The Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 ("CAFA") greatly expanded federal subject matter jurisdiction over class action lawsuits. By providing for diversity jurisdiction where the parties are not completely diverse (i.e., where some defendants have the same citizenship as some plaintiffs), CAFA permits more class actions to be filed in (and removed to) federal court than would be allowed otherwise. Yet CAFA is not an all-powerful jurisdictional cure all, as the Ninth Circuit acknowledged this week in a case called Floyd v. Am. Honda Motor Co., 2020 WL 4331769 (9th Cir. July 28, 2020).
The plaintiffs in Floyd purchased or leased certain models of the Honda Civic sedan, the transmissions in which allegedly failed to operate properly. Three named plaintiffs filed a putative class action lawsuit in the Central District of California, raising a federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act ("MMWA") claim and a variety of state-law warranty and consumer protection claims. In pleading federal subject matter jurisdiction, the plaintiffs relied on CAFA diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. ' 1332(d) and supplemental jurisdiction over their state-law claims under 28 U.S.C. ' 1367.
The MMWA, however, contains its own jurisdictional requirements. Among other things, it provides that class action claims brought under the statute are not "cognizable" in federal court if "the number of named plaintiffs is less than one hundred." 15 U.S.C. ' 2310(d)(3)(C). The defendants in Floyd argued that this statutory requirement precluded the plaintiffs from bringing their case in federal court (as there were only three named plaintiffs), while the plaintiffs asserted that the Court could still exercise jurisdiction because they satisfied all of the elements for diversity jurisdiction under CAFA.
Over the years, a split among federal district courts has emerged regarding whether class action plaintiffs can rely on CAFA...
