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Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 19-1204

FLORENCE MUSSAT, M.D., S.C., on behalf of itself and all others 

similarly situated, 

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

IQVIA, INC., et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 17 C 8841 — Virginia M. Kendall, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED SEPTEMBER 27, 2019 — DECIDED MARCH 11, 2020

____________________

Before WOOD,Chief Judge, and KANNE and BARRETT, Circuit 

Judges.

WOOD, Chief Judge. Florence Mussat, an Illinois physician 

doing business through a professional services corporation, 

received two unsolicited faxes from IQVIA, a Delaware corporation with its headquarters in Pennsylvania. These faxes 

failed to include the opt-out notice required by federal statute.

Mussat’s corporation (to which we refer simply as Mussat)

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brought a putative class action in the Northern District of Illinois under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. 

§ 227, on behalf of itself and all persons in the country who 

had received similar junk faxes from IQVIA in the four previous years. IQVIA moved to strike the class definition, arguing 

that the district court did not have personal jurisdiction over 

the non-Illinois members of the proposed nationwide class.

The district court granted the motion to strike, reasoning

that under the Supreme Court’s decision in Bristol-Myers 

Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, 137 S. Ct. 1773 (2017), not just the 

named plaintiff, but also the unnamed members of the class, 

each had to show minimum contacts between the defendant 

and the forum state. Because IQVIA is not subject to general 

jurisdiction in Illinois, the district court turned to specific jurisdiction. Applying those rules, see Walden v. Fiore, 571 U.S. 

277, 283–86 (2014), it found that it had no jurisdiction over the 

claims of parties who, unlike Mussat, were harmed outside of 

Illinois. We granted Mussat’s petition to appeal from that order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(f). We now reaffirm the Rule 23(f) order, and we hold that the principles 

announced in Bristol-Myers do not apply to the case of a nationwide class action filed in federal court under a federal 

statute. We reverse the order of the district court and remand 

for further proceedings.

I

Before examining the personal-jurisdiction issue, we must 

assure ourselves that this appeal falls within the scope of Rule 

23(f), which “permit[s] an appeal from an order granting or 

denying class-action certification under this rule.” Fed. R. Civ. 

P. 23(f). IQVIA argues that the order before us neither grants 

nor denies class status and thus it is an ordinary interlocutory 

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No. 19-1204 3

order that must await final judgment before review is possible. See 28 U.S.C. § 1291. It is true that the district court’s order 

does not say, in so many words, that it is granting or denying 

class certification. But that is not the end of the story. Here is 

what the district court did: pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil 

Procedure 12, it granted IQVIA’s motion to strike Mussat’s 

class definition, insofar as Mussat proposed to assert claims 

on behalf of people with no contacts to Illinois. IQVIA observes that Mussat is still free to seek certification of an Illinois-only class. More fundamentally, it contends that the 

plain language of Rule 23(f) forecloses jurisdiction over this 

appeal because the order responded to a motion to strike, not 

a motion to certify (or decertify) a class. Because Rule 23(f) 

allows interlocutory appeals only from orders “under this

rule,” IQVIA concludes, an appeal is not permitted here, 

where the district court made its decision pursuant to Rule 12. 

We review this jurisdictional question de novo. Marshall v. 

Blake, 885 F.3d 1065, 1071 (7th Cir. 2018).

This is not the first time we have seen a Rule 12 motion to 

strike used this way in a putative class action. In In re Bemis 

Co., Inc., 279 F.3d 419 (7th Cir. 2002), the Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission (EEOC) brought a lawsuit against 

Bemis Company on behalf of a class of African American employees. Bemis answered, arguing that the EEOC had not 

complied with Rule 23. The EEOC moved to strike that part 

of the answer, and the district court granted the motion. Bemis then appealed under Rule 23(f). Just as IQVIA has done 

here, the EEOC argued that this court had no jurisdiction to 

hear the appeal “because the district court’s order did not 

grant or deny class certification.” 279 F.3d at 421. We were not 

persuaded. We concluded that “[t]he rejection of [Bemis’s] position was the functional equivalent of denying a motion to 

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certify a case as a class action, a denial that Rule 23(f) makes 

appealable.” Id. 

Our holding in Bemis has received the endorsement of the 

Supreme Court. In Microsoft v. Baker, 137 S. Ct. 1702 (2017), the 

Court confirmed that “[a]n order striking class allegation is 

functionally equivalent to an order denying class certification 

and therefore appealable under Rule 23(f).” Id. at 1711 n.7. In 

so doing, it cited Bemis with approval. Id. Given the Court’s 

endorsement of our reasoning, we see no reason to find that 

Bemis was wrongly decided, as IQVIA urges. The cases are 

clear: Rule 23(f) grants the courts of appeals jurisdiction to 

hear interlocutory appeals of orders that expressly or as a 

functional matter resolve the question of class certification 

one way or the other. 

The fact that Mussat still has an opportunity to seek certification of a much narrower class does not change anything. 

The district court’s order eliminates all possibility of certifying the nationwide class Mussat sought, and so to that extent 

it operates as a denial of certification for one proposed class. 

Rule 23(f) appeals are not limited to cases in which the district 

court has definitively rejected any and all possible hypothetical classes. To the contrary, we have held that Rule 23(f) permits a party to appeal the partial denial of a class. See Matz v. 

Household Int’l Tax Reduction Inv. Plan, 687 F.3d 824, 826 (7th

Cir. 2012) (holding that the court had jurisdiction under Rule 

23(f) over a district court order partially decertifying a class 

by eliminating 3,000 to 3,500 members); see also Driver v. AppleIllinois, LLC, 739 F.3d 1073, 1076 (7th Cir. 2014) (holding 

that orders modifying class definitions may be appealed so 

long as the alteration is “material”).

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The district court’s order striking the nationwide class was 

the functional equivalent of an order denying certification of 

the class Mussat proposed. We therefore have jurisdiction 

over this appeal under Rule 23(f).

II

On to personal jurisdiction. IQVIA makes two principal 

arguments: first, it contends that the Supreme Court’s decision in Bristol-Myers requires a decision in its favor; and second, it urges that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k) does 

the same. We address these points in that order.

Before the Supreme Court’s decision in Bristol-Myers,

there was a general consensus that due process principles did 

not prohibit a plaintiff from seeking to represent a nationwide 

class in federal court, even if the federal court did not have 

general jurisdiction over the defendant. See, e.g., Al Haj v. 

Pfizer, Inc., 338 F. Supp. 3d 815, 818–19 (N.D. Ill. 2018) (noting 

that the defendant could not produce any pre-Bristol-Myers

decision holding that “in a class action where defendant is not 

subject to general jurisdiction, specific jurisdiction must be established not only as to the named plaintiff(s), but also as to 

the absent class members”). For cases relying on specific jurisdiction over the defendant, minimum contacts, purposeful 

availment, and relation to the claim were assessed only with 

respect to the named plaintiffs. Even if the links between the 

defendant and an out-of-state unnamed class member were 

confined to that person’s home state, that did not destroy personal jurisdiction. Once certified, the class as a whole is the 

litigating entity, see Payton v. Cnty. of Kane, 308 F.3d 673, 680–

81 (7th Cir. 2002), and its affiliation with a forum depends 

only on the named plaintiffs. 

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The Supreme Court has regularly entertained cases involving nationwide classes where the plaintiff relied on specific, rather than general, personal jurisdiction in the trial 

court, without any comment about the supposed jurisdictional problem IQVIA raises. See, e.g., Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. 

Dukes, 564 U.S. 338 (2011) (nationwide class action brought in 

California court; defendant headquartered in Arkansas and 

incorporated in Delaware); Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts, 472 

U.S. 797 (1985) (nationwide class action brought in Kansas 

court; defendant headquartered in Oklahoma and incorporated in Delaware); see also Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U.S. 682, 

702 (1979) (“Nothing in Rule 23 ... limits the geographical 

scope of a class action that is brought in conformity with that 

Rule.”). Although IQVIA and its amici insist that class actions 

have always required minimum contacts between all class 

members and the forum, this is nothing more than ipse dixit. 

Decades of case law show that this has not been the practice 

of the federal courts. What is true, however, is that this issue 

has not been examined closely. The current debate was 

sparked by the Supreme Court’s decision in Bristol-Myers—a 

case that did not involve a certified class action, but instead 

was brought under a different aggregation device. A closer 

look at that decision illustrates why it does not govern here.

In Bristol-Myers, 600 plaintiffs, most of whom were not 

California residents, filed a lawsuit in California state court 

against Bristol-Myers Squibb, asserting state-law claims 

based on injuries they suffered from taking Plavix, a blood 

thinning drug. 137 S. Ct. at 1777. Bristol-Myers sold Plavix in 

California, but it had no other contacts with the state. The 

plaintiffs brought their case as a coordinated mass action, 

which is a device authorized under section 404 of the California Civil Procedure Code, but which has no analogue in the 

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Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. That statute provides in relevant part as follows:

When civil actions sharing a common question of 

fact or law are pending in different courts, a petition 

for coordination may be submitted to the Chairperson 

of the Judicial Council, by the presiding judge of any 

such court, or by any party ... . A petition for coordination ... shall be supported by a declaration stating 

facts showing that the actions are complex ... and that 

the actions meet the standards specified in Section 

404.1. On receipt of a petition for coordination, the 

Chairperson of the Judicial Council may assign a judge 

to determine whether the actions are complex, and if 

so, whether coordination of the actions is appropriate

... .

In other words, rather like the multi-district litigation process 

in federal court, see 28 U.S.C. § 1407, section 404 permits consolidation of individual cases, brought by individual plaintiffs, when the necessary findings are made. The Bristol-Myers 

suit itself began as eight separate actions, brought on behalf 

of 86 California residents and 592 residents of 33 other states. 

137 S. Ct. at 1778.

In the Supreme Court, Bristol-Myers argued that the California courts did not have jurisdiction over it with respect to 

the claims of the plaintiffs who were not California residents 

and had not purchased, used, or been injured by Plavix in California. The Court agreed. Id. at 1783–84. It noted that its holding constituted a “straightforward application ... of settled 

principles of personal jurisdiction.” Id. at 1783. (Interestingly, 

the California courts had held that they had general jurisdiction over Bristol-Myers, but that theory dropped out of the 

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case after the Supreme Court’s decision in Daimler AG v. Bauman, 571 U.S. 117 (2014).)

Although Bristol-Myers arose in the context of consolidated individual suits, the district court in our case thought 

that the Bristol-Myers approach to personal jurisdiction 

should be extended to certified class actions. It held that the 

Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment precludes 

the exercise of personal jurisdiction over a defendant where 

“nonresident, absent members [of a class] seek to aggregate 

their claims with an in-forum resident, even though the defendant allegedly injured the nonresidents outside of the forum.” (Actually, in federal court it is the Fifth Amendment’s 

Due Process Clause that is applicable, but the mention of the 

Fourteenth Amendment made no difference here.) This 

meant, the court realized, that nationwide class actions will, 

as a practical matter, be impossible any time the defendant is 

not subject to general jurisdiction. This would have been far 

from the routine application of personal-jurisdiction rules 

that Bristol-Myers said it was performing. Nonetheless, the 

district court felt compelled to reach that result. 

Procedural formalities matter, however, as the Supreme 

Court emphasized in Taylor v. Sturgell, 553 U.S. 880 (2008), 

where it stressed the importance of class certification as a prerequisite for binding a nonparty (including an unnamed class 

member) to the outcome of a suit. Id. at 894. With that in mind, 

it rejected the notion of “virtual representation” as an end-run 

around the careful procedural protections outlined in Rule 23. 

Id. at 901. Class actions, in short, are different from many 

other types of aggregate litigation, and that difference matters 

in numerous ways for the unnamed members of the class. 

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Bristol-Myers neither reached nor resolved the question 

whether, in a Rule 23 class action, each unnamed member of 

the class must separately establish specific personal jurisdiction over a defendant. In holding otherwise, the district court 

failed to recognize the critical distinction between this case 

and Bristol-Myers. The Bristol-Myers plaintiffs brought a coordinated mass action, which as we noted earlier does not involve any absentee litigants. In a section 404 case, all of the 

plaintiffs are named parties to the case. The statute allows the 

trial court to consolidate their cases for resolution of shared 

legal issues before moving on to individual issues. In a 

Rule 23 class action, by contrast, the lead plaintiffs earn the 

right to represent the interests of absent class members by satisfying all four criteria of Rule 23(a) and one branch of Rule 

23(b). The absent class members are not full parties to the case

for many purposes. 

The proper characterization of the status of absent class 

members depends on the issue. As the Supreme Court recognized in Devlin v. Scardelletti, 536 U.S. 1 (2002), “[n]onnamed 

class members ... may be parties for some purposes and not 

for others. The label ‘party’ does not indicate an absolute characteristic, but rather a conclusion about the applicability of 

various procedural rules that may differ based on context.” Id. 

at 9–10. For example, absent class members are not considered 

parties for assessing whether the requirement of diverse citizenship under 28 U.S.C. § 1332 has been met. Id. at 10 (“[N]onnamed class members cannot defeat complete diversity....”). 

As long as the named representative meets the amount-incontroversy requirement, jurisdiction exists over the claims of 

the unnamed members. Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Allapattah Servs., 

Inc., 545 U.S. 546, 566–67 (2005) (relying on the supplemental 

jurisdiction statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1367, and recognizing that the 

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statute overruled Zahn v. Int’l Paper Co., 414 U.S. 291 (1973)). 

Nor are absent class members considered when a court decides whether it is the proper venue. Appleton Elec. Co. v. Advance-United Expressways, 494 F.2d 126, 140 (7th Cir. 1974) 

(holding that Rule 23 does not “require the establishment of 

venue for nonrepresentative-party class members”). We see 

no reason why personal jurisdiction should be treated any differently from subject-matter jurisdiction and venue: the 

named representatives must be able to demonstrate either 

general or specific personal jurisdiction, but the unnamed 

class members are not required to do so. 

This brings us to IQVIA’s second major point: that allowing the non-Illinois unnamed class members to proceed 

would be inconsistent with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure

4(k), which governs service of process. Rule 4(k)(1) states, in 

relevant part, that “[s]erving a summons or filing a waiver of 

service establishes personal jurisdiction over a defendant who 

is subject to the jurisdiction of a court of general jurisdiction 

in the state where the district court is located.” IQVIA reads 

Rule 4(k) broadly, as not requiring merely that a plaintiff comply with state-based rules on the service of process, but also 

establishing an independent limitation on a federal court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction. Because Illinois law would not 

authorize some of the absent members of the putative class to 

sue IQVIA in Illinois, the argument goes, Rule 4(k) prohibits 

the federal district court in Illinois from exercising jurisdiction. 

Aside from the fact that IQVIA’s position is in tension with 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 82, which stipulates that the 

rules “do not extend or limit the jurisdiction of the district 

courts or the venue of actions in those courts,” there is a 

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simpler problem with it: IQVIA is mixing up the concepts of 

service and jurisdiction. Rule 4(k) addresses how and where to 

serve process; it does not specify on whom process must be 

served. It is true that, with certain exceptions, a federal district 

court has personal jurisdiction only over a party who would 

be subject to the jurisdiction of the state court where the federal district court is located. But, as discussed above, a district 

court need not have personal jurisdiction over the claims of 

absent class members at all. The rules permit a variety of representatives to sue in their own names: an executor, an administrator, a guardian, and a trustee, to name a few. See Fed. R. 

Civ. P. 17(a)(1). If any of those is a defendant, the court will 

assess personal jurisdiction with respect to that person, not 

with respect to the person being represented. So, too, with 

class actions: if the court has personal jurisdiction over the defendant with respect to the class representative’s claim, the 

case may proceed. Nothing in the Federal Rules governing 

service of process contradicts this.

The rules for class certification support a focus on the 

named representative for purposes of personal jurisdiction. 

Rule 23(b)(3), for example, governs damages class actions. 

Among the factors it lists is “the desirability or undesirability 

of concentrating the litigation of the claims in the particular 

forum.” The Committee Note to this provision mentions that 

a court should consider the desirability of the forum “in contrast to allowing the claims to be litigated separately in forums to which they would ordinarily be brought.” Fed. R. 

Civ. P. 23(b)(3), Committee Note to 1966 amendment. These 

provisions recognize that a class action may extend beyond 

the boundaries of the state where the lead plaintiff brings the 

case. And nothing in the Rules frowns on nationwide class 

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actions, even in a forum where the defendant is not subject to 

general jurisdiction.

Finally, it is worth recalling that the Supreme Court in 

Bristol-Myers expressly reserved the question whether its 

holding extended to the federal courts at all. 137 S. Ct. at 1784 

(“[S]ince our decision concerns the due process limits on the 

exercise of specific jurisdiction by a State, we leave open the 

question whether the Fifth Amendment imposes the same restrictions on the exercise of personal jurisdiction by a federal 

court.”). In addition, the opinion does not reach the question 

whether its holding would apply to a class action. Id. at 1789

n.4 (Sotomayor, J., dissenting) (“The Court today does not 

confront the question whether its opinion here would also apply to a class action.”). Fitting this problem into the broader 

edifice of class-action law, we are convinced that this is one of 

the areas Scardelletti identified in which the absentees are 

more like nonparties, and thus there is no need to locate each 

and every one of them and conduct a separate personal-jurisdiction analysis of their claims.

III

Despite its insistence to the contrary, IQVIA urges a major 

change in the law of personal jurisdiction and class actions. 

This change is not warranted by the Supreme Court’s decision 

in Bristol-Myers, nor by the alternative arguments based on 

Rule 4(k) that IQVIA puts forth. We therefore REVERSE the 

judgment of the district court and REMAND for further proceedings.

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