Justia Civil Procedure Opinion Summaries

In 2010, plaintiff filed a complaint and sought class certification, alleging that defendant sent unsolicited fax advertisement, violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (47 U.S.C. 227) and the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act (815 ILCS 505/2) and constituting common-law conversion of toner and paper. Each count included class allegations indicating that plaintiff was filing on behalf of a class estimated at over 40 individuals. Defendant unsuccessfully sought summary judgment solely on count I (federal Act), alleging that on three separate occasions it tendered an unconditional offer of payment exceeding the total recoverable damages, rendering the claim moot. The court reasoned that defendant did not offer tender on count I before plaintiff moved for class certification and rejected defendant’s argument that the motion was merely a “shell” motion. The appellate court affirmed certification of the class on counts II and III but reversed class certification on count I, agreeing that plaintiff’s initial motion for class certification, filed concurrently with its complaint, was an insufficient “shell” motion. The Illinois Supreme Court reinstated the trial court decision, holding that its precedent did not impose any explicit requirements on the motion for class certification, let alone a heightened evidentiary or factual basis for the motion. View "Ballard RN Center, Inc. v. Kohll's Pharmacy & Homecare, Inc." on Justia Law

This case involved dibromochloropropane, a powerful nematode worm killer, and the litigation was multi-jurisdictional. The circuit court granted partial summary judgment against Plaintiffs and in favor of Defendants on statute of limitations grounds. The Intermediate Court of Appeals (ICA) affirmed. At issue on certiorari was (1) whether the filing of a putative class action in another jurisdiction operated to toll the state of Hawaii’s statute of limitations, and (2) if so, at what point did such tolling end? The Supreme Court vacated the ICA’s judgment and remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings, holding (1) the filing of a putative class action in another jurisdiction does toll the statute of limitations in the state of Hawaii because such “cross-jurisdictional tolling” supports a purpose of class action litigations, which is to avoid a multiplicity of suits; (2) under the circumstances of this case, cross-jurisdictional tolling ended when the foreign jurisdiction issued a final judgment that unequivocally dismissed the putative class action; and (3) Plaintiffs’ complaint was timely filed within the applicable limitations period and, therefore, was not time-barred. View "Patrickson v. Dole Food Co." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, alleging to be putative class members of multiple class actions, have filed their own individual suits against the defendant, Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation (Citizens). Plaintiffs were residents of, and owned homes in, St. Bernard Parish at the time Hurricane Katrina. Their properties were insured under policies of all-risk or homeowners insurance by defendant. Plaintiffs originally filed suit against Citizens on December 3, 2009, seeking contractual and bad faith damages arising out of Citizens’ handling of their property damage claims related to Hurricane Katrina. Citizens excepted on grounds of prescription and lis pendens. At issue is whether the doctrine of lis pendens barred plaintiffs’ suits where the plaintiffs were not named parties in the first-filed class actions. The Supreme Court found the trial court erred in overruling the defendant’s exception of lis pendens. View "Aisola v. Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp." on Justia Law

In the underlying putative class action, counsel for the named plaintiffs obtained a collection of records owned by JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. (Chase). Plaintiffs sought to rely on the documents to pursue claims sounding in fraud, deceit, and conversion against Chase. A dispute arose as to whether portions of the Chase records were shielded from discovery and litigation under a provision of Bank Secrecy Act and related regulations. A magistrate judge reviewed all of the disputed documents in camera and concluded that the majority of the documents were not shielded by statute or regulation. Chase then initiated this mandamus proceeding, asking the First Circuit to intervene by declaring that the Act and related regulations shielded an additional fifty-five pages of Chase records from production or use in the putative class action. The First Circuit denied the petition for writ of mandamus, holding that, even assuming that the Act and regulations apply, the documents at dispute would not be shielded from discovery or use in litigation. View "In re JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed claims individually and on behalf of three putative classes against Defendant seeking damages and injunctive relief under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Prior to the parties’ agreed-upon deadline for the class certification motion that Plaintiff announced it would pursue, Defendant tendered to Plaintiff an offer for judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P. 68. Four days after receiving the offer, Plaintiff moved for class certification. The unaccepted offer was subsequently withdrawn due to Plaintiff’s failure to respond to the offer. Thereafter, Defendant moved to dismiss for lack of matter jurisdiction, arguing that its unaccepted and withdrawn Rule 68 offer resolved any case or controversy between the parties, thereby mooting Plaintiff’s claims. The district court denied the motion to dismiss. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that a rejected and withdrawn offer of settlement of the named plaintiff’s individual claims in a putative class action made before the named plaintiff moves to certify a class does not moot the named plaintiff’s claims and divest the court of subject matter jurisdiction. View "Bais Yaakov of Spring Valley v. ACT, Inc." on Justia Law

More than 200 foreign agricultural workers allege they were exposed to the pesticide DBCP on banana farms throughout Central America, in the 1960s through the 1980s, resulting in health problems. Litigation began in 1993 with a putative class against Dole and related companies in Texas state court. Numerous suits were filed (and consolidated) in 2011 in the Eastern District of Louisiana against Dole and others. The court agreed granted Dole summary judgment based on the statute of limitations; the Fifth Circuit affirmed. Meanwhile, in 2012, several actions were filed in the District of Delaware against the same defendants and alleging the same causes of action. Dole moved to dismiss the Delaware lawsuits, arguing for the application of the first-filed rule. The court held that the rule applied while the case was on appeal to the Fifth Circuit and dismissed, reasoning that “one fair bite at the apple is sufficient.” Delaware subsequently dismissed other defendants. The Third Circuit affirmed: where there is federal concurrent jurisdiction over a matter, “the court which first ha[d] possession of the subject must decide it.” Plaintiffs conceded that the Delaware cases were “materially identical” to those previously filed in Louisiana. Concurrent jurisdiction existed at the time. View "Chavez v. Dole Food Co., Inc" on Justia Law

This appeal stems from actions filed by holders of Argentina's bonds after the Republic of Argentina defaulted on sovereign debt. After previous panels of this court twice vacated aggregate judgments entered by the district court in favor of plaintiff classes, the court remanded with specific instructions. The district court, however, certified expanded plaintiff classes. The court concluded that the district court erred in following Hickory Sec. Ltd. v. Republic of Argentina's (Seijas II) mandate where, even though it did not expressly preclude recertification, Seijas II cannot be read to have permitted the district court to disregard the court's instructions and expand the plaintiff classes as a solution to a problem for which the court had already prescribed a specific response. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's orders and remanded. View "Puricelli v. Republic of Argentina" on Justia Law

Kivisto, co-founder and former President and CEO of SemCrude, an Oklahoma-based oil and gas company, allegedly drove SemCrude into bankruptcy through his self-dealing and speculative trading strategies. SemCrude’s Litigation Trust sued Kivisto, and the parties reached a settlement agreement and granted a mutual release of all claims. A month later, a group of SemCrude’s former limited partners (Oklahoma Plaintiffs) sued Kivisto in state court, alleging breach of fiduciary duty, negligent misrepresentation, and fraud. The Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware granted Kivisto’s emergency motion to enjoin the state action, finding that the Oklahoma Plaintiffs’ claims derived from the Litigation Trust’s claims. The district court reversed, concluding that the claims were possibly direct and remanded. The Third Circuit concluded that the claims are derivative and reversed. Even if Kivisto owed the Oklahoma Plaintiffs unique, individual fiduciary duties in addition to the duties owed to them as unitholders, they could show neither that they were injured separately from the company or all other unitholders on the basis of that misconduct, nor that they were entitled to recovery of the units they allegedly would not have contributed or would have sold but for Kivisto’s misconduct. View "In re: Semcrude L.P." on Justia Law

The plaintiff alleged consumer fraud by the seller of a dietary supplement, and the district court certified a plaintiff class of individuals “who purchased Instaflex within the applicable statute of limitations of the respective Class States for personal use until the date notice is disseminated,” under Rule 23(a) and (b)(3). The court rejected defendant’s argument that Rule 23(b)(3) implies a heightened ascertainability requirement. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, noting an implicit requirement under Rule 23 that a class must be defined clearly and that membership be defined by objective criteria rather than by, for example, a class member’s state of mind. In addressing this requirement, courts have sometimes used the term “ascertainability.” Class definitions fail this requirement when they were too vague or subjective, or when class membership was defined in terms of success on the merits (fail-safe classes). This class satisfied “ascertainability” View "Mullins v. Direct Digital, LLC" on Justia Law

The class action complaint at the heart of this case alleged violations of the Song-Beverly Credit Card Act of 1971 based on Dick’s alleged practice of requesting personal information from consumers during credit card transactions. The litigants reached a settlement providing for class members to receive vouchers for discounts off any merchandise purchases. The initial complaint listed Plaintiff’s counsel of record as California attorney Sean Reis of the law firm of Edelson McGuire, LLP, and several out-of-state attorneys with the notation “[p]ro hac vice admittance to be sought.” The out-of-state attorneys included Joseph Siprut of Siprut PC in Chicago, Illinois. Reis signed the complaint and signed an amended complaint filed in June 2011. While accepting responsibility for monitoring the pro hac vice application, Reis was not aware the application had been denied and assumed the application had been granted. Once the proposed class action settlement had been reached, the parties set a hearing date for an unopposed motion for preliminary approval of the settlement. While preparing for this hearing, Siprut and his staff reviewed the file and were unable to locate an order granting the pro hac vice application. After learning of the status of the pro hac vice application, Reis filed a new application to admit Siprut pro hac vice. The trial court issued a tentative ruling denying the second pro hac vice application. Citing rule 9.40(b) of the California Rules of Court, the court stated that application would be denied due to the “great number of pro hac vice applications” that Joseph Siprut had made during the past year. Siprut appeared at a December 2012 hearing along with Todd Atkins, an attorney from Siprut PC, who was a member of the California State Bar. Reis did not appear. The court, affirming the tentative ruling, denied the pro hac vice application on the ground that Siprut had made 12 pro hac vice applications in the prior 11 months and there were no special circumstances under rule 9.40(b) of the California Rules of Court which would support granting the application. Reis ultimately filed a consent to associate Atkins as counsel of record for plaintiff. Upon settlement of the class, plaintiff's counsel moved for fees. The trial court found that two of a class of 232,000 submitted claims for the merchandise credit. The court could find “absolutely no benefit really to anybody based on your claims record” and noted that most of the attorney fees sought were incurred by two out-of-state attorneys who had never been admitted pro hac vice. Final approval was granted to the settlement. In a supplemental briefing, plaintiff's counsel suggested the court grant Sirput's pro has vice application for admission nunc pro tunc to the date of first application. Counsel's application for fees was ultimately denied, and on appeal, argued the trial court erred in denying the total amount ($210,000) of fees. The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's award of $11,000. The Court further affirmed the trial court's decision to reduct the amount of the plaintiff incentive award. View "Golba v. Dick's Sporting Goods" on Justia Law