Opinion ID: 792156
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Medical Monitoring Class

Text: 14 SJM also asserts the district court erred in certifying the medical monitoring class. SJM argues this class defies Erie 's command that federal courts refrain from altering or creating new state law. SJM further argues certification of this class as one seeking injunctive relief under Rule 23(b)(2) violates the Due Process Clause. Finally, SJM argues certification of this class is improper due to diverse legal and factual issues that would make a classwide trial inefficient and unmanageable. We conclude the diverse legal and factual issues preclude class certification, and we reverse on this ground. As this ground again is dispositive, we do not address the Erie and due process arguments. 15 Class certification under Rule 23(b)(2) is proper only when the primary relief sought is declaratory or injunctive. Although Rule 23(b)(2) contains no predominance or superiority requirements, class claims thereunder still must be cohesive. Barnes v. Am. Tobacco Co., 161 F.3d 127, 143 (3d Cir.1998). Because unnamed members are bound by the action without the opportunity to opt out of a Rule 23(b)(2) class, even greater cohesiveness generally is required than in a Rule 23(b)(3) class. Id. at 142-43. A suit could become unmanageable and little value would be gained in proceeding as a class action ... if significant individual issues were to arise consistently. Id. (citation and quotation omitted); see also Lemon v. Int'l Union of Operating Eng'rs, 216 F.3d 577, 580 (7th Cir.2000) (same). At base, the (b)(2) class is distinguished from the (b)(3) class by class cohesiveness.... Injuries remedied through (b)(2) actions are really group, as opposed to individual injuries. The members of a(b)(2) class are generally bound together through `preexisting or continuing legal relationships' or by some significant common trait such as race or gender. Holmes v. Cont'l Can Co., 706 F.2d 1144, 1155 n. 8 (11th Cir.1983) (citation and quotation omitted). 16 Proposed medical monitoring classes suffer from cohesion difficulties, and numerous courts across the country have denied certification of such classes. See, e.g., Ball v. Union Carbide Corp., 385 F.3d 713, 727-28 (6th Cir.2004); Zinser v. Accufix Research Inst., Inc., 253 F.3d 1180, 1195-96, amended, 273 F.3d 1266 (9th Cir.2001); Barnes, 161 F.3d at 143-46; Boughton v. Cotter Corp., 65 F.3d 823, 827 (10th Cir.1995). Quoting the Third Circuit, the Supreme Court in Windsor listed some of the individual variations precluding class certification: [Exposure-only plaintiffs] will also incur different medical expenses because their monitoring and treatment will depend on singular circumstances and individual medical histories. 521 U.S. at 624, 117 S.Ct. 2231 (quoting Georgine, 83 F.3d at 626). Differences in state laws on medical monitoring further compound these disparities. See id. 17 In this case, like in Windsor, each plaintiff's need (or lack of need) for medical monitoring is highly individualized. Every patient in the 17-state class who has ever been implanted with a mechanical heart valve already requires future medical monitoring as an ordinary part of his or her follow-up care. A patient who has been implanted with the Silzone valve may or may not require additional monitoring, and whether he or she does is an individualized inquiry depending on that patient's medical history, the condition of the patient's heart valves at the time of implantation, the patient's risk factors for heart valve complications, the patient's general health, the patient's personal choice, and other factors. The plaintiffs concede the states recognizing medical monitoring claims as a separate cause of action have different elements triggering culpability. Simply put, the medical monitoring class presents a myriad of individual issues making class certification improper. For the same reasons the district court decertified the personal injury tort class, the medical monitoring class was certified incorrectly. 18 Bolstering our conclusion is the fact the plaintiffs never demonstrated to the district court they would sue for the medical monitoring program sought here even in the absence of a claim for damages. In re Rezulin Prods. Liab. Litig., 210 F.R.D. 61, 73 (S.D.N.Y.2002). As the Southern District of New York ruled, a district court certifying a medical monitoring class must be satisfied 19 that a reasonable plaintiff, based on a medical and economic calculus, would have sued solely for a medical monitoring program, not merely that a lawyer could have been found who would have located a plaintiff and brought a class action in the hope of a fee, else the test would be meaningless. 20 Plaintiffs have not persuaded the Court that this criterion has been satisfied here. Neither the American Diabetes Association nor the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, which promulgate guidelines for the care and treatment of diabetics, nor any public health agency or professional medical society or institution, has recommended special monitoring for patients who formerly took Rezulin. 21 Id. While every mechanical heart valve patient will require follow-up care in connection with the implant, the question of additional monitoring above that required for normal mechanical heart valve implantation is not clear. 22 For the above reasons, we conclude class certification of the medical monitoring class was an abuse of discretion. We reverse the district court's certification of this class.