Opinion ID: 1801796
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Motion for Class Certification

Text: Plaintiff Brown moved for class certification of the UCL and false advertising causes of action in his seventh amended complaint. He sought to certify as a class those people who are residents of California and who, while residents of California, smoked one or more cigarettes during the applicable class period. [4] Defendants opposed certification on the grounds that plaintiff had failed to establish that common questions of law or fact predominated over issues requiring plaintiff-specific proof. As to plaintiff's UCL claim, defendants argued that each plaintiff would have to demonstrate that (a) he read or heard a misrepresentation made by defendants, and (b) that he was in some way misled or deceived about the health risks of smoking. It is undeniable that proof of these issues cannot be made on a class-wide basis. Defendants also maintained that issues of causation and injury would require individual proof as to each class member to justify the remedy of restitution under the UCL. Defendants argued: Given the multitude of different alleged unfair and deceptive practices which plaintiff says were committed over a forty year plus history by eleven different defendants, it is beyond reasonable dispute that proof of causation cannot be made on a class-wide basis. In granting the motion, the trial court stated: While the court agrees with Defendants that a myriad of distinct issues exist as to each class member's exposure to the alleged deceptive marketing, reliance thereon, whether same was a causal factor of the person's smoking and whether each class member sustained injury, such does not defeat the otherwise finding [ sic ] of substantial commonality as such issues are wholly outside the purview of B & P Code §§ 17200 et seq. and 17500 et seq. The court explained: All class claims are brought under B & P §§ 17200 et seq. and 17500, et seq. and assert identically that Defendants, by way of concealment and affirmative misrepresentation, manipulated the chemical constituent content of tobacco products and by way of deceptive advertising and marketing acts, misled the smoking public of the health risks and addictive nature of smoking and targeted the putative class uniformly in an alleged class-wide effort to seduce and induce people to smoke. The court concluded: As the class is defined as including those people that smoked in California one or more cigarettes during the applicable class period and were exposed to Defendants' marketing and advertising activities in California, it must be said the class is readily ascertainable. The trial court's order granting the certification motion specified that the class period for said class is June 10, 1993 to April 23, 2001.