Class Actions Brief Blog

Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, recently introduced a bill that would make significant changes to federal class action litigation. The Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act of 2017 (H.R. 985) states that it is intended to allow prompt recoveries to plaintiffs with legitimate claims and “diminish abuses in class action and mass tort litigation that are undermining the integrity of the U.S. legal system.”

In its current form, the draft bill would likely eclipse the 2005 passage of the Class Action Fairness Act as the most significant legislation on class actions in decades. Rep. Goodlatte has introduced similar legislation in previous years, but passage is considerably enhanced with unified Republican control of the House, Senate, and Presidency. Among other changes, the bill would enact the following:

• Prevent certification of a class seeking monetary relief unless the plaintiff “affirmatively demonstrates that each proposed class member suffered the same type and scope of injury as the named class representative or representatives.” (§ 1716) In other words, classes could not include individuals who have not suffered damage, or where damage is not yet clear.
• Require class counsel to describe how the named plaintiff agreed to be included in the complaint, identify any other class action where the named plaintiff had a similar role, and disclose any family or employment relationship between class counsel and the named plaintiff (in which case certification must be denied). (§ 1717)
• Require the party seeking certification to show a “reliable and administratively feasible mechanism” for (a) determining whether class members fall within the class definition and (b) distributing monetary relief to “a substantial majority of class members.” (§ 1718(a)). This provision appears to be an effort to impose a formal ascertainability requirement on class certification, as the Fourth Circuit has done in some cases.
• Make significant changes to attorneys’ fees, including (1) preventing any payment or even determination of fees to class counsel until the distribution of monetary recovery to class members is complete, (2) limiting fee awards to “a reasonable percentage of any payments directly distributed to and received by class members,” and (3) limiting the payment of attorney’s fees based on equitable relief to “a reasonable percentage of the value of the equitable relief.” (§ 1718(b)).
• Require courts to report, and the Federal Judicial Center to track, disbursements to class members. The Federal Judicial Center would prepare an annual report summarizing how funds paid by defendants in class actions have been distributed, including the largest and smallest amounts paid to any class member and payments to class counsel. (§ 1719) Alison Frankel of Reuters, who writes often and well on class actions, referred to this as “most intriguing idea in House Republicans’ bill to gut class actions.”
• Bar certification of issue classes (§ 1720), an issue we have previously covered in both a district court case regarding the relationship between predominance and issue certification and when the Supreme Court declined to resolve a circuit split over issue certification.
• Stay discovery while preliminary motions are pending. (§ 1721) (Interestingly, this provision formally recognizes a “motion to strike class allegations,” a motion that is not currently listed by name under Rule 23, although such motions may be permitted under Rule 23(d)(1)(D), which allows the Court to enter an order to “require that the pleadings be amended to eliminate allegations about representation of absent persons.”)
• Provide for appellate review of orders granting or denying class certification as a matter of right. (§ 1722) This would be a significant departure from current practice under Rule 23(f), which gives Courts of Appeal substantial discretion in deciding whether to permit such interlocutory appeals.

The bill would also allow more personal injury cases to stay in federal court by changing the diversity jurisdiction analysis in multiple plaintiff cases, and it would make significant changes to multidistrict litigation practice, including barring the transferee judge from conducting a trial unless all parties consent.

The draft legislation is already generating controversy, and this will significantly increase as it advances. In particular, basing attorney’s fee awards on a percentage of the “value of the equitable relief” will be hotly debated. Equitable relief is, by nature, difficult or impossible to value in financial terms. The Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights has already registered its opposition, noting the difficulty of putting a value on a class relief protecting disabled individuals from abusive conditions or providing them access to treatment, transportation, and community services.

The bill was introduced on February 9. On February 15, following a series of failed attempts by Democrats to introduce amendments, the Judiciary Committee voted on party lines (19-12) to forward to the bill to the full House. We’ll continue to track this legislation and bring you significant updates.