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Response to Petition for Rehearing Case: 14-20128 Document: 00513316787 Page: 1 Date Filed: 12/21/2015 No. 14-20128 In the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ————————————————————— JUAN RAMON TORRES; EUGENE ROBISON, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. SGE MANAGEMENT, LLC; STREAM GAS & ELECTRIC, LTD.; STREAM SPE. GP, LLC; STREAM SPE, LTD; IGNITE HOLDINGS, LTD; ET AL., Defendants-Appellants. ————————————————————— On Petition for Review from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, Case No. 4:09-CV-02056 ————————————————————— RESPONSE TO THE PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC ————————————————————— Michael K. Hurst James C. Ho John F. Guild Robert C. Walters GRUBER HURST JOHANSEN HAIL Prerak Shah SHANK LLP GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP 1445 Ross Avenue, Suite 2500 2100 McKinney Avenue, Suite 1100 Dallas, Texas 75202 Dallas, Texas 75201-6912 Telephone: (214) 855-6800 Telephone: (214) 698-3100 Facsimile: (214) 855-6808 Facsimile: (214) 571-2934 Vanessa J. Rush STREAM ENERGY 1950 Stemmons Freeway, Suite 3000 Dallas, TX 75207 Telephone: (214) 800-4464 Facsimile: (214) 560-1354 COUNSEL FOR APPELLANTS Case: 14-20128 Document: 00513316787 Page: 2 Date Filed: 12/21/2015 TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Authorities .................................................................................................iii Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 Argument................................................................................................................... 4 I. There Is No Circuit Split. ..................................................................... 5 II. Plaintiffs’ Policy Arguments Are Both Wrong And Irrelevant. .......... 9 III. Stream Energy Is Not An Illegal Pyramid Scheme. ........................... 13 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 15 Certificate of Service .............................................................................................. 17 ii Case: 14-20128 Document: 00513316787 Page: 3 Date Filed: 12/21/2015 TABLE OF AUTHORITIES Page(s) Cases Am. Express Co. v. Italian Colors Rest., 133 S. Ct. 2304 (2013) ........................................................................................10 AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, 563 U.S. 333, 350 (2011) ....................................................................................12 Bolin v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 231 F.3d 970 (5th Cir. 2000) ................................................................................ 2 Bridgewater v. Double Diamond-Del., Inc., 2011 WL 1671021 (N.D. Tex. Apr. 29, 2011) ..................................................... 2 Castano v. Am.Tobacco Co., 84 F.3d 734 (5th Cir. 1996) ............................................................................1, 12 CGC Holding Co. v. Broad & Cassel, 773 F.3d 1076 (10th Cir. 2014) ........................................................................5, 9 Corley v. Orangefield Indep. Sch. Dist., 152 F. App’x 350 (5th Cir. 2005) ......................................................................... 1 David v. Signal Int’l, LLC, 2012 WL 10759668 (E.D. La. Jan. 4, 2012) ........................................................ 2 FTC v. Skybiz.com, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26175 (N.D. Okla. Aug. 31, 2001) ...............................14 Haley v. Merial, Ltd., 292 F.R.D. 339 (N.D. Miss. 2013) ....................................................................... 2 In re Amway Corp., 93 F.T.C. 618 (1979) ..........................................................................................15 In re Koscot Interplanetary, Inc., 86 F.T.C. 1106 (1975) ........................................................................................14 In re U.S. Foodservice Inc. Pricing Litig., 729 F.3d 108 (2d Cir. 2010) ................................................................................. 7 Klay v. Humana, 382 F.3d 1241 (11th Cir. 2004) ............................................................................ 7 iii Case: 14-20128 Document: 00513316787 Page: 4 Date Filed: 12/21/2015 TABLE OF AUTHORITIES (continued) Page(s) Ladd v. Equicredit Corp. of Am., 2001 WL 1033618 (E.D. La. Sept. 7, 2001) ......................................................... 2 McManus v. Fleetwood Enters., 320 F.3d 545 (5th Cir. 2003) ................................................................................ 1 Patterson v. Mobil Oil Corp., 241 F.3d 417 (5th Cir. 2001) ................................................................................ 2 Perrone v. Gen. Motors Acceptance Corp., 232 F.3d 433 (5th Cir. 2000) ................................................................................ 1 Piggly Wiggly Clarksville v. Interstate Brands Corp., 100 F. App’x 296 (5th Cir. 2004) ......................................................................... 1 Reyes v. Netdeposit, LLC, 802 F.3d 469 (3d Cir. 2015) ................................................................................. 8 Richard v. Hoechst Celanese Chem. Group, Inc., 208 F.R.D. 575 (E.D. Tex. 2002) ......................................................................... 2 Rikos v. Procter & Gamble, 799 F.3d 497 (6th Cir. 2015) ................................................................................ 8 Sandwich Chef of Texas, Inc. v. Reliance Nat’l Indem. Ins. Co., 319 F.3d 205 (5th Cir. 2003) ................................................................................ 2 Stull v. YTB Int’l, Inc., 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109376 (S.D. Ill. Sept. 26, 2011) ..................................14 Unger v. Amedisys, 401 F.3d 316 (5th Cir. 2005) ................................................................................ 1 Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2541 (2011) ........................................................................................10 Warnock v. State Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co., 2011 WL 1113475 (S.D. Miss. Mar. 24, 2011) .................................................... 2 Treatises RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 548 (1977) ....................................................12 iv Case: 14-20128 Document: 00513316787 Page: 5 Date Filed: 12/21/2015 INTRODUCTION This is a doctrinally simple case. Plaintiffs are suing Defendants for RICO fraud. An essential element of RICO fraud is causation—and, in this case, Plaintiffs are trying to prove causation through first-party reliance on a misrepresentation. In other words, Plaintiffs allege that every single class member—over 150,000 people—each individually relied on a misrepresentation by Stream Energy that caused them harm. In the typical RICO fraud case, first-party reliance is an individualized issue, not a common issue, because it concerns each plaintiff’s subjective state of mind. After all, the usual way to determine what a plaintiff knew or what he relied on is to actually ask that plaintiff what he knew and what he relied on. Thus, those cases are almost always denied class certification. See, e.g., Castano v. Am.Tobacco Co., 84 F.3d 734, 745 (5th Cir. 1996) (“[A] fraud class action cannot be certified when individual reliance will be an issue.”).1 Indeed, not a single district court anywhere in this circuit had certified a RICO fraud class action for trial since this Court’s 1 See also Unger v. Amedisys, 401 F.3d 316, 321 (5th Cir. 2005) (“If the circumstances surrounding each plaintiff’s alleged reliance on fraudulent representations differ, then reliance is an issue that will have to be proven by each plaintiff, and the proposed class fails Rule 23(b)(3)’s predominance requirement.”); Corley v. Orangefield Indep. Sch. Dist., 152 F. App’x 350, 355 (5th Cir. 2005) (denying certification because of individual issues relating to causation under RICO); Piggly Wiggly Clarksville v. Interstate Brands Corp., 100 F. App’x 296, 301 (5th Cir. 2004) (class certification denied in part because fraudulent concealment claims required individualized determinations as to each class member’s knowledge); McManus v. Fleetwood Enters., 320 F.3d 545, 550 (5th Cir. 2003) (decertifying class because “[r]eliance will vary from plaintiff to plaintiff”); Perrone v. Gen. Motors Acceptance Corp., 232 F.3d 433, 440 (5th Cir. 2000) (claims requiring reliance could not be certified). 1 Case: 14-20128 Document: 00513316787 Page: 6 Date Filed: 12/21/2015 seminal opinions in Bolin v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 231 F.3d 970 (5th Cir. 2000), Patterson v. Mobil Oil Corp., 241 F.3d 417 (5th Cir. 2001), and Sandwich Chef of Texas, Inc. v. Reliance Nat’l Indem. Ins. Co., 319 F.3d 205 (5th Cir. 2003)—until the district court in this case did so.2 To be sure, there are rare circumstances where reliance can be a common issue for the entire class. In those unusual cases, all the class members receive a common misrepresentation, they respond by taking precisely the same action, and that common response can support a classwide inference of reliance—because 2 See, e.g., Haley v. Merial, Ltd., 292 F.R.D. 339, 359 (N.D. Miss. 2013) (denying certification for RICO fraud action because “individualized issues concerning causation . predominate over any common issues”); David v. Signal Int’l, LLC, 2012 WL 10759668, at *30 (E.D. La. Jan. 4, 2012) (denying class certification in RICO fraud action, noting that “the fact that Plaintiffs can identify one narrow aspect of fraud and prove that someone relied upon it, does not strip the question of RICO causation in this case of its individual
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