PRACTITIONER BLOG
Read our analyses of developments in Impact Litigation and stay current on class action law
Ninth Circuit Panel Decertifies Class of Janitorial & Maintenance Workers: Impact Fund & Amici Urge Rehearing
A certified class of janitorial and maintenance workers survived two motions for decertification, successfully proved employer wrongdoing at summary judgment, and received significant damages in a jury bellwether trial before seeing their efforts undone by the Ninth Circuit. The recent panel opinion in Bowerman v. Field Asset Services, Inc., 39 F.4th 652, 661-63 (9th Cir. 2022), reversed certification after over seven years of litigation as a certified class. In doing so, the panel blatantly ignored the district judge’s repeated conclusion that the case was best managed as a class action.
Eastern District of New York Grants Class Certification to Incarcerated People Who Faced Inhumane Conditions
Plaintiffs also alleged that MDC staff failed to provide them adequate food and clothing and deprived them of access to hot water for cleaning, bathing, and laundry. Plaintiffs were forced to wash themselves in their cell sinks with cold water or forego washing for fear of getting sick. One resident suffering from ulcerative colitis had bloody bedding that had not been changed because of the lack of laundry services. Other incarcerated people with chronic medical conditions did not receive their medication and were unable to receive medical treatment. Class members also reported not being able to use their CPAP machines, not having access to mental health staff, and even enduring dirty bandages that had not been changed in weeks.
SCOTUS RULING AT ODDS WITH H.R. 985, WHICH WOULD PERMIT IMMEDIATE APPEALS OF ALL CLASS CERTIFICATION ORDERS
While the Microsoft case is a clear victory for corporate defendants, there is some language in the opinion that may be useful in another important fight in a different venue. H.R. 985, the anti-class action bill passed earlier this year by the House, would permit an interlocutory appeal from every class certification order. The high court’s opinion strongly endorsed a contrary perspective – it highlighted the wisdom of Rule 23(f)’s “careful calibration” of the question as well as the preference for determining such issues through rulemaking rather than legislation. Senate Judiciary Committee, are you listening?
Class Certification Does Not Require That Class Member Identification Be “Administratively Feasible."
Most people do not retain receipts for the myriad of food items and inexpensive consumer goods that they purchase each year. But, should this entirely understandable fact of modern life provide a license to corporations to defraud consumers who buy these products?
Third Circuit Rules Plaintiff Must Have “a fair opportunity” to move for class cert
Good news for plaintiffs in a Third Circuit decision on mootness in a Rule 23(b)(2) injunctive relief class action, Richardson v. Bledsoe, No. 15-2876 (3d Cir. July 15, 2016). This case presents a variation of the Campbell-Ewald named plaintiff pick-off strategy in a systemic reform case. It recognizes a “picking off” exception to mootness in a class action where the individual claim for relief is “acutely susceptible to mootness” by the actions of the defendant. This one takes a bit of explaining.
SCOTUS Denies Cert in Wal-Mart Stores v. Braun
On April 4, the U.S. Supreme Court denied cert in Wal-Mart Stores v. Braun, a wage and hour class action brought on behalf of 187,000 hourly Wal-Mart workers in Pennsylvania. The case was tried in the Pennsylvania state court in 2006, and Michael Donovan and his team obtained a $188 million verdict for the workers. The heart of the appellate dispute was Wal-Mart’s decision to stop keeping records of wage and hour violations.
Black Workers Get Class Action Certification in Race Discrimination Case
The Western District of Washington recently certified a class of black workers asserting claims of race-based discrimination based on subjective decision-making in the hiring and firing process of workers at the Sound Transit “University Link” light-rail project. The case is Rollins v. Traylor Bros., Inc., No. C14-1414 JCC, 2016 WL 258523 (W.D. Wash. Jan. 21, 2016). After allegations of discrimination and harassment against black laborers at the Traylor Bros., Inc./Frontier-Kemper Joint Venture (“TFK”) site. Sound Transit hired an expert (Marcella Flemming Reed) to investigate...