Jurisdiction over Nationwide Class Actions Is Upheld

• Pages: 21-21
• Date: 01 July 2022
• Author: Frances Codd Slusarz
• Subject Matter: Civil Law

In decisions issued a day apart, two federal appellate

courts addressed the issue of whether a court can exercise

specic jurisdiction over a nationwide class action. The

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit answered

that question in the afrmative in Mussat v. IQVIA, Inc.,

reasoning that putative class members need not establish per-

sonal jurisdiction over a defendant. The U.S. Court of Appeals

for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that question

should not be answered until the class certication stage in

Molock v. Whole Foods Market Group, Inc., but agreed that

absent class members are not part of the jurisdictional analysis.

In so holding, both courts declined to extend to class actions

the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.

v. Superior Court of California, which held that a state court

lacked jurisdiction over mass tort claims led by nonresident

plaintiffs against a nonresident defendant.

In Bristol-Myers, more than 600 plaintiffs led a lawsuit

asserting California state law claims for injuries suffered

from taking a drug manufactured by the defendant. Most of

the plaintiffs were not California residents, and California

courts did not have general jurisdiction over the defendant.

The issue was whether California could exert specic juris-

diction over the defendant for the claims involving plaintiffs

who were not California residents.

Bristol-Myers was not a class action. It was a coordinated

mass action under California Civil Procedure Code sec-

tion404—a procedural device that has no analogue in the

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The Court’s analysis, there-

fore, was straightforward. Applying long-standing principles

of due process, the Court determined that California courts

could not exercise specic jurisdiction over nonresident

plaintiffs because their claims did not arise out of or relate to

the defendant’s contacts with California.

The Court was careful to limit its holding in Bristol-Myers,

stating, “since our decision concerns the due process limits on

the exercise of specic jurisdiction by a State, we leave open

the question whether the Fifth Amendment imposes the same

restrictions on the exercise of personal jurisdiction by a fed-

eral court.” Justice Sotomayor, in dissent, put it more bluntly:

“The Court today does not confront the question whether its

opinion here would also apply to a class action.”

Despite this, Bristol-Myers prompted class action defen-

dants to contest personal jurisdiction, arguing that unnamed

class members lacked the requisite connection to the class

representatives’ chosen forum. They argued that principles of

due process prohibited federal courts from exercising juris-

diction over the defendant for class members whose claims

lacked the requisite connection with the forum.

Mussat and Molock are the rst federal appellate decisions

addressing the applicability of Bristol-Myers to class actions

under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. At

issue in both cases was whether putative class representatives

could bring claims on behalf of nonresident class members in

a court that could only exercise specic jurisdiction over the

defendant. Neither the Seventh Circuit nor the D.C. Circuit

extended Bristol-Myers to class actions.

In Mussat, the defendant moved to strike from the com-

plaint the denition of the proposed nationwide class. The

defendant argued that the district court did not have jurisdic-

tion over the defendant with respect to the nonresident mem-

bers of the proposed class. The Seventh Circuit disagreed,

noting the general consensus before Bristol-Myers that a

plaintiff could represent a nationwide class in a federal court

that did not have general jurisdiction, and the many times the

Supreme Court entertained such cases without raising juris-

diction issues. As the circuit court explained, Rule 23 class

actions are designed to have lead plaintiffs who earn the right

to represent the interests of unnamed class members by satis-

fying the criteria of Rule 23(a) and (b). Further, the unnamed

class members are not treated as parties for many purposes,

including diversity of citizenship, subject matter jurisdiction,

and venue.

In Molock, the defendant moved to dismiss the case with

the same Bristol-Myers argument: the district court lacked

personal jurisdiction to hear the claims of the nonresident

putative class members. The D.C. Circuit signaled that it

would not apply Bristol-Myers to class actions but declined

to answer the question on the basis of ripeness. As the court

explained, putative class members are not parties to the action

for any purpose prior to class certication, so it could not yet

consider whether the court had jurisdiction over their claims.

“It is well established that the claims of the class are tested

through the class representatives and that there are due pro-

cess protections built into Rule 23,” explains Adam E. Polk,

San Francisco, CA, cochair of the ABA Section of Litigation’s

Class Actions & Derivative Suits Committee. “The D.C.

Circuit zeroed in on the fact that mass torts and class actions

are different in kind, correctly nding that putative class

members are always treated as nonparties,” Polk continues.

Section of Litigation leaders agree that disputes like Mussat

and Molock that challenge class scope will continue for the fore-

seeable future. “It is too early to tell if other circuits will follow

the Seventh Circuit,” opines Lindsay D. Breedlove, Philadelphia,

PA, cochair of the Section’s Class Actions & Derivative Suits

Committee. “Courts have grappled with absent class member

claims in a variety of ways before Bristol-Myers. The U.S. Court

of Appeals for the Third Circuit, for example, decided in Neale v.

Volvo that only the named class member needs standing to bring

a claim. The lack of standing of absent class members was not

dispositive of the claims,” Breedlove concludes.

Jurisdiction over Nationwide Class

Actions Is Upheld

By Frances Codd Slusa rz, Litigation News Contributing Editor

Published in Litigation News Volume 47, Number 4, Summer 2022. © 2022 b y the American Bar Ass ociation. Reproduc ed with permission. A ll rights reserv ed. This information or an y portion there of may not be copied or dis seminated in any

form or by any means or sto red in an electronic da tabase or retrieval sy stem without the ex press writt en consent of the Amer ican Bar Associatio n.

AMERICA N BAR ASSOCIATION SUMMER 2 022 • VOL. 47 NO. 4 | 21

Published in Litigation News Volume 47, Number 4, Summer 2022. © 2022 b y the American Bar Ass ociation. Reproduc ed with permission. A ll rights reserv ed. This information or an y portion there of may not be copied or dis seminated in any

form or by any means or sto red in an electronic da tabase or retrieval sy stem without the ex press writt en consent of the Amer ican Bar Associatio n.