The House Judiciary Committee Hearing on the Class Action Fairness Act, continued

I reported earlier that the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on February 27, 2015 on “The State of Class Actions Ten Years After the Enactment of the Class Action Fairness Act,” at which I testified as the only minority witness.  The transcript is now online.

Questions for the record were submitted to me after the hearing.  I submitted my response to the questions for the record on May 11, 2015.  My response does not appear to have been posted on the website for the hearing, but I posted it on SSRN.  

Abstract:

This is Professor Moore’s response to questions for the record submitted to her after the hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, U.S. House of Representatives, on "The State of Class Actions Ten Years After the Enactment of the Class Action Fairness Act" on February 27, 2015. The questions submitted to her asked whether, when determining the requirements of class certification, Congress should limit a class to those individuals "with the same or similar injuries" or those individuals whose damages or injuries have been sustained due to "the same or similar proximate cause" or "the same product or activity."

The response begins by noting that the wording of the questions appeared designed to eliminate what the majority witnesses at the hearing termed "no-injury class actions." The response argues that the term "no-injury class action" is a recently-invented term without roots in the law of class actions, and that the term is misleading when applied indiscriminately to all class actions. The substantive law, whether federal or state, determines when a person is "injured," and the majority witnesses’ assertion that certain class members have suffered "no injury" contravenes the governing substantive law.

The response then more specifically addresses the suggested language in the questions submitted. The suggested limitations, if passed by Congress, would restrict class actions. First, it is unclear how the broad-brush language would be applied to class actions for injunctive relief, such as civil rights cases. Second, the language sounds like existing law, but those seeking to eliminate so-called "no-injury class actions" intend that the language should be interpreted in a new and more radical way so to make it much more difficult to obtain class certification than under existing law. Third, the language would in essence require a class, at certification, to include only class members who could prove their case on the merits. That would constitute an impermissible "fail-safe" class allowing any class member who did not prove her case on the merits to escape being bound by the class judgment. Fourth, the existing certification requirements of commonality, typicality, and predominance provide sufficient tools for federal judges to rigorously apply the standards to unique factual situations.

The response also notes that the Civil Rules Advisory Committee is currently considering numerous changes to Rule 23, so that legislation is premature. Finally, the response calls for Congress to require the public release of data on federal class actions.