Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 811.0

964 

OCTOBER TERM, 2009 

October 13, 2009 

558 U. S. 

No.  09–6503.  Soto-Cosme  v.  United  States.  C.  A.  1st  Cir. 

Certiorari  denied. 

No.  09–6506.  Eames  v.  United  States.  C.  A.  9th  Cir.  Cer­

tiorari  denied.  Reported  below:  279  Fed.  Appx.  541. 

No.  08–1407.  DTD  Enterprises,  Inc.,  aka  Together,  aka 
Together-Clark,  aka  Together  Dating  Service,  et  al.  v. 
Wells,  on  Behalf  of  Herself  and  All  Others  Similarly 
Situated.  Super.  Ct.  N.  J.,  Middlesex  County.  Certiorari 
denied. 

Statement  of  Justice  Kennedy,  with  whom  The  Chief  Jus­
tice  and  Justice  Sotomayor  join,  respecting  the  denial  of  the 
petition  for  writ  of  certiorari. 

This  case  began  with  a  contract  action  brought  by  DTD  Enter­
prises,  Inc.  (hereinafter  petitioner),  a  commercial  dating-referral 
service,  against  respondent,  one  of  petitioner’s  customers.  The 
suit alleged that respondent refused to make payments due under 
a  contract.  Respondent  answered  by  bringing  a  class  action 
against petitioner.  The trial court certiﬁed the class and ordered 
petitioner  to  bear  all  the  costs  of  class  notiﬁcation,  on  the  sole 
ground  (or  so  it  appears)  that  petitioner  could  afford  to  pay  and 
respondent  could  not. 

To  the  extent  that  New  Jersey  law  allows  a  trial  court  to  im­
pose  the  onerous  costs  of  class  notiﬁcation  on  a  defendant  simply 
because  of  the  relative  wealth  of  the  defendant  and  without  any 
consideration  of  the  underlying  merits  of  the  suit,  a  serious  due 
process  question  is  raised.  Where  a  court  has  concluded  that  a 
plaintiff  lacks  the  means  to  pay  for  class  certiﬁcation,  the  defend­
ant  has  little  hope  of  recovering  its  expenditures  later  if  the  suit 
proves  meritless;  therefore,  the  court’s  order  requiring  the  de­
fendant  to  pay  for  the  notiﬁcation  “ﬁnally  destroy[s]  a  property 
interest.”  Logan  v.  Zimmerman  Brush  Co.,  455  U. S.  422,  433– 
434  (1982).  The  Due  Process  Clause  requires  a  “ ‘hearing  appro­
priate  to  the  nature  of  the  case.’ ”  Boddie  v.  Connecticut,  401 
U. S. 371, 378 (1971).  And there is considerable force to the argu­
ment  that  a  hearing  in  which  the  trial  court  does  not  consider 
the  underlying  merits  of  the  class-action  suit  is  not  consistent 
with  due  process  because  it  is  not  sufﬁcient,  or  appropriate,  to 
protect  the  property  interest  at  stake. 

I  nonetheless  agree  with  the  Court’s  denial  of  certiorari,  for 
two  reasons.  First,  the  petition  is  interlocutory;  the  state  appel­