Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-19-55241/USCOURTS-ca9-19-55241-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Taline Bedelian
Appellee
Oscar Guevara
Appellee
Kim Bruce Howlett
Appellee
Life Insurance Company of the Southwest
Appellant
Ricardo Lara
Amicus Curiae
Muriel Spooner
Appellee
Joyce Walker
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

JOYCE WALKER; KIM BRUCE 

HOWLETT; MURIEL SPOONER;

TALINE BEDELIAN; OSCAR 

GUEVARA, on behalf of themselves 

and all others similarly situated,

Plaintiffs-Appellees/

Cross-Appellants,

v.

LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF THE 

SOUTHWEST, a Texas corporation,

Defendant-Appellant/

Cross-Appellee.

Nos. 19-55241

19-55242

D.C. No.

2:10-cv-09198-

JVS-JDE

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

James V. Selna, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted February 10, 2020

Pasadena, California

Filed March 23, 2020

Before: Marsha S. Berzon, Richard C. Tallman,

and Ryan D. Nelson, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Tallman

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2 WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST

SUMMARY*

Class Certification

The panel affirmed the district court’s class certification 

order, and dismissed plaintiffs’ untimely and procedurally 

improper attempts to cross-appeal, in a diversity action 

alleging a life insurance company violated California law 

concerning policy investment information.

In the course of purchasing a policy, a prospective 

policyholder receives at least one type of illustration, which 

is an informational document projecting a policy’s returns: 

(1) a “pre-application” illustration, which the applicant may, 

but is not required to, receive before or at the same time as 

obtaining the policy application; and/or (2) a “batch”

illustration, which is delivered to the applicant along with a 

copy of the policy, after the applicant submits her application 

and the insurer approves it. 

The named plaintiffs received pre-application and batch 

illustrations, and allegedly relied on the illustrations in 

deciding to purchase policies. Plaintiffs alleged that the 

insurer’s illustrations of potential earnings violated 

California’s Unfair Competition Law (“UCL”). 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(3) requires that “questions of law 

and fact common to class members predominate over any 

questions affecting only individual members, and that a class 

action is superior to other methods.” The district court 

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

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

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WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST 3

certified a narrow class of California residents who were preapplication illustration recipients, and which effectively 

excluded those policyholders who received only batch 

illustrations when their policies were delivered. 

Considering the insurer’s challenge to the class 

certification order, the panel held that any misunderstanding 

on the district court’s behalf in interpreting Briseno v. 

ConAgra Foods, Inc., 844 F.3d 1121, 1133 (9th Cir. 2017), 

did not meaningfully influence its predominance analysis. 

The panel concluded that there was no separate error related 

to the class definition. To bring a UCL claim, a plaintiff 

must establish he suffered as a result of the defendant’s 

conduct. The panel held that the district court considered the 

key issue – whether each plaintiff was exposed to, and 

thereby could have relied on, the deficient illustrations. The 

panel further concluded that in UCL cases: exposure is 

relevant to predominance, but only to establish reliance; and 

a district court does not err per se by not considering the 

class membership question under the predominance prong of 

UCL analysis. The panel rejected the insurer’s two specific 

concerns to the class certification order: the district court’s 

reliance on Briseno; and the class definition. The panel held 

as an issue of first impression in this circuit that a district 

court can, as it did here, define a class in a way that 

automatically gives rise to a presumption of reliance.

The panel held that plaintiffs’ attempted appeals of the 

district court’s class certification and reconsideration orders 

were untimely and procedurally improper, respectively. The 

panel did not reach the merits of plaintiffs’ arguments. The 

panel further denied plaintiffs’ motion to take judicial notice 

of their petition to appeal, and the insurer’s answer thereto.

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4 WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST

COUNSEL

Noah A. Levine (argued), Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & 

Dorr LLP, New York, New York; Andrea J. Robinson and 

Timothy J. Perla, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr 

LLP, Boston, Massachusetts; Matthew T. Martens, Wilmer 

Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP, Washington, D.C.; 

Jonathan A. Shapiro, Baker Botts LLP, San Francisco, 

California; for Defendant-Appellant.

Brian P. Brosnahan (argued), Cornerstone Law Group, San 

Francisco, California; Lyn R. Agre, Margaret A. Ziemianek, 

and Veronica Nauts, Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP, San 

Francisco, California; for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Xavier Becerra, Attorney General; Diane S. Shaw, Senior 

Assistant Attorney General; Lisa W. Chao, Supervising 

Deputy Attorney; Office of the Attorney General, Los 

Angeles, California; for Amicus Curiae Ricardo Lara, 

Insurance Commissioner of the State of California.

OPINION

TALLMAN, Circuit Judge:

Life Insurance Company of the Southwest (“LSW”) 

appeals in case number 19-55241 a class-certification order, 

arguing the district court committed legal error by granting 

certification in a case featuring predominantly 

individualized questions. Joyce Walker and four other 

named plaintiffs in case number 19-55242 challenge, on 

behalf of the certified class (“Plaintiffs”), the same 

certification order. Plaintiffs seek to enlarge the class. LSW 

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WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST 5

counters that Plaintiffs’ appeal is either too late or 

procedurally improper.

In disposing of the issues before us, we are guided by 

well-established canons of class-certification law, which 

collectively—and as specifically applied here—remind us 

that the class-action mechanism is remedial, but not 

absolute. On one hand, the district court’s order certifying a 

class properly enables the mechanism to serve its intended 

purpose: providing individual plaintiffs with a vehicle 

through which they can efficiently protect their rights and 

overcome potentially prohibitive economic barriers to seek 

legal relief. On the other hand, those equitable justifications 

for the class-action mechanism do not save Plaintiffs’ case 

from the straightforward, even if unforgiving, timing and 

procedural requirements that serve practical casemanagement purposes.

We invoke these principles in affirming the district 

court’s certification order and declining to consider 

Plaintiffs’ cross-appeal.

I

LSW sells life insurance policies, which also double as 

investment vehicles, two of which are challenged here. In 

the course of purchasing a policy, a prospective policyholder 

receives at least one type of “illustration,” which is an 

informational document projecting a policy’s returns, over 

the life of the policy, on premiums in addition to the payment 

of a lump-sum benefit at death. The first kind of illustration 

is a “pre-application” illustration, which the applicant may, 

but is not required to, receive before or at the same time as 

obtaining the policy application. A “batch” illustration, in 

contrast, typically is delivered to the applicant along with a 

copy of the policy, after the applicant submits her application 

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6 WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST

and LSW approves it. LSW does not always provide an 

applicant with a batch illustration. But it must do so under 

California law if either a pre-application illustration was 

never given to the applicant, or the policy as issued reflected 

different underwriting criteria from the pre-application 

illustration. All five named Plaintiffs received preapplication and batch illustrations.

Plaintiffs argue that LSW’s illustrations of potential 

earnings violate California’s Unfair Competition Law 

(“UCL”) because they do not define or detail the meaning of 

policy column headings reading “Guaranteed Values at 

2.00%” and “Guaranteed Values at 2.50%.” Plaintiffs also 

allege the illustrations promised to eliminate a certain 

administrative fee after ten years, and that the illustrations 

fail to describe this “nonguaranteed” element in violation of 

California law. Plaintiffs allegedly relied on the illustrations 

in deciding to purchase policies.

Plaintiffs’ UCL case has taken a circuitous path. The 

district court originally dismissed the very claims underlying 

this appeal, finding that the part of the UCL under which 

Plaintiffs sued did not create a private right of action. 

Around the same time, in November 2012, the district court 

certified two classes advancing related but distinct claims. 

One class consisted of policyholders advancing commonlaw fraud claims against LSW. The other was made up of 

policyholders who received pre-application illustrations and 

brought claims under a different part of the UCL. The 

district court subsequently decertified the latter class, 

concluding that the task of determining on a plaintiff-byplaintiff basis who received pre-application illustrations 

would predominate over questions common to the class, 

rendering class treatment inappropriate.

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WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST 7

After a jury returned a defense verdict on the fraud and 

UCL claims, a panel of this Court reversed the district 

court’s dismissal order. Plaintiffs then sought to litigate the 

reinstated UCL claims through yet another class action. 

They proposed two alternative class definitions, both 

describing California residents who purchased certain LSW 

policies during a specified period. The narrower of the two 

classes was limited to recipients of pre-application 

illustrations:

All persons who purchased a Provider Policy 

or Paragon Policy from Life Insurance 

Company of the Southwest that was issued 

between September 24, 2006[,] and April 27, 

2014, who resided in California at the time 

the Policy was issued, and who received an 

illustration on or before the date of policy 

application.

By extending membership only to pre-application 

illustration recipients, the proposed class—like the class the 

district court decertified—effectively excluded those 

policyholders who received only batch illustrations when 

their policies were delivered.

The district court certified the narrow class over the same 

objection LSW advanced in 2012 and 2013 regarding the 

later-decertified class: that Plaintiffs’ claims were incapable 

of class-wide proof because the court would have to 

individually establish each Plaintiff’s receipt of a preapplication illustration. LSW argued that certification would 

be improper under Rule 23(b)(3) of the Federal Rules of 

Civil Procedure because individualized questions 

predominated over class-wide ones. The court rejected 

LSW’s concern and responded to it, in part by citing our 

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8 WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST

decision in Briseno v. ConAgra Foods, Inc., 844 F.3d 1121, 

1133 (9th Cir. 2017), which clarified that “Rule 23 neither 

provides nor implies that demonstrating an administratively 

feasible way to identify class members is a prerequisite to 

class certification.” Based on Briseno, the district court held 

that “the concerns motivating [its] prior Decertification 

Order [of the pre-application illustration recipient class] are 

no longer valid justifications to find a lack of 

predominance.”

Under the “Predominance” sub-heading of the 

certification order, the court determined Plaintiffs were 

entitled to a legal presumption that all class members relied 

on the illustrations before purchase. It reasoned, “[E]very 

member of the class was exposed to an illustration 

containing [UCL] violations prior to his or her purchase of 

an LSW policy” because the class definition excluded 

policyholders who did not obtain pre-application 

illustrations. The court rejected LSW’s argument that other 

information provided to applicants could have corrected any 

misimpression the illustrations caused.

LSW petitioned for permission to appeal the July 31, 

2018, certification order on August 14. On the same day, 

Plaintiffs moved the district court to reconsider its 

certification order and adopt the broader of the two class 

definitions originally proposed, which did not limit class 

membership to pre-application illustration recipients and 

therefore included batch illustration recipients. The district 

court denied Plaintiffs’ motion on September 10, without 

prejudice, for failure to satisfy a local meet-and-confer rule. 

Plaintiffs re-noticed their motion for reconsideration on 

September 18, and the district court denied it on October 22, 

2018. Plaintiffs petitioned our Court for permission to 

appeal the October 22 order fourteen days later. We granted 

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WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST 9

LSW’s petition to appeal and Plaintiffs’ petition to appeal on 

a conditional basis.

II

The district court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1332(d)(2)(A). We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1292(e).

Two standards guide our review of class-certification 

decisions. The abuse-of-discretion standard applies to “any 

particular underlying Rule 23 determination involving a 

discretionary determination,” Yokoyama v. Midland Nat’l 

Life Ins. Co., 594 F.3d 1087, 1091 (9th Cir. 2010), including 

whether the district court “relies upon an improper factor, 

omits consideration of a factor entitled to substantial weight, 

or mulls the correct mix of factors but makes a clear error of 

judgment in assaying them,” Wolin v. Jaguar Land Rover N. 

Am., LLC, 617 F.3d 1168, 1171 (9th Cir. 2010) (quoting 

Parra v. Bashas’, Inc., 536 F.3d 975, 977–78 (9th Cir. 

2008)). The Court “accord[s] the district court noticeably 

more deference” to a grant of certification “than when [it] 

review[s] a denial.” Wolin, 617 F.3d at 1171 (quoting In re 

Salomon Analyst Metromedia Litig., 544 F.3d 474, 480 (2d 

Cir. 2008)). But we grant no deference to the district court’s 

legal conclusions, which we review de novo. See Yokoyama, 

594 F.3d at 1091. “Further, this [C]ourt has oft repeated that 

an error of law is an abuse of discretion.” Id. “[W]e may,” 

however, “sustain the court’s ruling [on class certification] 

on any ground supported by the record.” Hanon v. 

Dataproducts Corp., 976 F.2d 497, 508 (9th Cir. 1992).

III

LSW asks us to reverse the district court’s certification 

order. It alleges the district court committed legal error by

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10 WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST

(1) misapplying Briseno and (2) manipulating the class 

definition to certify the narrower of Plaintiffs’ two proposed 

classes even though individualized issues predominate over 

common ones in contravention of Rule 23(b)(3). While we 

do not agree with the district court’s apparent interpretation 

of Briseno, we find that any misunderstanding on the court’s 

part did not meaningfully influence its predominance 

analysis. We conclude there is no separate error related to 

the class definition.

A

A plaintiff pursuing class certification must satisfy each 

prerequisite of Rule 23(a) and establish an appropriate 

ground for maintaining the class action under Rule 23(b). 

Stearns v. Ticketmaster Corp., 655 F.3d 1013, 1019 (9th Cir. 

2011), abrogated on other grounds by Comcast Corp. v. 

Behrend, 569 U.S. 27 (2013). Rule 23(b)(3) in turn requires 

that “questions of law or fact common to class members 

predominate over any questions affecting only individual 

members, and that a class action is superior to other available 

methods for fairly and efficiently adjudicating the

controversy.”

To assess Rule 23(b)(3) predominance, we ask “whether 

proposed classes are sufficiently cohesive to warrant 

adjudication by representation.” Stearns, 655 F.3d at 1019 

(quoting In re Wells Fargo Home Mortg. Overtime Pay 

Litig., 571 F.3d 953, 957 (9th Cir. 2009)). We focus on 

whether “common questions present a significant aspect of 

the case and they can be resolved for all members of the class 

in a single adjudication”; if so, “there is clear justification 

for handling the dispute on a representative rather than on an 

individual basis.” Hanlon v. Chrysler Corp., 150 F.3d 1011, 

1022 (9th Cir. 1998) (quoting 7A Charles Alan Wright et al., 

Federal Practice & Procedure § 1778 (2d ed. 1986)), 

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WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST 11

overruled on other grounds by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v.

Dukes, 564 U.S. 338 (2011).

A district court’s assessment of predominance “begins, 

of course, with the elements of the underlying cause of 

action.” Stearns, 655 F.3d at 1020 (quoting Erica P. John 

Fund, Inc. v. Halliburton Co., 563 U.S. 804, 809 (2011)). 

The focus of the inquiry accordingly varies depending on the 

nature of the underlying claims. In UCL cases, district 

courts must consider whether class members were exposed 

to the defendant’s alleged misrepresentations, but for a 

single, critical purpose: establishing reliance.

The UCL bans “unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business 

act[s] or practice[s] and unfair, deceptive, untrue or 

misleading advertising.” Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200. 

To bring a UCL claim, a plaintiff must establish he suffered 

“as a result of” the defendant’s conduct. Id. § 17204. In the 

seminal California case on UCL class actions, In re Tobacco 

II Cases, the defendants moved to decertify a UCL class for 

the reason that individualized issues—i.e., whether all class 

members were exposed to, relied on, and were injured by 

allegedly false and deceptive advertisements—

predominated over common ones. 207 P.3d 20, 28 (Cal. 

2009). The California Supreme Court interpreted this statute 

to mean that named plaintiffs, but not absent ones, must 

show proof of “actual reliance” at the certification stage. Id.

at 38. Relying on California cases, wherein courts 

“repeatedly and consistently . . . h[eld] that relief under the 

UCL is available without individualized proof of deception, 

reliance and injury,” the court reasoned that “requiring all 

unnamed members of a class action to individually establish 

standing would effectively eliminate the class action lawsuit 

as a vehicle for the vindication” of rights under the UCL. Id.

at 35–36.

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12 WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST

We have repeatedly relied on Tobacco II in recognizing 

“what amounts to a conclusive presumption” of reliance in 

UCL cases. Stearns, 655 F.3d at 1021 n.13. The 

presumption serves to relieve UCL plaintiffs of their 

obligation to establish absent class members’ reliance, see

2 Newberg on Class Actions § 4:60 (5th ed. 2019)—an issue 

that, in other contexts, can raise so many individualized 

questions as to defeat predominance, id. § 4:58.

We have been careful to clarify, however, that the 

presumption will not arise in every UCL case. “For 

example, it might well be that there was no cohesion among 

the members because they were exposed to quite disparate 

information from various representatives of the defendant.” 

Stearns, 655 F.3d at 1020. To establish a reliance 

presumption, the operative question has become whether the 

defendant so pervasively disseminated material 

misrepresentations that all plaintiffs must have been exposed 

to them. See id. at 1020–21 (rejecting district court’s 

conclusion that individual reliance issues predominated for 

purposes of UCL claim, where plaintiffs alleged website 

automatically enrolled customers in a program that charged 

a monthly fee); Berger v. Home Depot USA, Inc., 741 F.3d 

1061, 1069 (9th Cir. 2014) (affirming district court’s 

conclusion that Rule 23(b) was not satisfied where Plaintiff 

“ha[d] not alleged that all of the members of his proposed 

class were exposed to Home Depot’s alleged deceptive 

practices”), abrogated on other grounds by Microsoft Corp. 

v. Baker, 137 S. Ct. 1702 (2017); Mazza v. Am. Honda Motor 

Co., 666 F.3d 581, 595–96 (9th Cir. 2012) (vacating district 

court’s certification order where Honda’s advertising 

program “f[e]ll short of the ‘extensive and long-term 

[fraudulent] advertising campaign’ at issue in Tobacco II” 

(quoting Tobacco II, 207 P.3d at 41)).

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WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST 13

B

Against this backdrop, there was no legal error in the 

form of the district court’s analysis. Contrary to LSW’s 

characterization of the certification order, the district court 

considered the key issue—whether each Plaintiff was 

exposed to, and thereby could have relied on, the deficient 

illustrations.

Under the certification order’s sub-heading 

“Predominance,” the court expressly acknowledged LSW’s 

arguments “that predominance is lacking because Plaintiffs’ 

claims raise individualized questions about the varied 

purchase processes,” and “that Plaintiffs must show that all 

policyholders saw the illustrations, had the alleged 

misunderstandings, and did not receive other information to 

eliminate the potential misunderstandings.” The district 

court undertook a detailed recounting of relevant Ninth 

Circuit class-certification cases; adopted a class definition 

that limits membership to only those policyholders who 

received pre-application illustrations, thereby ensuring all 

Plaintiffs would have been exposed to the illustrations; and 

ultimately rejected LSW’s argument that it mattered whether 

other information provided to applicants could have 

corrected any misimpression the illustrations caused. The 

court found that LSW’s evidence did not “detract[] 

sufficiently from the predominance of the other common 

issues to warrant a refusal to certify the class.”

LSW is technically correct that the district court did not 

consider, under the predominance rubric, the logistical 

difficulties of determining whether each Plaintiff was 

exposed to an illustration. But that was not the court’s 

burden.

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14 WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST

Our case law makes clear that Rule 23(b)(3)’s 

predominance inquiry does concern itself with exposure, but 

for the limited purpose of satisfying the UCL’s standing 

requirement of reliance. See supra § III(A); accord Rikos v. 

Procter & Gamble Co., 799 F.3d 497, 509–13 (6th Cir. 

2015) (for UCL claim, concluding predominance inquiry 

after determining case facts supported reliance 

presumption). Our cases do not additionally task district 

courts with analyzing, for predominance purposes, the 

logistical difficulties attendant to identifying plaintiffs who 

were exposed to misrepresentations and therefore may be 

entitled to class membership. To the contrary, we have 

suggested—without mentioning predominance—that the 

superiority prong might best lend itself to considering that 

issue. See Briseno, 844 F.3d at 1126 (declining to impose a 

separate administrability requirement to assess the difficulty 

of identifying class members, in part, because the superiority 

criterion already mandates considering “the likely 

difficulties in managing a class action”).

But even Briseno does not speak in certain terms. Nor 

do the cases LSW relies on. Some of those cases instead 

demonstrate that courts overall “have been inconsistent in 

how they have accounted for difficulties in identifying class 

members.” Sandusky Wellness Ctr., LLC v. ASD Specialty 

Healthcare, Inc., 863 F.3d 460, 471 (6th Cir. 2017). For 

instance, while the Second Circuit has employed the 

predominance requirement to analyze issues arguably 

bearing on class membership, see In re Petrobras Sec., 

862 F.3d 250, 270–74 (2d Cir. 2017), the Sixth Circuit in a 

UCL case considered the issue solely under a standalone 

ascertainability requirement, Rikos, 799 F.3d at 524–27. The 

Eighth Circuit, in contrast, took a middle ground in Sandusky 

Wellness Center, LLC v. Medtox Scientific, Inc., assessing 

under the predominance criterion the binary question of 

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WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST 15

whether common legal and factual questions predominated, 

but saving for its separate ascertainability analysis the more 

specific issue of member-identification difficulties. See

821 F.3d 992, 996–98 (8th Cir. 2016).

In light of the significant degree of variation in federal 

courts’ approaches to member identification, we find 

wisdom in the Sixth Circuit’s conclusion that a district 

court’s class-certification analysis would have been “equally 

sufficient,” “regardless of whether th[e] [memberidentification] concern [was] properly articulated as part of 

ascertainability, Rule 23(b)(3) predominance, or Rule 

23(b)(3) superiority.” ASD Specialty Healthcare, 863 F.3d 

at 466. We accordingly decline today to impugn the district 

court’s class-certification analysis by mandating a one-sizefits-all approach to class-member identification. We 

conclude only that, in UCL cases, (1) exposure is relevant to 

predominance, but only to establish reliance, and (2) a 

district court does not err per se by not considering the classmembership question under the predominance prong.

C

LSW articulates two specific concerns, neither of which 

changes our decision to affirm.

1

First, LSW argues that (1) Briseno had no impact on 

Rule 23(b)(3)’s predominance requirement, and (2) the 

district court improperly relied on Briseno in declining to 

consider certain issues as part of its predominance analysis. 

We agree with LSW’s reading of Briseno but conclude that 

the district court’s apparent misunderstanding of the case 

wrought no legal error.

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16 WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST

In Briseno we considered a narrow issue: whether 

consumers, bringing fraud claims against ConAgra for 

allegedly misleading cooking-oil labels, needed to 

demonstrate that there is an “administratively feasible” 

means of identifying absent class members before reaching 

Rule 23(a) and (b)’s class-certification requirements. See

844 F.3d at 1123. ConAgra argued that absent consumers 

would not be able to reliably identify themselves as class 

members and opposed certification on that basis. Id. at 1124. 

We rejected ConAgra’s argument. We concluded that a 

freestanding administrability requirement would conflict 

with the plain language of Rule 23, because the rule sets 

forth exhaustive factors a district court must consider in 

deciding whether to certify a class—none of them a 

freestanding administrability requirement. Id. at 1125–26. 

We further determined, in support of our holding, that Rule 

23 already calls upon the district court to consider the likely 

difficulties of managing a class action as part of its 

comparative superiority analysis, thereby rendering a 

separate administrability requirement superfluous. Id. at 

1128.

Briseno also took stock of the practical, negative 

consequences of a standalone administrability requirement. 

We reasoned that such a requirement “would invite courts to 

consider the administrative burdens of class litigation ‘in a 

vacuum,’” whereas the Rule 23(b)(3) superiority analysis 

appropriately “calls for a comparative assessment of the 

costs and benefits of class adjudication, including the 

availability of ‘other methods’ for resolving the 

controversy.” Id. (quoting Mullins v. Direct Digital, LLC, 

795 F.3d 654, 663 (7th Cir. 2015)). Our primary concern 

was that a standalone requirement would improperly bar 

certification in cases like Briseno, where administrability is 

difficult to demonstrate but for which the class action 

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WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST 17

remains the only realistic way to litigate the case. See id. To 

avoid this result, we joined the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth 

Circuits in declining to adopt a separate administrability 

requirement. Id. at 1133. That is the central holding of 

Briseno.

We agree with LSW that Briseno was narrow in focus. 

The case does not expressly excuse a district court from 

considering exposure under the predominance rubric. 

Briseno, in fact, did not directly bear on predominance at all.

We also share LSW’s concern that the district court may 

have misapplied Briseno to preclude consideration of certain 

issues under predominance. The court in 2013 decertified a 

class, which appears to have been identical in composition 

to the class at issue here, based on predominance problems. 

It reversed course in 2018, ostensibly based on Briseno. In 

the relevant part of its certification order, the district court 

rejected LSW’s argument—that predominance is lacking 

because determining pre-application receipt requires 

individualized inquiries—by relying on that case.

The district court’s reliance on Briseno is concerning 

but, ultimately, inconsequential. The reliance in the end did 

not prevent the court from undertaking a legally correct 

class-certification analysis. The court properly considered 

the key exposure issue—whether the allegations supported a 

reliance presumption—under predominance, holding they 

did. In the context of superiority, the court further analyzed 

the logistical difficulties inherent in identifying class 

members by establishing plaintiff-by-plaintiff exposure to 

LSW’s illustrations. This analysis conforms with Briseno

and class-certification law more broadly. The court’s 

reliance on Briseno caused no legal error.

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18 WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST

2

Second, LSW objects to the class definition. It argues 

the district court avoided analyzing the key predominance 

question—whether class members were exposed to the 

illustrations—in part by limiting class membership to preapplication illustration recipients and thereby improperly 

embedding the exposure issue into the class definition. The 

argument is unpersuasive. LSW cites no directly supportive 

authority, and the contention directly conflicts with Ninth 

Circuit precedent obligating district courts to tailor class 

definitions in a way that avoids predominance issues. See, 

e.g., Mazza, 666 F.3d at 596 (“In the absence of the kind of 

massive advertising campaign at issue in Tobacco II, the 

relevant class must be defined in such a way as to include 

only members who were exposed to advertising that is 

alleged to be materially misleading.”); Torres v. Mercer 

Canyons Inc., 835 F.3d 1125, 1139 (9th Cir. 2016) (holding 

that class definition was not overly broad so as to defeat 

predominance and acknowledging that “the district court 

may . . . adjust the scope of the class definition, if it later 

finds that the inclusiveness of the class exceeds the limits of 

[the defendant’s] legal liability”).

The more apt and complicated question, we think, is 

whether a district court can, as it did here, define a class in a 

way that automatically gives rise to a presumption of 

reliance. This question appears to be one of first impression 

in our circuit. In our prior UCL class-certification cases, we 

have relied on allegations and evidence establishing classwide dissemination of alleged misrepresentations to 

determine whether a presumption of reliance applies. See 

Stearns, 655 F.3d at 1020–21; Berger, 741 F.3d at 1069; 

Mazza, 666 F.3d at 595–96. Can a class definition, which 

extends membership only to those who were exposed to 

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WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST 19

alleged misrepresentations, automatically trigger the 

presumption? We cannot think of any good reason why not, 

or any evils that allegations and evidence of class-wide 

dissemination could cure that a class definition cannot.

We similarly decline to grapple with other related 

questions lurking in the background—including the extent to 

which a district court must engage with argument or 

evidence offered to rebut an established presumption of 

reliance. LSW’s appeal concerns a specific issue: whether 

the district court considered the right questions under the 

predominance analysis. It does not raise a related issue, 

which we would review for abuse of discretion if properly 

raised: whether the district court reached the right answers.

IV

Plaintiffs also challenge the certification decision, 

arguing that the district court erroneously excluded 

approximately one quarter of Plaintiffs’ desired class, 

consisting of policyholders who received only batch 

illustrations and not pre-application illustrations. We do not 

reach the merits of Plaintiffs’ argument, because their 

attempted appeals of the district court’s certification and 

reconsideration orders are untimely and procedurally 

improper, respectively.

Appealing a certification decision is usually 

straightforward: a party must petition this Court for 

permission to appeal within fourteen days of the district 

court order. Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(f). We strictly enforce Rule 

23(f)’s deadlines to ensure that interlocutory review of 

certification orders remains a “rare occurrence.” 

Chamberlan v. Ford Motor Co., 402 F.3d 952, 955 (9th Cir. 

2005) (per curiam). The strictures of Rule 23(f) relax in only 

two scenarios. First, a timely filed motion for 

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20 WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST

reconsideration extends the deadline for appealing the 

certification decision. The motion renders the original 

decision non-final until the district court grants or denies it. 

Nutraceutical Corp. v. Lambert, 139 S. Ct. 710, 717 (2019). 

The parties then have fourteen days from the reconsideration 

order to appeal the original certification decision. See Briggs 

v. Merck Sharp & Dohme, 796 F.3d 1038, 1046 (9th Cir. 

2015) (“It has long been accepted that the time period to file 

an appeal generally runs from the denial of a timely motion 

for reconsideration, rather than from the date of the initial 

order.”); Nutraceutical, 139 S. Ct. at 717 (acknowledging 

that “every Court of Appeals to have considered the question 

would accept a Rule 23(f) petition filed within 14 days of the 

resolution of a motion for reconsideration that was itself 

filed within 14 days of the original order”).

Second, if the reconsideration order materially changes 

the original certification decision, the reconsideration order 

itself—as distinct from the original decision—becomes 

appealable. See infra § IV(B). Plaintiffs in such a case 

effectively are entitled to more time to petition for appeal 

after they file, and the district court rules on, their motion for 

reconsideration.

A

Plaintiffs here cannot appeal the district court’s original 

certification order. Plaintiffs moved the court to reconsider 

its certification order on August 14, thereby rendering the 

certification order non-final. See Nutraceutical, 139 S. Ct. 

at 717. But the original order became final after the court 

denied Plaintiffs’ reconsideration motion (for failure to 

satisfy local meet-and-confer requirements), without 

prejudice, on September 10. The September 10 denial 

thereafter would have triggered a fourteen-day period, 

expiring on September 24, within which Plaintiffs could 

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WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST 21

have appealed the original certification order. See Briggs, 

796 F.3d at 1046. Plaintiffs did not appeal within this period 

and instead re-noticed their reconsideration motion on 

September 18.

It is true that the district court permitted Plaintiffs to renotice their motion. But that right does not translate into the 

additional right to file a Rule 23(f) appeal petition beyond 

the fourteen-day period, which here expired on September 

24. To be clear: the district court’s September 10 order, 

denying Plaintiffs’ improper reconsideration motion without 

prejudice, cannot extend the Rule 23(f) deadline beyond the 

fourteen-day period starting from the date of denial. As a 

more general rule, a district court’s authority to manage its 

docket does not reach Rule 23(f)’s deliberately harsh 

deadlines. See Lambert v. Nutraceutical Corp., 870 F.3d 

1170, 1179 (9th Cir. 2017) (recognizing that appeals courts 

have routinely held that “a motion for reconsideration filed 

more than fourteen days after a certification order will not 

toll the deadline even when the district court set or 

influenced that deadline”), rev’d on other grounds, 

Nutraceutical, 139 S. Ct. 710; Gutierrez v. Johnson & 

Johnson, 523 F.3d 187, 194 n.6 (3d Cir. 2008) (“[W]hile the 

District Court has the power to control its docket and was 

well within its authority to extend the time for Petitioners to 

file their Motion to Reconsider, it did not have the authority 

to extend the time to file a Rule 23(f) petition.”). And 

equitable tolling principles will not save an otherwise 

untimely class-certification appeal. Nutraceutical, 139 S. 

Ct. at 715.

It is also true that Plaintiffs did re-notice their motion for 

reconsideration within the fourteen-day window that began 

when the district court entered its September 10 order. But 

only a “timely” motion for reconsideration—filed within 

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22 WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST

fourteen days of an order denying or granting certification—

can extend the fourteen-day appeal period. See, e.g., 

Lambert, 870 F.3d at 1178 (“[A] motion for reconsideration 

filed within fourteen days of a certification decision tolls the 

Rule 23(f) deadline.”); accord Gutierrez, 523 F.3d at 193 

(“[A] motion to reconsider a class certification decision that 

is filed more than [fourteen] days after the order granting or 

denying class certification is ‘untimely’ with respect to Rule 

23(f) and will not toll the period for filing a Rule 23(f) 

petition.”); Nucor Corp. v. Brown, 760 F.3d 341, 343 (4th 

Cir. 2014); In re DC Water & Sewer Auth., 561 F.3d 494, 

496 (D.C. Cir. 2009); Jenkins v. BellSouth Corp., 491 F.3d 

1288, 1291–92 (11th Cir. 2007); Carpenter v. Boeing Co., 

456 F.3d 1183, 1190–92 (10th Cir. 2006); McNamara v. 

Felderhof, 410 F.3d 277, 281 (5th Cir. 2005); Gary v. 

Sheahan, 188 F.3d 891, 892 (7th Cir. 1999). A motion for 

reconsideration filed within fourteen days of a prior 

reconsideration order, as distinct from a certification order, 

is not “timely” and therefore cannot restart the clock. See

Gary, 188 F.3d at 893 (Easterbrook, J.) (“A second or 

successive motion for reconsideration is just a motion filed 

after [fourteen] days: it does not restart the clock for 

appellate review.”). The practical and, we think, sensible 

effect of this rule is that litigants may not repeatedly extend 

Rule 23(f)’s stringent deadlines by re-noticing denied 

reconsideration motions.

B

Plaintiffs cannot appeal the district court’s 

reconsideration order either. Rule 23(f) allows parties to 

appeal an “order granting or denying class-action 

certification.” Every circuit to consider the question has 

interpreted the rule to allow appeals of reconsideration 

orders—but only those that materially change the original 

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WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST 23

certification order and thereby affect the status quo. These 

cases rely on the language of Rule 23(f), holding that an 

order that leaves the status quo of a prior certification order 

unchanged neither “grant[s]” nor “den[ies]” class-action 

certification, as required to render an order appealable under 

Rule 23(f). See In re Wholesale Grocery Prods. Antitrust 

Litig., 849 F.3d 761, 765–66 (8th Cir. 2017); Phillips v. 

Sheriff of Cook Cty., 828 F.3d 541, 559–60 (7th Cir. 2016); 

Nucor, 760 F.3d at 343; Fleischman v. Albany Med. Ctr., 639 

F.3d 28, 31–32 (2d Cir. 2011); In re DC Water & Sewer 

Auth., 561 F.3d at 496–97; Gutierrez, 523 F.3d at 193–94; 

Jenkins, 491 F.3d at 1291–92; Carpenter, 456 F.3d at 1191; 

see also McNamara, 410 F.3d at 281 (holding that district 

court reconsideration order “merely reaffirmed its prior 

ruling” and therefore “was not ‘an order . . . granting or 

denying class action certification’ under Rule 23(f)”). 

Because the only Ninth Circuit decision applying that test is 

unpublished, see Lambert v. Nutraceutical Corp., 783 F. 

App’x 720, 723 (9th Cir. 2019) (holding reconsideration 

order that maintained the status quo of class certification was 

not itself appealable), we now formally join our sister 

circuits and adopt the material-change / status-quo test.

The test as applied here bars Plaintiffs from appealing 

the reconsideration order. Although the district court in its 

reconsideration order changed its legal analysis, it declined 

to change its original certification order in any way 

notwithstanding Plaintiffs’ motion: the same class definition 

controls, the same Plaintiffs make up the class, and the status 

quo remains unchanged.

Plaintiffs argue they properly appealed the 

reconsideration order because it contains a rationale for the 

certification decision not present in the original order. The 

material-change / status-quo test obviates Plaintiffs’ 

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24 WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST

argument. The cases subscribing to that test demonstrate 

that our sister circuits concern themselves not with the words 

used in the reconsideration order, but rather with the order’s 

practical effect on the class. See, e.g., In re Wholesale 

Grocery Prods. Antitrust Litig., 849 F.3d at 765 (rejecting 

attempted appeal of reconsideration order that “left the status 

quo—no class certification for the New England plaintiffs—

untouched”); Carpenter, 456 F.3d at 1191 (“An order that 

leaves class-action status unchanged from what was 

determined by a prior order is not an order ‘granting or 

denying class action certification’” under Rule 23(f).). Only 

where the district court certifies a class it previously declined 

to certify, decertifies an existing class, or changes the 

composition of an existing class—usually by increasing or 

decreasing its size—will a reconsideration order become 

appealable. See, e.g., Matz v. Household Int’l Tax Reduction 

Inv. Plan, 687 F.3d 824, 825 (7th Cir. 2012) (allowing 

appeal of partial decertification order reducing the size of the 

originally certified class by between 57 and 71 percent); 

Glover v. Standard Fed. Bank, 283 F.3d 953, 959 (8th Cir. 

2002) (holding reconsideration order appealable where it 

“open[ed] up the class to individuals working through an 

entire network of mortgage brokers across the nation beyond 

the more limited group”). That did not happen here.

Plaintiffs should have sought to appeal the district 

court’s original certification order by August 14. They 

should have indicated in their August 14 appeal petition that 

they had also moved the district court to reconsider its 

certification order, and that, if appropriate, they would later 

amend their appeal petition to request that we also consider 

the district court’s reconsideration order. See, e.g., S.O.S., 

Inc. v. Payday, Inc., 886 F.2d 1081, 1085 (9th Cir. 1989) 

(concluding that amended appeal notice properly 

“expand[ed] the factual record on appeal” to include denial 

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WALKER V. LIFE INS. CO. OF THE SOUTHWEST 25

of reconsideration order); Lienhart v. Dryvit Sys., Inc., 255 

F.3d 138, 142 n.1 (4th Cir. 2001) (acknowledging Dryvit’s 

filing of an appeal petition and, later, an amended petition of 

a class-certification order). Alternatively, of course, 

Plaintiffs could have followed the local meet-and-confer 

requirements when they filed their motion for 

reconsideration, eliminating the need to re-notice the motion 

after it was denied, and then filed a timely appeal when the 

motion was denied on the merits. Plaintiffs took neither 

approach and instead gambled their ability to appeal on the 

possibility that the district court would materially change its 

original certification decision on reconsideration. The 

subsequent reconsideration order maintained the status quo, 

and so it is not appealable. Plaintiffs lost their bet. Rule 

23(f) cannot hedge it.

V

We further deny Plaintiffs’ motion to take judicial notice 

of their petition to appeal and LSW’s answer thereto. 

Plaintiffs’ briefs appear to rely on some of the facts 

contained in the petition and answer, which may be subject 

to “reasonable dispute” and therefore are not judicially 

noticeable under Federal Rule of Evidence 201(b). See Lee 

v. City of Los Angeles, 250 F.3d 668, 689–90 (9th Cir. 2001) 

(explaining that a court can take notice of the existence of 

pleadings, but not the truth of the facts recited therein).

We leave undisturbed the district court’s legally sound, 

if imperfect, certification order. And we dismiss Plaintiffs’ 

untimely and procedurally improper attempts to appeal.

Each party shall bear its own costs.

AFFIRMED IN NO. 19-55241, DISMISSED IN NO. 

19-55242.

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