Pennsylvania Code › Title 231 - RULES OF CIVIL PROCEDURE › Part I - GENERAL › Chapter 1700 - CLASS ACTIONS › Appendix A - ANALYSIS OF THE RULES › Rule 1715 - Judgment

Current through Register Vol. 54, No. 28, July 13, 2024
Rule 1715 deals with the entry and effect of a judgment
					 entered before or after an order of certification.
Subdivision (a) contains the self-evident provision that,
					 except by special order of the court, no judgment may be entered by default, on
					 the pleadings or by summary judgment in favor of or against a class until the
					 court has certified or refused to certify the action as a class action. It
					 binds only the named parties.
Subdivision (b) contains the equally self-evident provision
					 that, if a judgment is entered on preliminary objections before certification,
					 it binds only the named parties. If the court finds that the complaint fails to
					 state a cause of action and dismisses the complaint, it will not be technically
res judicata
as to other members of the class, since there has
					 never been a determination by the court under Rule 1710(b) as to who
					 constitutes the class. However, the principle of collateral estoppel, which now
					 seems firmly embedded in Pennsylvania law, may be applicable if unnamed members
					 of the class should thereafter bring their own action. As a practical matter,
					 it seems unlikely that, if an appellate court has sustained the dismissal on
					 the merits as in
Hoolick v. Retreat State Hospital
, 24 Pa.
					 Cmwlth Ct. 218, 354 A.2d 609 (1976), other individual plaintiffs would commence
					 further action.
Subdivision (c) provides that if the action has been
					 certified as a class action, the judgment shall be binding on all members of
					 the class except as otherwise directed by the court. The court should, of
					 course, exclude from the effect of the judgment those members of the class who
					 have opted out or who have refused to opt in where an opt-in order was entered
					 under Rule 1711(b).
Subdivision (d) provides that in all cases the judgment
					 must be framed by the court and must describe the class which is bound by the
					 terms and the individual defendants against whom the judgment is entered.
					 Judgment can, therefore, never be entered by the prothonotary as an office
					 judgment.
In connection with judgments neither Rule 1715 nor the
					 Federal Rules deal with the form of relief or the distribution of monetary
					 recovery and the procedures to be followed.
The Uniform Class Action Act of 1976, hereinbefore referred
					 to, does address itself to this problem in Section 15(c). This section provides
					 for distribution of unclaimed awards either to one or more States as unclaimed
					 property or to the defendant. If the unclaimed awards are sought by a
					 defendant, the court must consider unjust enrichment, the wilfulness or lack of
					 wilfulness on the part of the defendant, the impact of the award on the
					 defendant, the pendency of other actions, any criminal sanctions imposed on the
					 defendant and the loss suffered by the plaintiff class.
Awards to the State, with or without escheat, are obviously
					 substantive in nature and may require amendment of the Escheat Act of August 9,
					 1971,
					 27
					 P. S. 1-1.
The method of claiming and distributing awards to
					 individual class members, while procedural in nature, is a matter to be
					 determined in each individual case. The court is given ample power under Rule
					 1713 to make every necessary or appropriate order controlling the course of the
					 action. This would, of course, include distribution. Should experience under
					 the proposed rules indicate that a procedural rule to regulate distribution
					 would be desirable, it can be framed to meet any problems which may have
					 arisen.
Rule 1715 does not deal with the so-called "fluid recovery"
					 doctrine, in which damages are assessed on the basis of the harm to the entire
					 class without regard to the separate individual claims of members. The damages
					 recovered are applied under the doctrine of "cy pres" for other uses benefiting
					 present or future members of the class. Illustrations are bus-rider overcharges
					 and consumer purchasers of the same service or product. In the anti-trust
					 antibiotics overcharge cases the court approved a settlement award of damages
					 unclaimed by individual class members to various State claimants to be applied
					 by them for health care purposes.
The issues involved are more than procedural. They involve
					 public policy considerations of substantive law upon which the Committee
					 expresses no opinion.