The other day Law 360 published a piece, “Bristol-Myers Unlikely To Shake Up Class Action Landscape,” which opined that, “in the end, the effect of Bristol-Myers on the national class action landscape is likely to be minimal.” One basis for that conclusion was “[I]t is unlikely that a majority of federal appellate courts will find that Bristol-Myers applies in class action cases.” To support that proposition, the article states:
To date, an apparent majority of district courts, including in the Eleventh, Fifth, Ninth and District of Columbia Circuits, have held that Bristol-Myers has no application to a class action, as opposed to a mass tort action.
The article cites: Becker v. HBN Media Inc., ___ F. Supp.3d ___, 2018 WL 3007922, at *2 (S.D. Fla. June 6, 2018) (“The Court is persuaded [that] . . . Bristol-Myers does not apply to class actions”); Sanchez v. Launch Technical Workforce Solutions LLC, 297 F. Supp.3d 1360, 1369 (N.D. Ga. 2018) (“Bristol-Myers simply reaffirms controlling due-process law and does not apply to federal class actions”); Molock v. Whole Foods Market, Inc., 297 F.Supp.3d 114, 126 (D.D.C. 2018) (“the court agrees with Plaintiffs and concludes that Bristol-Myers does not apply to class actions”); In re Morning Song Bird Food Litigation, 2018 WL 1382746, at *5 (S.D. Cal. March 19, 2018) (“the Court finds Bristol-Myers inapplicable to this suit which involves a class action”); Casso’s Wellness Store & Gym LLC v. Spectrum Laboratory Products Inc., 2018 WL 1377608, at *5 (E.D. La. March 19, 2018) (“the Court does not construe Bristol-Myers as barring its exercise of jurisdiction over the purported nonresident plaintiffs’ claims in the instant putative class action”).
As contrary authority, the article cites two cases: DeBernardis v. NBTY Inc., 2018 WL 461228, at *2 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 18, 2018) (“it is more likely than not based on the Supreme Court’s comments about federalism that the courts will apply BMS to outlaw nationwide class actions . . . where there is no general jurisdiction over the Defendants”), and Wenokur v. AXA Equitable Life Insurance Co., 2017 WL 4357916, at *4 n.4 (D. Ariz. Oct. 2, 2017) (“The Court . . . lacks personal jurisdiction over the claims of putative class members with no connection to Arizona”).
We found that sort of odd, as in our last look at this issue – way back on January 26, 2018 – found the caselaw to stand at 12-2 in favor of applying Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, 137 S. Ct. 1773 (2017), to curtail multi-jurisdictional class actions where the effect of certification would be a class of non-resident plaintiffs suing a non-resident corporate defendant. None of the cases cited in the 360 article as restricting BMS due process principles was decided at that point, whereas both of the cases extending BMS due process to all state-law litigation had been and therefore were cited in our prior post.
Could the law really have shifted so drastically over the last few months?
The answer is no.
The first thing we need to do is not compare apples and oranges. This blog is concerned, first and foremost, with product liability litigation. That means we’re interested mostly in litigation that has its roots in state – not federal – law and is in federal court due to diversity jurisdiction. Thus, our most recent post was about “the issue of BMS and nationwide class actions under state law.” Our previous post likewise examined “our prediction . . . that personal jurisdiction would become a major obstacle to nationwide class actions based on state laws.” The emphasis added in both instances is to underscore that we’re not concerned with class action litigation brought under federal statutes. We have a separate post examining the caveat in BMS about federal Due Process under the Fifth Amendment. Our main takeaway from that post is that due process in diversity cases is analyzed under the Fourteenth Amendment as construed in BMS.
Of the six cases cited in the 360 article, 3½ involved federal statutory claims: Becker, 2018 WL 3007922 (Telephone Consumer Protection Act), Sanchez, 297 F. Supp.3d 1360 (Fair Credit Reporting Act), Casso, 2018 WL 1377608 (Telephone Consumer Protection Act), and Morning Song Bird, 2018 WL 1382746 (RICO & state consumer protection statutes). So right there, we subtract three of the six from the article’s list because they don’t involve what we care about. We also chide the court in Morning Song Bird for failing to distinguish between the state and federal claims in its analysis.
By contrast, almost all (but two) of the cases we cited in our prior posts involve state-law causes of action:
In favor of applying BMS to state-law class actions:
DeBernardis v. NBTY, Inc., 2018 WL 461228 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 18, 2018) (consumer protection); LDGP, LLC v. Cynosure, Inc., 2018 WL 439122 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 16, 2018) (consumer protection and common law); McDonnell v. Nature’s Way Products, LLC, 2017 WL 4864910 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 26, 2017) (consumer protection); Wenokur, 2017 WL 4357916 (D. Ariz. Oct. 2, 2017) (insurance); Spratley v. FCA US LLC, 2017 WL 4023348 (N.D.N.Y. Sept. 12, 2017) (economic loss product liability); Plumbers’ Local Union No. 690 Health Plan v. Apotex Corp., 2017 WL 3129147 (E.D. Pa. July 24, 2017) (consumer fraud); Famular v. Whirlpool Corp., 2017 WL 2470844 (S.D.N.Y. June 7, 2017) (consumer protection and warranty); Demedicis v. CVS Health Corp., 2017 WL 569157...
