Source: https://www.classactionprofessor.com/blog/cases/page/2/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 12:36:57+00:00

Document:
On November 14, 2005, Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York allowed a class action suit to move forward against Phillip Morris, USA, rejecting defendant's argument that plaintiff's fluid recovery proposal required denial of certification and dismissal. Schwab v. Philip Morris USA, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27649 (E.D.N.Y. 2005). Plaintiff's plan provided that damages against Philip Morris be decided on an aggregate level and then allocated based upon the number of "light" cigarettes each class member purchased. The court engaged in a lengthly discussion of judicial evaluation of fluid recovery plans, noting that though some federal appellate courts have expressed opposition to the use of such plans in certain cases, concerned with Due Process or Seventh Amendment violations, fluid recovery has been accepted in some context by all of the federal circuits that have considered the issue and endorsed by most state courts that have confronted it as well. After carefully considering Second Circuit case law in particular, the court ultimately concluded that the use of fluid recovery was appropriate in the instant case and did not violate Defendant's right to Due Process under the law or to a trial by jury under the Seventh Amendment. -L.C.
On November 7, 2005, relying on the recent Supreme Court case , Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Allapattah Services, Inc., Judge Charles Haight, Jr. in Feinberg v. Katz, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26954 (S.D.N.Y. 2005) found supplemental jurisdiction over 64 assigned claims that did not individually meet the amount of controversy requirement for diversity purposes. The case has a complicated procedural history lasting over four years and reaching Circuit Court level, but the jurisdictional issue concerns claims assigned to Feinberg by creditors of the corporation that Feinberg and Katz once co-owned. Of the 70 creditors who assigned claims to Feinberg, only 6 had the requisite amount in controversy to meet diversity jurisdiction. The court first examined whether the claims could be aggregated and found that Supreme Court precedent Zahn v. International Paper and Snyder v. Harris disallowed aggregation, even in a non-class action suit such as this one. However, the court held that Exxon allowed supplemental jurisdiction over the 64 claims that did not meet the amount in controversy in class action and non-class action situations, even where the claims had been assigned to one plaintiff. The court also rejected Katz's argument that the it should decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction under 1367(c)(2) because no state case law, policies or concerns predominate the federal claims. -L.C.
On November 7, 2005, holding that “communications with absent class members is a major source of concern for courts in class action litigation” because discovery must be limited to protect harassment of absent class members and maintain the advantage of streamlined discovery of a class action suit, the Western District Court of Illinois found in Bell v. Woodward Governor, Co., 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26757 (N.D. Ill. 2005), that the Defendant did not meet its burden of showing that absent class member discovery was necessary at this point in the case. The court dismissed Defendant’s arguments that it would be forced to conduct all of its discovery on the eve of trial and that Plaintiffs were aiming to “ambush” the Defense, noting that Plaintiffs had complied with all of the court’s orders and that the court had already granted Defendant 40 additional depositions. -L.C.
Finding that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (47 U.S.C. 227) contains no statutory authorization for class recovery, the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court unanimously affirmed Thursday a lower court's dismissal of class action claims seeking statutory damages and injunctive relief under the TCPA. Leyse v. Flagship Capital Services Corp.

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