.S.C. 1983, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief compelling the Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) to alter its practices and procedures so as to enhance the protection of the class from sexual assault, abuse, and harassment. The complaint also asserted individual claims for damages. The dismissal was based on the grounds that some of the claims of named plaintiffs were moot and that the remaining named plaintiffs had failed to exhaust available remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. 1997e. The court held that it lacked pendant appellate jurisdiction over the damages claims. The court also held that the claims for injunctive and declaratory relief by plaintiffs who were now free but were in DOCs custody when they brought suit were not moot. The court applied a relation-back theory and determined that plaintiffs' class claims were capable of repetition, yet evading review. The court further held that three plaintiffs have exhausted applicable internal prison grievance proceedings while the remaining ten have not. Accordingly, the court vacated the judgment in part and remanded for further proceedings.

After multiple appeals to the court and extensive trial and other proceedings, plaintiffs' Title VII class action for employment discrimination against Lufkin Industries, Inc. (Lufkin) culminated in a favorable multimillion dollar judgment and injunctive relief. Both parties subsequently challenged the district court's attorneys' fee award and Lufkin's complaint that back pay damages were erroneously authorized in an earlier appeal. The court affirmed as to the back pay damages but vacated and remanded as to the attorneys' fees. In particular, given the unrebutted evidence in the record that it was necessary for plaintiffs to retain counsel from outside the Eastern District of Texas, the district court abused its discretion in failing to use the rate counsel charged in their home district as the starting point in the lodestar calculation.

Plaintiffs, visually or manually impaired Florida citizens who were registered to vote in Duval County, Florida and were represented by the American Association of People with Disabilities, filed a putative class action against defendants, alleging that defendants violated federal statutory and state constitutional provisions by failing to provide handicapped-accessible voting machines to visually or manually impaired Florida voters after the 2000 general election. The court vacated its prior opinion and in its revised opinion, held that the district court erroneously granted plaintiffs' requested declaratory judgment and injunction against purported violations of the American with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101-12213, and the regulations promulgated thereunder. The opinion, however, based that outcome exclusively on the ground that voting machines were not "facilities" under 28 C.F.R. 35.151(b).

Plaintiff, a resident of Los Angeles, filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of himself and similarly situated individuals challenging the city's telephone users tax (TUT) and seeking refund of funds collected under the TUT over the previous two years. At issue was whether the Government Code section 910 allowed taxpayers to file a class action claim against a municipal government entity for the refund of local taxes. The court held that neither Woosley v. State of California, which concerned the interpretation of statutes other than section 910, nor article XIII, section 32 of the California Constitution, applied to the court's determination of whether section 910 permitted class claims that sought the refund of local taxes. Therefore, the court held that the reasoning in City of San Jose v. Superior Court, which permitted a class claim against a municipal government in the context of an action for nuisance under section 910, also permitted taxpayers to file a class claim seeking the refund of local taxes under the same statute. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

Defendants Farmers Insurance Company of Oregon, Mid-Century Insurance Company and Truck Insurance Exchange (Farmers) petitioned the Supreme Court to reconsider an opinion that affirmed a trial court's judgment against it for approximately $8.9 million in compensatory and punitive damages. Farmers contended that the Court's resolution of certain state law issues violated its federal due process rights. Farmers was required by statute and contract to provide personal injury protection to its insureds by covering all reasonable and necessary medical expenses within a year of the insured's injury. Plaintiff Mark Strawn filed a class action suit against Farmers, alleging that Farmers' claims handling process breached its contractual obligations to its insureds. According to Farmers, the Court, in its prior decision, created an "irrebuttable presumption" that altered what was required under state law to prove a fraud claim in a class action in a way that violated due process. The Court held that "Farmers's argument misses the mark" by characterizing the Court's conclusion in its prior holding as "novel" by "assuming the answer to one of the legal questions that [the] Court had to resolve." The Court concluded that Farmers' premises on appeal were incorrect, and that "Farmers's legal arguments therefore fail."

Appellant, an African-American resident of Texas, sued appellees alleging that their credit-scoring systems employed several undisclosed factors which resulted in disparate impacts for minorities and violated the federal Fair Housing Act ("FHA"), 42 U.S.C. 3601, 3619. At issue, in a certified question, was whether Texas law permitted an insurance company to price insurance by using a credit-score factor that had a racially disparate impact that, were it not for the McCarran-Ferguson Act, 15 U.S.C. 1012(b), would violate the FHA, absent a legally sufficient nondiscriminatory reason, or would using such a credit-score factor violate Texas Insurance Code ("Code") sections 544.002(a), 559.051, 559.052, or some other provision of Texas law. The court answered the certified question by holding that Texas law did not prohibit an insurer from using race-neutral factors in credit-scoring to price insurance, even if doing so created a racially disparate impact.