Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-13-15812/USCOURTS-ca9-13-15812-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 

---

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

PHILIP BOBBITT, individually and on

behalf of all others similarly

situated; JOHN J. SAMPSON; JOHN

HALL; BRENDA HALL,

Plaintiffs,

and

LANCE LABER,

Intervenor-Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.

MILBERG LLP; MELVYN I. WEISS;

MICHAEL C. SPENCER; JANINE LEE

POLLACK; LEE A. WEISS; BRIAN C.

KER; UITZ & ASSOCIATES; RONALD

A. UITZ; LUSTIGMAN FIRM;

SHELDON S. LUSTIGMAN; ANDRE B.

LUSTIGMAN; GABROY ROLLMAN &

BOSSE PC; JOHN GABROY; RONALD

M. LEHMAN,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 13-15812

D.C. No.

4:09-cv-00629-

FRZ

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Arizona

Frank R. Zapata, Senior District Judge, Presiding

 Case: 13-15812, 09/10/2015, ID: 9677250, DktEntry: 62-1, Page 1 of 12
2 BOBBITT V. MILBERG LLP

Argued and Submitted

June 25, 2015—San Francisco, California

Filed September 10, 2015

Before: Sidney R. Thomas, Chief Judge, John B. Owens,

Circuit Judge, and Anthony J. Battaglia,*

 District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Owens

SUMMARY**

Class Certification / Choice of Law

The panel vacated the district court’s order denying the

motion for class certification brought by named plaintiffs

Philip Bobbitt and John Sampson in their malpractice lawsuit

against Milberg LLP and various other law firms and lawyers. 

The panel held that the district court properly applied the

choice-of-law rules of the forum state Arizona. The panel

noted that Arizona courts apply the Restatement (Second) of

Conflict of Laws (1971) to determine the controlling law for

multistate torts.

* The Honorable Anthony J. Battaglia, District Judge for the U.S.

District Court for the Southern District of California, sitting by

designation.

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

 Case: 13-15812, 09/10/2015, ID: 9677250, DktEntry: 62-1, Page 2 of 12
BOBBITT V. MILBERG LLP 3

The panel held that the district court erred in holding that

the law of each class member’s home state governed his or

her individual claim, rather than the law of Arizona where the

alleged malpractice occurred. The panel held that the district

court abused its discretion by basing its class certification

decision on an erroneous view of the proper choice of law,

and remanded for further proceedings.

COUNSEL

Lawrence A. Kasten (argued), Robert H. McKirgan, and

William G. Voit, Lewis Roca Rothberber LLP, Phoenix,

Arizona; Guy M. Hohmann and Ryan T. Shelton, Hohmann,

Taube & Summers LLP, Austin, Texas; R. James George, Jr.

and Gary L. Lewis, George, Brothers, Kincaid & Horton,

LLP, Austin, Texas, for Intervenor-Plaintiff-Appellant.

Douglas J. Pepe (argued), Gregory P. Joseph, Honey L.

Kober, and Jeffrey H. Zaiger, Joseph Hage Aaronson LLC,

New York, New York; Peter Akmajian, Ed Moomjian II, and

Michele G. Thompson, Udall Law Firm LLP, Tucson,

Arizona, for Defendants-Appellees.

OPINION

OWENS, Circuit Judge:

Intervenor-plaintiff-appellant Lance Laber appeals from

the district court’s denial of the motion for class certification

brought by named plaintiffs Philip Bobbitt and John Sampson

in their malpractice lawsuit against defendant-appellee

Milberg LLP and various other law firms and lawyers

 Case: 13-15812, 09/10/2015, ID: 9677250, DktEntry: 62-1, Page 3 of 12
4 BOBBITT V. MILBERG LLP

(collectively “Milberg”). Because the district court erred in

holding that the law of each class member’s home state

governed his or her individual claim, rather than the law of

Arizona where the alleged malpractice occurred, we vacate

the district court’s order and remand this case for further

proceedings.

I. FACTS

A. The VALIC litigation

In 2001, Milberg, a national law firm specializing in class

actions, filed a lawsuit in Arizona district court against

Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company, Inc. (“VALIC”),

for alleged securities law violations. In January 2004, the

district court certified a class of plaintiffs, a significant

accomplishment in any class action litigation.1

But things went downhill for Milberg and the class. 

Milberg failed to meet certain mandatory disclosure

deadlines, and in August 2004, the district court struck the

plaintiffs’ expert testimony and witness list as a sanction. 

Milberg could not prove class-wide damages without

witnesses, so the court vacated class certification. And,

because Milberg could not, without witnesses, establish

causation and damages for the named plaintiffs, the court

entered judgment for VALIC, ending the case. Milberg did

not alert any of the absent class members to the certification

1 Although not relevant to this appeal, Milberg argues that the class was

never “certified in accordance with the strictures of Rule 23” because the

district court entered no findings of fact related to class certification. We

express no opinion on the validity of the certification in the VALIC

litigation.

 Case: 13-15812, 09/10/2015, ID: 9677250, DktEntry: 62-1, Page 4 of 12
BOBBITT V. MILBERG LLP 5

or decertification of the class or the dismissal of the action,

nor did it otherwise attempt to preserve the class’s claims.2

B. The Milberg Litigation

Plaintiffs in this appeal sued Milberg for malpractice for

failing to meet the discovery requirements in the VALIC class

action. Plaintiffs named as defendants four law firms as well

as various lawyers who worked for them. The firms are

located in New York, Washington, D.C., and Arizona. The

lawyer defendants are residents of Florida, New York,

Washington, D.C., Virginia, New Jersey, and Arizona. The

two lead plaintiffs are Texas residents.

After some litigation, the plaintiffs moved for class

certification. Defendants opposed on various grounds,

arguing the plaintiffs could not meet the requirements of Rule

23(a) and (b)(3). The district court denied the motion for

class certification, ruling that plaintiffs had failed to meet the

predominance requirement of Rule 23(b)(3). The court held

that individual questions predominated over common

questions, because the law applicable to each unnamed class

member’s claim was the law of that member’s domicile state. 

Because the laws of up to fifty states were implicated and

plaintiffs had failed to meet their burden to show that

conflicts between the fifty states’ laws did not defeat the

predominance requirement, the court denied class

certification.

2 On appeal, this court affirmed, holding that Milberg’s “failure to meet

the deadlines was neither substantially justified nor harmless.” Drnek v.

VALIC, 261 F. App’x 50, 51 (9th Cir. 2007).

 Case: 13-15812, 09/10/2015, ID: 9677250, DktEntry: 62-1, Page 5 of 12
6 BOBBITT V. MILBERG LLP

Named appellants Bobbitt and Sampson moved for

voluntary dismissal of their individual claims. The court

granted the motion on March 29, 2013, creating a final

judgment. Laber, an unnamed member of the putative class,

successfully moved to intervene for the limited purpose of

bringing this appeal.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Jurisdiction

We have jurisdiction over this appeal pursuant to Baker

v. Microsoft Corp., — F.3d —, 2015 WL 4393964, at *4 &

n.4 (9th Cir. July 20, 2015), and Berger v. Home Depot USA,

Inc., 741 F.3d 1061, 1065–66 (9th Cir. 2014).

B. Standard of Review

We review the denial of class certification for an abuse of

discretion. Stearns v. Ticketmaster Corp., 655 F.3d 1013,

1018 (9th Cir. 2011). A district court abuses its discretion

when it makes an error of law, or when it reaches a result that

is illogical, implausible, or without support in inferences that

may be drawn from the record. United States v. Hinkson,

585 F.3d 1247, 1261, 1263 (9th Cir. 2009) (en banc). Choice

of law questions are reviewed de novo. Coneff v. AT&T

Corp., 673 F.3d 1155, 1157 (9th Cir. 2012).

C. Class Certification

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, a class may be

certified if it meets all four class action prerequisites set forth

in Rule 23(a) and satisfies the requirements of at least one of

the three types of class actions of Rule 23(b)(1) to (3). 

 Case: 13-15812, 09/10/2015, ID: 9677250, DktEntry: 62-1, Page 6 of 12
BOBBITT V. MILBERG LLP 7

Plaintiffs here sought certification as a Rule 23(b)(3) class,

and the district court denied class certification because, in its

view, the law applicable to each individual class member’s

claim is the law of that member’s domicile state. The court

thus held that common questions of law did not predominate

as required under Rule 23(b)(3).

D. Choice of Law

The district court properly applied the choice-of-law rules

of the forum state, Arizona. Nelson v. Int’l Paint Co.,

716 F.2d 640, 643 (9th Cir. 1983). Arizona courts apply the

Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws (1971) (hereinafter

“Restatement”) to determine the controlling lawformultistate

torts. Bates v. Superior Court, 749 P.2d 1367, 1369–70

(Ariz. 1988). The Restatement instructs courts to look to the

state that has “the most significant relationship to the

occurrence and the parties” of any tort claim. Restatement

§ 145(1). The “especially relevant contacts” to be considered

include:

1. The place where the injury occurred;

2. The place where the conduct causing the

injury occurred;

3. The domicile, residence, nationality, place

of incorporation and place of business of the

parties;

4. The place where the relationship, if any,

between the parties is centered.

 Case: 13-15812, 09/10/2015, ID: 9677250, DktEntry: 62-1, Page 7 of 12
8 BOBBITT V. MILBERG LLP

Bates, 749 P.2d at 1370 (quoting Restatement § 145(2)). 

“The inquiry is qualitative, not quantitative. The court must

evaluate the contacts ‘according to their relative importance

with respect to the particular issue.’” Id. (citation omitted)

(quoting Restatement § 145(2)).

The first § 145 factor, the place of injury, supports

application of Arizona law. The unnamed class members

were injured when Milberg failed to meet deadlines and make

timely filings in the Arizona court. The result of that alleged

negligence was vacatur of the class certification order, which

also occurred in the Arizona court. The unnamed class

members lost the potential benefits of class certification in the

Arizona litigation. This injury occurred in Arizona.

Indeed, most courts applying § 145 in analogous

situations agree that negligent behavior in litigation injures

the client in the forum state of the court, whether or not the

client is physically present in the state. See Patton v. Cox,

276 F.3d 493, 497 (9th Cir. 2002) (considering the location of

a quasi-judicial proceeding as the “most persuasive” factor in

choice-of-law analysis); ACE Am. Ins. Co. v. Sandberg,

Phoenix & Von Gontard, PC, 900 F. Supp. 2d 887, 896 (S.D.

Ill. 2012) (place of litigation controlled because “[t]he gist of

this action is that [defendant] bungled the defense of the . . .

case”); Foulke v. Dugan, 187 F. Supp. 2d 253, 257 (E.D. Pa.

2002) (injury resulting from legal malpractice was having

case dismissed, and that injury occurred where litigation was

pending); In re Kaiser Grp. Int’l, Inc., Adversary No. 09-

52317-MFW, 2010 WL 3271198, at *5 (Bankr. D. Del. Aug.

17, 2010) (“Because the bankruptcy case, and the actions

giving rise to the alleged attorney malpractice, occurred in

Delaware, the Court concludes that Delaware is the place of

injury.”); see also David B. Lilly Co., Inc. v. Fisher, 18 F.3d

 Case: 13-15812, 09/10/2015, ID: 9677250, DktEntry: 62-1, Page 8 of 12
BOBBITT V. MILBERG LLP 9

1112, 1119–20 (3d Cir. 1994) (injury occurred where, “[a]s

a practical matter, . . . [legal] services were rendered”).

The district court appeared to assume that any economic

injury necessarily occurs in the victim’s domicile state. 

While this general principle may apply in many cases, certain

economic interests may be held—and may be injured—out of

state. Our inquiry focuses not on the place where the victim

feels the consequences of the injury, but on the location of

injury itself. Cf. Fields v. Legacy Health Sys., 413 F.3d 943,

952–53 (9th Cir. 2005) (in wrongful death case, the injury

occurred where the decedent was harmed, not where she

died). The interest here is not the right to recover on the

underlying claim, since the unnamed class members’

underlying claims remained intact after the decertification of

the class. Rather, the interest at issue is the potential recovery

in Arizona litigation. That interest was held in Arizona, and

thus the place of injury is Arizona.

Milberg cites Johnson v. Nextel Commc’ns Inc., 780 F.3d

128 (2d Cir. 2015), in which the Second Circuit applied § 145

to the claims of unnamed class members in a class action

alleging attorney malpractice. Johnson is distinguishable

because the defendants in that case actually developed an

attorney-client relationship with the unnamed class members

in their respective home states. Id. at 132. The plaintiffs

alleged that the legal services they received in their home

states were marred by a conflict of interest. Id. at 133. In

contrast to the present case, the allegedly defective legal

services resulted in the final resolution of the plaintiffs’

underlying claims. Id. Under those circumstances, the

plaintiffs were injured in their home states, not the state

where their claims happened to be resolved. Johnson does

 Case: 13-15812, 09/10/2015, ID: 9677250, DktEntry: 62-1, Page 9 of 12
10 BOBBITT V. MILBERG LLP

not aid Milberg here, where all critical actions leading to

injury and the injury itself occurred in Arizona.

Similarly, the second § 145 factor—where the conduct

causing the injury occurred—favors application of Arizona

law. Although the district court correctly concluded that the

various defendant law firms and attorneys performed legal

services across several states, the critical conduct causing the

injury was the failure to meet court deadlines in Arizona. 

Arizona has a strong interest in regulating attorney conduct

in courts within its borders. See Patton, 276 F.3d at 497;

Trierweiler v. Croxton & Trench Holding Corp., 90 F.3d

1523, 1536 (10th Cir. 1996); Restatement § 145(2) cmt. e

(“[W]hen the primary purpose of the tort rule involved is to

deter or punish misconduct, the place where the conduct

occurred has peculiar significance.”).

The fourth § 145 factor—the center of the relationship of

the parties—also supports application of Arizona law. The

relationship between the unnamed Drnek class members and

their lawyers existed only in Arizona. The district court

discounted this factor, reasoning that Milberg had only a

minimal relationship with the unnamed class members. The

choice-of-law test, however, looks for the state with the most

significant relationship to the claim; the test thus focuses not

on the magnitude of the relationship between the parties, but

on the state where the relevant relationship existed and that

state’s interest in the claim. See Bryant v. Silverman,

703 P.2d 1190, 1195 (Ariz. 1985). Whether or not Milberg

established a full attorney-client relationship with the

unnamed class members, there was some relationship. 

Indeed, had the class remained certified and proceeded to a

valid final judgment, the unnamed class members would

 Case: 13-15812, 09/10/2015, ID: 9677250, DktEntry: 62-1, Page 10 of 12
BOBBITT V. MILBERG LLP 11

likely have been bound by the final judgment. That

relationship was centered in Arizona.

The three factors discussed above weigh strongly in favor

of application of Arizona law, and when the place of injury

and the conduct causing the injury coincide, “that state will

usually be the state of the applicable law[,] . . . particularly

. . . with respect to issues involving standards of conduct.” 

Restatement § 145(2) cmt. e. The district court rested its

contrary conclusion largely on the third § 145 factor: the

domicile of the parties. The court reasoned that the domiciles

of the millions of plaintiffs scattered throughout the fifty

states weighed strongly in favor of application of the laws of

all fifty states. The Rule 23(b)(3) predominance question,

however, asks whether common questions of law related to

each class member’s individual claim predominate. To

answer that question, we must determine the applicable law

individually, rather than collectively. Each class member’s

claim has one plaintiff, not millions of plaintiffs.

Defendants are domiciled in Florida, New York,

Washington, D.C., Virginia, New Jersey, and Arizona. The

unnamed class members reside in all fifty states. Because

there is no single state where a number of parties are

“grouped,” this factor is entitled to little weight. See

Restatement § 145(2) cmt. e.3

 

3

 Although some Arizona cases placed extreme weight on the domicile

of the plaintiff, reasoning that the state of domicile is the only state with

an interest in ensuring the plaintiff’s recovery, Baroldy v. Ortho Pharm.

Corp., 760 P.2d 574, 579 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1988); Ambrose ex rel. Ambrose

v. Ill.-Cal. Express, 729 P.2d 331, 334 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1986) (citing

Bryant, 703 P.2d 1190), recent Arizona Supreme Court authority confirms

that under the § 145 test, the domicile of the plaintiff is entitled to little

weight when it bears little relation to the injury. Pounders v. Enserch

 Case: 13-15812, 09/10/2015, ID: 9677250, DktEntry: 62-1, Page 11 of 12
12 BOBBITT V. MILBERG LLP

Each of the § 145 factors either supports application of

Arizona law or is neutral. Arizona has the most significant

relationship to these plaintiffs’ claims of attorneymalpractice

occurring in an Arizona court, and thus Arizona law applies

to each individual class member’s claim. The district court

abused its discretion by basing its class certification decision

on an erroneous view of the proper choice of law. See

Hinkson, 585 F.3d at 1261.4

The order denying class certification is VACATED, and

the matter is REMANDED for further proceedings. The

parties shall bear their own respective costs on appeal.5

E&C, Inc., 306 P.3d 9, 14 (Ariz. 2013); see also Garcia v. Gen. Motors

Corp., 990 P.2d 1069, 1076 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1999) (clarifying that the

victim’s domicile is important in personal injury cases).

4 Because we conclude that Arizona law applies to each individual class

member’s claim, we need not resolve Laber’s alternative contention that

Milberg is judicially estopped from denying that Arizona law applies.

5 We express no opinion on whether the other requirements of the Rule

23 test are satisfied.

 Case: 13-15812, 09/10/2015, ID: 9677250, DktEntry: 62-1, Page 12 of 12