Light Cigarette MDL Judge Denies Certification of Classes for Residents of California, Illinois, Maine, and DC
Colleagues at my firm are involved in this litigation, so I'll stick to brief reportage, but the MDL transferee presiding over Light Cigarette Litigation, Judge John A. Woodcock, Jr., issued an opinion on Wednesday denying class certification for lack of predominance, superiority and/or constitutional standing. See In re Light Cigarettes Marketing Sales Practices Litig., No. 1:09-md-02068-JAW, Slip op. (D. Me. Nov. 24, 2010).
In the cases, plaintiffs are suing Philip Morris USA and Altria Group, claiming that the marketing for light cigarettes was misleading in that it caused people to think they would consume less tar and nicotene by smoking light cigarettes than they would if they smoked regular cigarettes, when in fact they allegedly would not. Plaintiffs alleged that smokers "compensated" for the cigarettes' lower tar and nicotene levels by, inter alia, smoking heavier and blocking ventilation holes, so that they ended up consuming the same amount of tar and nicotene as the smokers of regular cigarettes.
The plaintiffs' lawyers were very careful about the classes and claims that they first advanced for class certification. They moved to certify a class of California residents, asserting claims under the Unfair Competition Law, the Consumer Legal Remedies Act, and the False Advertising Law. They moved to certify a class of District of Columbia residents under the DC Consumer Protection and Procedures Act and common law unjust enrichment. They moved to certify a class of Ilinois residents under the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act and common law unjust enrichment. And they sought to certify a Maine class just under the theory of unjust enrichment.
The court first analyzed the requirements of Rule 23(a), and concluded that the proposed classes met each of these requirements: numerosity, commonality, typicality and adequacy of representation. Notably, the court rejected the defendants' argument that plaintiffs -- by splitting causes of action and abandoning personal injury claims and other causes of action for economic harm -- had failed the adequacy of representation requirement. Slip op. at 25-26. The court acknowledged the general rule against claim-splitting, but reasoned that personal injury damages are different enough from causes of action for economic harm that the former could not be said to be capable of being obtained in this putative class action. (The court did not, however, address the fact that many of the causes of action the plaintiffs failed to assert, such as for common law fraud and breach of warranty, were capable of being pursued in the action and would be barred by the res judicata effect of any classwide judgment in the case.)
The court concluded, however, that the predominance requirement of Rule 23(b)(3) was not met because plaintiffs could not establish causation and injury with classwide proof:
Whether the class members were damaged because of the Defendants' misrepresentations is an individual inquiry that cannot be proven on a class-wide basis. The record contains unrefuted evidence that many light cigarette smokers do not fully compensate when they smoke and that the extent of their compensation can only be predicted by assessing their smoking habits. . . . If smokers did not fully compensate, they were not injured by the representations because they received lower levels of tar and nicotene. There is also significant record evidence that many smokers did not believe the Defendant's claims that light cigarettes had lower tar and nicotene and smoked light cigarettes for reasons unrelated to the alleged health benefits. . . . For these smokers, there is no causal conection between the misrepresentation and the purchases of light cigarettes.
Slip op. at 28-29 (citations omitted).
In analyzing the argument, the court recognized that Illinois' ICFA, Illinois unjust enrichment, and California's CLRA, all require proof of causation. Plaintiffs said they could put on classwide proof of causation, but the court disagreed. The plaintiffs also argued that California's UCL and DC's CPPA, along with the unjust enrichment causes of action in Maine and DC, do not require proof of injury or causation.
The court conceeded that the elements of unjust enrichment in Maine and DC do not articulate a precise injury and causation requirement. Nevertheless, the court held that they were inherent in the cause of action:
However, the Plaintiffs do not explaine why it is unjust for the Defendants to retain the money from someone who did not believe their representations when purchasing, did not purchase because of their representations, or received the benefit promised. . . . [Plaintiffs] have not established why, absent injury and causation, the Defendants' 'retention of the benefit is unjust."
Id. at 33.
The court also acknowledged that the DC CPPA and California's UCL purport not to require injury and causation of absent class members. But the court held that it would be without Article III jurisdiction to adjudicate a class action for which the claimants had not experienced an injury caused by the challenged conduct:
Here, the proposed classes include class members without standing. Each state's class effectively includes everyone who purchased light cigarettes in the respective limitations periods, and this group necessarily includes class members who knew light cigarettes were not healthier than other cigarettes, notwithstanding Defendants' alleged representations to the contrary. Those class members were not injured by the Defendants' misconduct and thus do not have standing.
Id. at 37.
Importantly, the court also held that the defendants' affirmative defenses -- the statute of limitations and the voluntary payment doctrine -- presented individual issues that could not be adjudicated on a classwide basis and thus prevented class certification. Id. at 40-41. Additionally, the court concluded that "[d]espite the strong policy in favor of certification, individual issues of injury, causation, and affirmative defenses defeat the superiority of class treatment." Id. at 42. Finally, it found the California plaintiff's claim for certification of injunctive relief under Rule 23(b)(2) failed because it was mooted by the federal Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which included a prohibition on certain marketing that was "broader than the relief [plaintiff] seeks." Id. at 43.
