Opinion ID: 1449245
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Certification was improper

Text: Because Pennington's proposed class definition cannot be amended without becoming indefinite and given the sizable number of uninjured putative class members, the class definition is impermissibly overbroad. The circuit court abused its discretion when it certified this class action. The Court's conclusion is consistent with the holdings of other courts that have addressed this issue. In Oshana, a federal district court confronted a nearly identical claim under Illinois' consumer fraud law. 225 F.R.D. at 578. The class definitions in the two cases are virtually the same. Id. There, the federal district court found, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed, that the class was overbroad and unascertainable. Id. at 578, 580-81. The Circuit Court for the City of St. Louis, Judge John Riley presiding, denied certification of a similar class definition in Kaiser-Engel v. PepsiCo, Inc., No. 22042-09307-01, 2007 WL 1972027 (June 25, 2007). The Court agrees with Judge Riley's observation: the core problem is that if the class here, as it is now proposed is defined in a way that may be . . . sufficiently identifiable for not being too subjective, then it necessarily is flawed for being too overbroad . . .; but by the same token, if the class is defined in a way that is not so defectively overbroad, then the class would necessarily depend on the potential class members' subjective state of mindand hence not be sufficiently identifiable to support certification.