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Multistate Class Actions and Choice of Law

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Multistate Class Actions and Choice of Law CHAPTER 24 MULTISTATE CLASS ACTIONS AND CHOICE OF LAW ANDREW S. TULUMELLO GEOFFREY C. WEIEN I. Introduction Multistate class actions are those implicating the substantive law of multiple juris- dictions. In a typical multistate class action, the named plaintiff purports to bring state law claims on behalf of non-forum-state residents. For example, a plaintiff might sue an automobile manufacturer for breaches of express and impli ed war- ranties (governed by state law), purporting to represent a class of all vehicle owners in the United States.1 As another example, an insurance policyholder, on behalf of a class of all similar policyholders nationwide, might sue an insurance company for violations of the federal securities laws and state common law.2 The plaintiff may allege that one state’s laws should apply to the entire class,3 or may instead allege that any variations in state substantive law do not preclude class certification.4 As courts of appeals have recognized, certification of a multistate or, especially, a nationwide class increases the stakes of litigation and can create significant settle- ment pressure for defendants.5 Not surprisingly, certification decisions in multi- state class actions are intensely litigated. The U.S. Constitution, Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and the Rules Enabling Act require a choice of law analysis to be conducted, at some stage, in every multistate class action, and each of these limits the power of federal 1. See Cole v. Gen. Motors Corp., 484 F.3d 717, 720 (5th Cir. 2007). 2. See In re Prudential Ins. Co. of Am. Sales Litig., 148 F.3d 283 (3d Cir. 1998). 3. See, e.g., In re Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., 288 F.3d 1012, 1015 (7th Cir. 2002). 4. See, e.g., Zinser v. Accufix Research Inst., Inc., 253 F.3d 1180, 1188–90 (9th Cir. 2001). 5. See, e.g., In re Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, Inc., 51 F.3d 1293, 1298 (7th Cir. 1995). 621 ggre11111_37_c24_p621-636.inddre11111_37_c24_p621-636.indd 662121 88/3/10/3/10 11:36:36 PPMM 622 • A PRACTITIONER’S GUIDE TO CLASS ACTIONS • courts to certify class actions that would require the application of laws from mul- tiples states.6 First, under the Constitution, Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins,7 Klaxon Co. v. Sten- tor Electric Manufacturing Co.,8 and Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts9 establish the following three principles, respectively: (1) federal courts sitting in diversity must apply the substantive law of the forum state in which they sit; (2) state choice of law rules are substantive law; and (3) states ordinarily may not apply their laws to conduct and transactions that occur outside their borders. Second, the Rules Enabling Act provides that the Federal Rules “shall not abridge, enlarge or modify any substantive right.”10 The Rules Enabling Act confirms that a class action is a procedural device that should not deprive litigants (including absent class members) of the right to have the appropriate substantive law govern the disposition of their claims and defenses, even if there otherwise would be pro- cedural efficiencies to adjudicating the claims on an aggregated basis.11 Third, several subsections of Rule 23—including section (a)(2)’s commonality requirement, section (b)(3)’s predominance requirement, section (b)(3)’s superi- ority requirement, and section (b)(3)(D)’s manageability factor—require courts to conduct a choice of law analysis, and to ascertain whether variations in state law make the action unsuitable for class treatment, at some point in the proceedings. This chapter explains the doctrines governing choice of law analysis in multi- state class actions. II. Choice of Law Analysis Under the Constitution and the Rules Enabling Act A. THE CONSTITUTION: SHUTTS The starting point for analyzing constitutional limits on choice of law rules in class actions is the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts.12 In 6. See, e.g., Chapter 30, “Other Due Process Challenges to the Class Device.” 7. 304 U.S. 64 (1938). 8. 313 U.S. 487 (1941). 9. 472 U.S. 797, 823 (1985). 10. 28 U.S.C. § 2072(b). 11. See Amchem Prods., Inc. v. Windsor, 521 U.S. 591, 613 (1997) (“Rule 23’s requirements must be inter- preted in keeping with Article III constraints, and with the Rules Enabling Act.”); id. at 628–29 (“The argu- ment is sensibly made that a nationwide administrative claims processing regime would provide the most secure, fair, and efficient means of compensating victims of asbestos exposure. Congress, however, has not adopted such a solution. And Rule 23, which must be interpreted with fidelity to the Rules Enabling Act and applied with the interests of absent class members in close view, cannot carry the large load [plaintiffs] and the District Court heaped upon it.”). 12. 472 U.S. 797. ggre11111_37_c24_p621-636.inddre11111_37_c24_p621-636.indd 662222 88/3/10/3/10 11:36:36 PPMM • Multistate Class Actions and Choice of Law • 623 Shutts, the Court considered the claims of a nationwide class of plaintiffs who brought suit in Kansas state court against Phillips Petroleum, an out-of-state cor- poration. Plaintiffs had sued to recover interest on allegedly delayed royalty pay- ments on oil and gas leases, the majority of which related to oil and gas deposits outside of Kansas. The state courts agreed with plaintiffs that Kansas law should govern the claims of the entire class, citing the plaintiffs’ choice of Kansas as the forum and that state’s preference for applying its own law in its own courts absent exceptional circumstances. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that Kansas could not constitutionally apply its own law to the claims of the entire class in light of the commands of the due process clause and full faith and credit clause of the federal Constitu- tion. Even though Kansas had personal jurisdiction over the defendant (through its conduct of business in that state) and the plaintiff class members, these contacts were insufficient to justify applying Kansas law to the dispute.13 Moreover, because there was a material conflict between the substantive law of Kansas and that of Texas and Oklahoma (the other possible sources of law), the due process rights of the parties were violated by imposing Kansas law upon them.14 According to the Court, the state whose law is applied “must have a significant contact or aggrega- tion of contacts to the claims asserted by each member of the plaintiff class, contacts creating state interests, in order to ensure that the choice of that law is not arbi- trary or unfair.”15 In Shutts, the Supreme Court also held that choice of law analysis cannot be relaxed or excused simply to give effect to the class action as a favored forum of adjudication. The Constitution’s restrictions on a state’s power to apply its law beyond its borders are not “altered by the fact that it may be more difficult or more burdensome to comply . because of the large number of transactions which the States proposes to adjudicate in a single action.”16 Shutts arose out of the Supreme Court of Kansas and therefore was not an interpretation of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. Rather, Shutts establishes con- stitutional limitations on the power of a state to apply its law to conduct that occurs beyond its borders and shows that those limitations are not relaxed or sus- pended in a class action. The Supreme Court has echoed many of the same concerns expressed in Shutts in a line of cases imposing due process limitations on punitive damage awards. The most recent and strongest articulation of the principle is in State Farm Mutual Auto- mobile Insurance Co. v. Campbell.17 There, the Court invalidated the Utah Supreme 13. Id. at 819–20. 14. See id. at 817–18. 15. Id. (emphasis added). 16. Id. at 821 (citing Allstate Ins. Co. v. Hague, 449 U.S. 302, 312–13 (1981)). 17. 538 U.S. 408, 421–22 (2003). ggre11111_37_c24_p621-636.inddre11111_37_c24_p621-636.indd 662323 88/3/10/3/10 11:36:36 PPMM 624 • A PRACTITIONER’S GUIDE TO CLASS ACTIONS • Court’s imposition of a $145 million punitive damages judgment, in part because the record demonstrated that the jury had relied on the defendant’s out-of-state conduct when awarding punitive damages. The Court observed that states “can- not punish . conduct that may have been lawful where it occurred,” and cited Shutts for the proposition that “[a]ny proper adjudication of conduct that occurred outside Utah to other persons would require their inclusion [in the case], and, to those parties, the Utah courts, in the usual case, would need to apply the laws of their relevant jurisdiction.”18 State Farm confirms the presumption, reflected in Shutts, that states cannot apply their law to conduct and transactions that occur outside their borders. III. The Rules Enabling Act Under the Rules Enabling Act, no Federal Rule of Civil Procedure, including Rule 23, may “abridge, enlarge or modify any substantive right.”19 In Amchem Products, Inc. v. Windsor,20 the Supreme Court observed that the Act places important con- straints on the interpretation and application of Rule 23. Even when a nationwide class action might be “the most secure, fair, and efficient means of compensat- ing victims,” class treatment is impermissible where “bold aggregation techniques” would violate the Act by abridging, enlarging, or modifying substantive rights.21 The Rules Enabling Act precludes courts from using the class action device in ways that either negate or make it impossible for one or more of the parties to assert otherwise available claims and defenses or to do so under the state law that would apply outside the class action context.
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