Justia Class Action Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs in these four cases appealed from a judgment of the district court granting summary judgment in favor of defendant and dismissing their product liability claims for injuries allegedly caused by defendant's prescription drug, Fosamax. Plaintiffs appealed the district court's decision concluding that their product liability claims, brought under Virginia law, were not tolled by the pendency of a putative federal class action that raised identical claims and dismissing plaintiffs' claims as time-barred. The court held that the availability of "cross jurisdictional tolling" in this context raised questions of Virginia law that were appropriately certified to the Supreme Court of Virginia.

Plaintiffs, on behalf of a putative class, sued defendant under the Missouri Second Mortgage Loan Act (MSMLA), Mo. Rev. Stat. 408.231-408.241, alleging that defendant charged them unauthorized interest and fees in violation of section 408.233.1 of the MSMLA. At issue was whether defendants violated the MSMLA by charging plaintiffs a loan discount, settlement/closing fee, document processing/delivery fee, and prepaid interest. The court held that plaintiffs did suffer a loss of money when defendant charged the loan discount, although plaintiffs received the loan discount amount two days later as part of a loan disbursement. The court also held that it could not decide whether the loan discount and the settlement/closing fee violated the MSMLA and remanded for further proceedings. The court further held that the document processing/delivery fee was not included in section 408.233's exclusive list of authorized charges and violated the MSMLA. The court finally held that because the processing/delivery free violated the MSMLA, the prepaid interest was an additional violation of the statute. Therefore, the court reversed and remanded to the district court for further proceedings.

Plaintiffs want to represent a class of more than 100 people with stakes of more than $5 million and invoked federal jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1332(d)(2), the Class Action Fairness Act. They claim that the company violates the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act prohibition on pyramid schemes, 815 ILCS 505/2A(2). The company's customers sell each other the right to act as travel agencies, as well as selling travel services to the public. The district court did not decide whether the operation is a pyramid scheme, but ruled that transactions with residents of states other than Illinois are outside the Act, dismissed the non-Illinois plaintiffs, and decided that the suit is an intra-state controversy that belongs in state court. The Seventh Circuit vacated. Section 1332(d)(4) requires the court to decline jurisdiction when at least two-thirds of the members of the proposed class reside in the same state as the principal defendant. The class that plaintiffs propose is nationwide. Subject-matter jurisdiction depends on the state of things when suit is filed; what happens later does not detract from jurisdiction already established. While the pleadings do not establish that Illinois law does apply, they do not defeat the application of that law.

Plaintiffs, seeking to represent a class of customers with poor credit who purchased used automobiles from defendants, appealed from a judgment of the district court dismissing their complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The complaint asserted that defendants violated the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), 15 U.S.C. 1601, et seq., and various state laws by burying hidden finance charges in the prices that plaintiffs were charged for these automobiles where defendant advertised the newer, more valuable used cars in its inventory at market prices, but sold the older, less valuable used cars to subprime credit customers for prices substantially higher than the market prices listed in the same guide. The court held that because the complaint did not contain any allegation for which it could plausibly be inferred that defendants failed to disclose a finance charge to plaintiffs, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

This appeal arose from a motion for class certification filed in the trial court by petitioner where petitioner claimed that respondent violated sections 627.840(3)(b) and 627.835, Florida Statutes, by knowingly overcharging him an additional service charge of $20 twice in a twelve month period in two premium finance agreements which he entered into with respondent. At issue was whether the putative class members satisfied the requirements of commonality and predominance needed for class certification under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.220. The court held that the Third District's decision was incorrect because it afforded no deference to the trial court's actual factual findings and conducted a de novo review which constituted error where the proper appellate standard of review for a grant of class certification was abuse of discretion. The court also held that the Third District incorrectly addressed whether petition satisfied section 627.835's "knowingly" requirement and incorrectly held that petitioner and the putative class members failed to satisfy rule 1.220's commonality and predominance requirements. Therefore, the court held that the Third District created conflict with Olen Properties Corp. v. Moss and Smith v. Glen Cove Apartments Condominiums Master Ass'n. Accordingly, the court quashed the Third District's judgment.

Minnesota homeowners brought this action against Zurn Pex, Inc. and Zurn Industries, Inc. (Zurn), alleging that brass fittings used in the company's cross linked polyethylene (PEX) plumbing systems was inherently defective. Zurn appealed the order issued by the district court certifying the warranty and negligence classes. The court held that the district court did not err by conducted a focused Daubert analysis which scrutinized the reliability of the expert testimony in light of the criteria for class certification and the current state of the evidence. In doing so, the district court conducted the requisite "rigorous analysis" of the parties' claims to determine "whether the defendant's liability to all plaintiffs may be established with common evidence." After thoroughly reviewing the record made in the district court in light of the controlling law, the court held that the district court did not commit legal error or abuse its discretion and its class certification was affirmed.

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.

Appellants challenged a district courtâs discovery order that directed them to disclose what they called privileged information. To achieve this end, the Appellants filed an interlocutory appeal and a petition for writ of mandamus with the Tenth Circuit. The Appellants in this case include motor fuel retailers and the retail motor fuel trade associations to which the retailers belong. The Plaintiffs in this case are consumers and other interested parties. Collectively they filed twelve putative class action cases in seven federal district courts. The Plaintiffs alleged that the retailersâ âvolumetric pricing systemâ for retail motor fuel overcharges customers. When the temperature of the fuel rises, the fuelâs volume expands, but the actual energy content stays the same â customers pay for âmoreâ fuel but half the energy. Plaintiffs allege that the temperature fluctuations and fuel volumes are accounted for in every aspect of the Appellantsâ âvolumetric pricing systemâ except at the retail level, thus overcharging retail customers. The Tenth Circuit held that Appellants devoted a majority of their appellate brief to their contention that a First Amendment privilege should be presumed with respect to the information Plaintiffs sought to discover. However, Appellants made an âunwise strategic decisionâ by seeking a presumption when they failed to prove the information was indeed privileged. The Court dismissed Appellantsâ interlocutory appeal and denied their application for writ of mandamus.

The State sued CVS Pharmacy, Inc. and five other pharmacies (collectively, "pharmacies") in state court alleging that they sold generic drugs to West Virginia consumers without passing along to the consumers the cost savings of generic drugs over brand name equivalents in violation of West Virginia Code 30-5-12b(g), which regulated the practice of pharmacy, and the West Virgina Consumer Credit Protection Act, West Virginia Code 46A-6-104. At issue was whether the district court properly ordered the case to be remanded to state court after the pharmacies removed the case from state court to the district court under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 ("CAFA"), Pub. L. No. 109-2 Stat. 4. The court affirmed and held that the action was not a class action as defined by the CAFA where the action was not brought under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 or West Virginia's corresponding rule but, rather, the action was brought under the West Virginia statute regulating the practice of pharmacy and the West Virgina Consumer Credit Protection Act, neither of which included provisions providing for a typical class action.

T-Mobile Central LLC ("T-Mobile") sued Missouri municipalities for refund of certain tax payments that it had paid under protest and filed ten separate lawsuits seeking to recoup tax payments made within ten specific time periods. Appellees brought ten separate class action suits against T-Mobile in state court for passing the contested tax onto customers and sought to recover any money that the Missouri municipalities refunded to T-Mobile. At issue was whether the district court had jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act ("CAFA"), 28 U.S.C. 1332(d)(6), to remand the ten class actions to the state court from which they were removed. The court affirmed the judgment of the district court and held that there was no indication that appellees artificially divided the lawsuit to avoid the CAFA where the structure of appellees' class actions exactly mirrored the underlying ten lawsuits brought by T-Mobile and were driven by T-Mobile's own litigation decisions.