Opinion ID: 799220
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Eisen and consideration of the merits at the class certification stage

Text: Class certification is appropriate if the court finds, after conducting a rigorous analysis, that the requirements of Rule 23 have been met. Dukes, 131 S.Ct. at 2551; Daffin v. Ford Motor Co., 458 F.3d 549, 552 (6th Cir.2006). Ordinarily, this means that the class determination should be predicated on evidence the parties present concerning the maintainability of the class action. In re Am. Med. Sys., Inc., 75 F.3d at 1079. [S]ometimes it may be necessary for the court to probe behind the pleadings before coming to rest on the certification question, Gen. Tele. Co. of Southwest v. Falcon, 457 U.S. 147, 160, 102 S.Ct. 2364, 72 L.Ed.2d 740 (1982), and rigorous analysis may involve some overlap between the proof necessary for class certification and the proof required to establish the merits of the plaintiffs' underlying claims. Dukes, 131 S.Ct. at 2551. There is nothing unusual about touching aspects of the merits in order to resolve preliminary matters ... [because doing so is] a familiar feature of litigation. Id. at 2552. Like some other federal courts, this Court had ruled that a district judge need not consider the merits of a case when entertaining a class certification motion in light of the Supreme Court's statement in Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U.S. 156, 177, 94 S.Ct. 2140, 40 L.Ed.2d 732 (1974), that nothing in either the language or history of Rule 23 ... gives a court any authority to conduct a preliminary inquiry into the merits of a suit in order to determine whether it may be maintained as a class action. See e.g., Beattie v. CenturyTel, Inc., 511 F.3d 554, 560 (6th Cir.2007) (quoting Eisen to hold that district court did not have to inquire into the merits of the suit to resolve Rule 23 issues). In Dukes, however, the Supreme Court clarified that courts may inquire preliminarily into the merits of a suit to determine if class certification is proper, although courts need not resolve all factual disputes on the merits before deciding if class certification is warranted. Dukes, 131 S.Ct. at 2551-52 & n. 6 (To the extent the quoted statement [from Eisen ] goes beyond the permissibility of a merits inquiry for any other pretrial purpose, it is the purest dictum and is contradicted by our other cases.). We have indicated, both before and after Dukes, that Eisen merely stand[s] for the proposition that ... the relative merits of the underlying dispute are to have no impact upon the determination of the propriety of the class action. Gooch v. Life Investors Ins. Co. of Am., 672 F.3d 402, 432 (6th Cir.2012) (quoting Thompson v. Cnty. of Medina, Ohio, 29 F.3d 238, 241 (6th Cir.1994)) (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). [W]hether the class members will ultimately be successful in their claims is not a proper basis for reviewing a certification of a class action. Daffin, 458 F.3d at 552. Other federal appellate decisions are in accord with the view of Supreme Court precedent articulated by this Court. For example, the Third Circuit held after Dukes that courts need not address at the class certification stage any merits inquiry that is unnecessary to the Rule 23 determination and that any findings made for class certification purposes do not bind the fact-finder on the merits. Behrend v. Comcast Corp., 655 F.3d 182, 190 (3d Cir. 2011). Behrend is consistent with the Third Circuit's pre- Dukes jurisprudence holding that  Eisen is best understood to preclude only a merits inquiry that is not necessary to determine a Rule 23 requirement and noting that other courts of appeal had agreed. In re Hydrogen Peroxide Antitrust Litig., 552 F.3d 305, 317 & n. 17 (3d Cir.2008) (and cases cited therein). Similarly, the Fourth Circuit had held before Dukes that  Eisen simply restricts a court from expanding the Rule 23 certification analysis to include consideration of whether the proposed class is likely to prevail ultimately on the merits. Gariety v. Grant Thornton, LLP, 368 F.3d 356, 366 (4th Cir.2004). The Seventh Circuit recently observed that a district court must resolve factual disputes necessary to class certification, but that the court should not turn the class certification proceedings into a dress rehearsal for the trial on the merits. Messner v. Northshore Univ. HealthSystem, 669 F.3d 802, 811 (7th Cir. 2012). Whirlpool contends that the district court improperly relied on Eisen to avoid consideration of the merits of plaintiffs' legal claims, failed to conduct the required rigorous analysis of the factual record, and failed to make specific findings to resolve factual disputes before certifying the liability class. We disagree. The district court closely examined the evidentiary record and conducted the necessary rigorous analysis to find that the prerequisites of Rule 23 were met. See Gooch, 672 F.3d at 418 (rejecting a similar argument and concluding that the district court probed behind the pleadings, considering all of the relevant documents that were in evidence).