Opinion ID: 213700
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Circuit Authority

Text: We have extended Geraghty to an appeal of a class certification determination following the resolution of named plaintiffs' individual claims. See Reed v. Heckler, 756 F.2d 779, 786 (10th Cir.1985). [3] Looking to the Fifth Circuit's decision in Zeidman v. J. Ray McDermott & Co., 651 F.2d 1030 (5th Cir.1981), which held named plaintiffs had standing to appeal denial of class certification despite full satisfaction of their individual claims, the panel reasoned: Here, the plaintiffs' claims are not inherently transitory; rather, they have received favorable judgments from the agency that they sued. The Geraghty Court specifically left open the question whether settlement of the named plaintiff's personal claim would render the case moot. We are persuaded by the thorough opinion in Zeidman, however, that we should extend Geraghty to class claims that have been rendered moot by purposeful action of the defendants. The Zeidman court held that a suit brought as a class action should not be dismissed for mootness upon tender to the named plaintiffs of their personal claims when a diligently pursued motion for class certification is pending before the district court. So long as the claims of the unnamed plaintiffs are presented in a sufficiently adversarial relationship to sharpen the issues, the ability of the defendant to moot the claims of the named plaintiffs by favorable judgments should not prevent reexamination of the class certification issue. Id. at 786-87 (citations omitted). In Weiss v. Regal Collections, 385 F.3d 337, the Third Circuit had occasion to consider circumstances nearly identical to our own. There, the court concluded in the FDCPA context that an offer of judgment that would otherwise moot an individual's claim for statutory damages does not moot the action when made to the representative of the putative class and where the offer is made so early that the named plaintiff could not be expected to file a class certification motion. Id. at 347-48. Richard Weiss filed his class action complaint in February, and, in April, the defendant tendered a Rule 68 offer of judgment. Id. at 339-40. After Weiss declined this offer, the defendant moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Id. at 340. Weiss argued that the offer did not provide complete relief because the complaint sought recovery for the putative class. Id. The court concluded that an offer of judgment for the maximum statutory damages under the FDCPA with costs and attorneys' fees would provide all the relief available to a plaintiff acting in an individual capacity, mooting the claim. However, the court concluded, this did not resolve the question of the effect of the Rule 68 offer on the claims of the putative class given the fact that the complaint embraced similarly situated individuals in addition to the named plaintiff. Id. at 342. Seeking to harmonize the tension between Rule 68 and Rule 23, the Weiss court noted the concern expressed in Roper regarding a defendant's ability to pick off named plaintiffs by mooting their individual claims, id. at 343, and articulated other concerns about the practical implications of allowing defendants to pick off potential class plaintiffs, id. at 344-45. The FDCPA, Weiss explained, is predicated on individuals' standing to bring suit on behalf of a class. Id. at 345. Concluding that the same concerns guiding Roper are present in a class action pre-certification, the court reasoned that the named plaintiff could be conceived of as a part of an indivisible class and not merely a single adverse party even before the class certification question has been decided. Id. at 347. And, the court concluded, FDCPA claims, being acutely susceptible to mootness, are analogous to those capable of repetition yet evading review. Id. The Fifth Circuit was faced with a similar question to Weiss in Sandoz v. Cingular Wireless, LLC , albeit in the context of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). 553 F.3d at 915. In Sandoz the issue was whether a[n] FLSA claim becomes moot when the purported representative of a collective action receives an offer that would satisfy his or her individual claim and no other plaintiffs have opted in to the collective action. Id. The court aligned with Weiss in concluding that if the defendant made an offer of judgment pursuant to rule 68 that completely satisfied an individual plaintiff's claims, the plaintiff's individual claims would become moot but that an offer made to a putative class representative does not moot the case, even given the opt-in nature of the FLSA collective action device. Id. at 920. Our circuit's most recent treatment of a related issue occurred in Clark v. State Farm Mutual Auto Insurance Co. In Clark, judgment was entered in favor of the plaintiff pursuant to a voluntary settlement and paid prior to filing for class certification. 590 F.3d at 1136. The class action complaint was filed in August 2000, and judgment was entered in the plaintiff's favor several years later. This judgment plus interest was paid in March 2006. Id. It was not until May 2007 that the motion for class certification was filed. Id. Clark acknowledged that in addition to the established exceptions for transitory claims and claims capable of repetition a third exception to mootness had emerged in the class action context. Id. at 1139 (citing Weiss, 385 F.3d 337). In surveying the cases in this area, the panel distinguished Weiss on the ground that it occurred at so early a point in the litigation that the named plaintiff could not have been expected to file a class certification motion and noted that  where the plaintiff has had ample time to file the class certification motion, district courts adhere to the general rule that the mooting of a named plaintiff's claim prior to class certification moots the entire case. Id. (emphasis added) (citing Jones v. CBE Group, Inc., 215 F.R.D. 558, 565 (D.Minn.2003); Greif v. Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker LLP, 258 F.Supp.2d 157, 159-61 (E.D.N.Y.2003)). Given these facts, Clark expressly declined to consider whether to adopt the Weiss rule. See 590 F.3d at 1139. We acknowledge some tension in the legal concepts that must control our decision here. See Wright & Miller, 13C Fed. Prac. & Proc. Juris. § 3533.9.1, at 524 n. 34 (3d ed. 2008) (collecting commentary). But the premise of Sosna and the holding of Geraghty compel us to conclude that a named plaintiff in a proposed class action need not accept an offer of judgment or risk having his or her case dismissed as moot before the court has had a reasonable time to consider the class certification motion. Instead we conclude that a nascent interest attaches to the proposed class upon the filing of a class complaint such that a rejected offer of judgment for statutory damages and costs made to a named plaintiff does not render the case moot under Article III. Cf. Disability Law Ctr., 428 F.3d at 996 (fact that plaintiff's claim did not embrace similarly situated individuals determinative in concluding no controversy remained); Brunet v. City of Columbus, 1 F.3d 390, 400 (6th Cir.1993) ([U]nlike in Roper, Meyer and Tudor ultimately accepted the City's settlement offer....). This is so because, notwithstanding the rejected offer of judgment, the proposed class action continues to involve sharply presented issues in a concrete factual setting and self-interested parties vigorously advocating opposing positions. Geraghty, 445 U.S. at 403, 100 S.Ct. 1202. In Geraghty, the Supreme Court specifically informed that for Article III purposes, the timing of the class certification is not crucial. Geraghty, 445 U.S. at 398, 100 S.Ct. 1202. Several commentators have noted that a court has jurisdiction even in the absence of a class certification decision. See Richard K. Greenstein, Bridging the Mootness Gap in Federal Court Class Actions, 35 Stan. L.Rev. 897, 903 (1983) ([T]he `repetition/evasion' problem does not create or enhance article III jurisdiction. Rather, it reflects a policy that guides a court's decision whether to reach the merits of the certified class' claims once the court has jurisdiction over those claims.); Hall, supra at 608 ([T]he decisions of the Supreme Court reveal that it has repeatedly treated personal stake mootness as a discretionary doctrine, under which courts can dismiss or not as they deem appropriate in view of certain prudential considerations....); Mary Kay Kane, Standing, Mootness, and Federal Rule 23Balancing Perspectives, 26 Buff. L.Rev. 83, 104 (1977) (What should be done if certification has not yet taken place when the representative's claim becomes moot? ... There are several reasons for treating the suit as a class action, when it has been pleaded as such, even before certification.). Because Geraghty informs us that the personal stake of the class inheres prior to certification, we conclude that the federal court's Article III jurisdiction to hear the motion for class certification is not extinguished by the Rule 68 offer of judgment to an individual plaintiff. See Geraghty, 445 U.S. at 406 n. 11, 100 S.Ct. 1202; Franks v. Bowman Transp. Co., 424 U.S. 747, 756 n. 8, 96 S.Ct. 1251, 47 L.Ed.2d 444 (1976) (quoting Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 97, 88 S.Ct. 1942, 20 L.Ed.2d 947 (1968)). This conclusion is also supported by Justice Rehnquist's observation in Roper that an offer of judgment to an individual named plaintiff simply is not complete relief vís-a-vís the class. Roper, 445 U.S. at 341, 100 S.Ct. 1166 (Rehnquist, J., concurring). The Court's concerns about the potential for waste of judicial resources and administrative inefficiencies are clearly present in this case. As the Court explained in Roper, [r]equiring multiple plaintiffs to bring separate actions, which effectively could be picked off by a defendant's tender of judgment before an affirmative ruling on class certification could be obtained, obviously would frustrate the objectives of class actions; moreover it would invite waste of judicial resources by stimulating successive suits brought by others claiming aggrievement. 445 U.S. at 339, 100 S.Ct. 1166. The Third, Fifth, and Seventh Circuits have concluded that offers of judgment will not render moot class actions for monetary relief in which a class certification motion is already pending. See Lusardi v. Xerox Corp., 975 F.2d 964, 975 (3d Cir.1992); Zeidman, 651 F.2d at 1051; Susman v. Lincoln Am. Corp., 587 F.2d 866, 870 (7th Cir.1978). We find no authority on which to distinguish the case in which a class certification motion is pending or filed within the duration of the offer of judgment from our case: any Article III interest a class may or may not have in a case is or is not present from its inception. See Susman, 587 F.2d at 869 n. 2 (noting that [i]t would be arguable, on the same theory, that a complaint with class action allegations sufficiently brings the interests of the class members before the court, at least where the court proceeds with reasonable promptness to reach the issue of class action maintenance but declining to reach the question). We need not and do not decide the impact of a Rule 68 offer of judgment made in a collective, or opt-in action. See, e.g., Sandoz, 553 F.3d at 920; Darboe v. Goodwill Industries of Greater New York & Northern New Jersey, Inc., 485 F.Supp.2d 221, 223-24 (E.D.N.Y.2007). In sum, we hold that a named plaintiff in a proposed class action for monetary relief may proceed to seek timely class certification where an unaccepted offer of judgment is tendered in satisfaction of the plaintiff's individual claim before the court can reasonably be expected to rule on the class certification motion. That certainly is the case here, given the parties' agreement to proceed according to a specific schedule to resolve the class certification issues and given the Plaintiff's indisputable compliance with that schedule. REVERSED and REMANDED.