Should courts front-load the damages inquiry in products liability class actions?
The ultimate meaning of Comcast as applied to products class actions remains unresolved, and the Supreme Court may feel compelled to address it eventually.
March 20, 2014 at 04:00 AM
13 minute read
The original version of this story was published on Law.com
In this series, we have previously written about the Supreme Court's 2013 decision in Comcast Corp. v. Behrend, in which the Court held that plaintiffs seeking class certification must show that the damages sought are the result of the class-wide injury alleged in the suit. In Comcast, plaintiffs submitted an expert report on damages that assumed the validity of four separate theories of antitrust liability, but only one of those theories was ultimately accepted by the district court. Because plaintiffs' damages model did not specify the damages attributable solely to the surviving liability theory, the Supreme Court ruled that plaintiffs “cannot possibly establish that damages are susceptible of measurement across the entire class for purposes of Rule 23(b)(3),” and the Court held that class certification was therefore improper.
Some commentators and courts have read the Comcast decision very broadly to mean that class certification in Rule 23(b)(3) cases is only appropriate if damages can be calculated on a class-wide basis. Other authorities have read Comcast more narrowly as standing for the common sense proposition that if a plaintiff submits a class-wide damages model in a purported class action, that model must track the same theory of liability that provided the basis for class certification. The latter interpretation could, of course, leave open the possibility of certifying a liability-only class and permitting individualized damages calculations to be made outside the class action mechanism where appropriate.
Last month, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in two products liability lawsuits — Whirlpool Corp. v. Glazer (6th Cir.) and Butler v. Sears Roebuck & Co. (7th Cir.) — that directly posed the question of whether cases requiring individual damages inquiries could proceed as class actions after Comcast. Both courts of appeals had adopted a narrow reading of the Supreme Court's decision and answered the question in the affirmative.
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