Opinion ID: 1688626
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: FNB of Jasper I

Text: The McIlwains, the plaintiff respondents in Ex parte Citicorp, interpret FNB of Jasper I as holding that as soon as any trial court issues an order of class certification, it abates all other class action proceedings involving the same claims. Ex parte Citicorp, Brief of Respondents in Opposition to Petition for Writ of Mandamus, at 17. This interpretation of FNB of Jasper I is widely shared and often vocalized by Alabama litigants in briefs and oral arguments. This is true despite the fact that this Court, in First Nat'l Bank of Jasper v. Crawford, 689 So.2d 43 (Ala.1997) (FNB of Jasper II ), carefully characterized that proposition as based on dictum. 689 So.2d at 46. In FNB of Jasper I and II, we attempted to articulate a rule that would resolve a conflict produced by the filing of six different complaints, each containing substantially identical class allegations, against the same defendant, in three different counties, on the same day. 675 So.2d at 348. In both cases, the First National Bank of Jasper sought to confine class litigation to one forum. It did so, however, solely on the authority of Ala.Code 1975, § 6-5-440, the abatement statute, which provides: No plaintiff is entitled to prosecute two actions in the courts of this state at the same time for the same cause and against the same party. In such a case, the defendant may require the plaintiff to elect which he will prosecute, if commenced simultaneously, and the pendency of the former is a good defense to the latter if commenced at different times. Whether the popular interpretation of FNB of Jasper I is correct is now a moot issue, for we have today overruled FNB of Jasper I and FNB of Jasper II to the extent they held that § 6-5-440 applies to class actions. Ex parte State Mutual Ins. Co., 715 So.2d 207 (Ala.1997) (withdrawing opinion of April 4, 1997). Ex parte State Mutual involved two competing actions, one of which was based on a complaint containing class allegations filed in Greene County against State Mutual Insurance Company (State Mutual). The other action was based on a complaint without class allegations, filed in Hale County against the same defendant. 715 So.2d at 209. The Hale County action was commenced after the Greene County action, but before a class was certified in the Greene County action. Id. at 209. In the Greene County Circuit Court, State Mutual and the class representatives argued that, on the basis of § 6-5-440, as interpreted in FNB of Jasper I, the certification in Greene County ipso facto abated the Hale County individual action. Ex parte State Mutual Ins. Co., at 210. The trial court disagreed and amended the class definition to exclude the plaintiffs in the Hale County action. Id. at 210. State Mutual and the class representatives appealed to this Court, seeking a judgment directing the Greene County Circuit Court to vacate its order excluding from the class the plaintiffs in the individual action. Id. at 211. On appeal, they reiterated the arguments they had made in the trial court regarding the application of § 6-5-440 as interpreted by FNB of Jasper I. Ex parte State Mutual Ins. Co., at 211. Initially, on April 4, 1997, this Court issued an opinion in which it refused to vacate the trial court's order. However, State Mutual and the class representatives sought a rehearing. The rehearing application was accompanied by briefs of numerous amici curiae addressing the development of class-action practice in Alabama since FNB of Jasper I and FNB of Jasper II. Ex parte State Mutual Ins. Co., at 212. Some of those amici expressed concerns identical to the ones presented by the respondents in Ex parte Citicorp, and by the trial court in its order in this case. One such concern, described as claim jumping, was explained as follows: `[A] plaintiff could file a purported class action in Jefferson County, Alabama, and spend 12 months preparing the case for a class action hearing, but prior to the conduct of that hearing, another plaintiff could file an action in another Alabama county copying the exact same Jefferson County complaint, but substituting in a new named plaintiff and getting a different Alabama Circuit Court to certify the newly filed action as a class action. Under this Court's [April 4, 1997] holding in the instant case, the certification in the second filed action would abate the previously filed action and negate 12 months' work that had been done toward preparing for the class certification hearing.' Ex parte State Mutual Insurance Co., 715 So.2d at 212 (quoting Amicus Curiae Brief (Filed by Various Class Action Firms), ¶ 2). After an extensive review of the history of the class-action device and the common-law abatement rule, which is codified in § 6-5-440, this Court reconsidered its previous holding in that case; it issued a new opinion reversing the trial court's order amending the class. Ex parte State Mutual Ins. Co., 715 So.2d at 219. However, it did so on the ground that § 6-5-440 has no application to class actions. Thus, it was necessary to overrule FNB of Jasper I and FNB of Jasper II, to the extent they were based on § 6-5-440. Ex parte State Mutual Ins. Co., 715 So.2d at 219. In overruling those cases, we acknowledged that our ... attempt to incorporate, or fuse, the abatement rule with class-action procedureas we did in FNB of Jasper I  ha[d] ... resulted in chaos, Ex parte State Mutual Ins. Co., 715 So.2d at 214, and that class-action practice in Alabama has been in a state of confusion ever since FNB of Jasper I was decided. 715 So.2d at 212. Although Ex parte State Mutual Ins. Co. involved a conflict between a class action and an individual action, we stated: [B]ecause § 6-5-440 is inapplicable in cases involving class actions competing with individual actions, a fortiori, § 6-5-440 is inapplicable in cases such as FNB of Jasper I and FNB of Jasper II, which involved competing class actions. Ex parte State Mutual Ins. Co., at 220 (emphasis in original). Indeed, in saying so we specifically had in mind arguments regarding claim jumping and the race to justice, such as those that are made in this case. We, therefore, concede that trial judges have been conditionally certifying large numbers of class actions in order to protect the jurisdiction of their courts and that they have been doing so in direct response to FNB of Jasper I. In the following subpart of this opinion, we shall discuss why the abrogation of the unworkable rule of FNB of Jasper I has removed the incentive for conditional certifications.