Opinion ID: 2824557
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Joint Trial

Text: Because we do not agree with the district court’s conclusion that plaintiffs’ representations in federal court and their decision to file their cases in California state court constituted implicit proposals to try jointly the claims of one hundred or more persons, we reach a question the district court had no need to answer: Did the plaintiffs in Kreis trigger CAFA’s mass action jurisdiction by filing a petition in state court to join the Byetta JCCP? While Corber held that an initial petition for a JCCP can constitute a proposal, it is not clear whether an add-on petition can constitute a proposal as well—particularly where, as here, the claims in the add-on petition would not meet -27- CAFA’s hundred-person threshold unless added to claims that had previously been joined “upon motion of a defendant.” 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(11)(B)(ii)(II). We need not reach that issue, however, for even if the Kreis plaintiffs’ add-on petition could be construed as a proposal, it was not a proposal for a joint trial. See Corber, 771 F.3d at 1224 (observing that not all JCCP petitions are “per se proposals to try cases jointly”). Their add-on petition comes within the scope of the exception in § 1332(d)(11)(B)(ii)(IV), which excepts from the “mass action” definition “claims that have been consolidated or coordinated solely for pretrial purposes.” We wrote in Corber, “We can envision a [JCCP] petition that expressly seeks to limit its request for coordination to pre-trial matters, and thereby align with the mass action provision’s exception [under] § 1332(d)(11)(B)(ii)(IV).” Id. We went on to observe that “if Plaintiffs had qualified their coordination request by saying that it was intended to be solely for pre-trial purposes, then it would be difficult to suggest that Plaintiffs had proposed a joint trial.” Id. The Kreis plaintiffs qualified their petition in just this manner. In a declaration attached to the Kreis add-on petition, plaintiffs’ counsel stated that plaintiffs “do not seek joint trials of any cases or plaintiffs, but rather, all claims shall be tried individually.” Unlike the Corber plaintiffs, the Kreis plaintiffs did not explain that they sought to join the JCCP in order to avoid “inconsistent judgments.” Id. at 1223–24. Rather, -28- they stated that they wanted to avoid “inconsistent rulings.” “Rulings” is a broader term than “judgments,” including various dispositions of pre-trial motions. Our conclusion that the Kreis plaintiffs did not seek a joint trial is confirmed by the nature of the proceeding they sought to join. The August 2010 case management order in the Byetta JCCP, which explicitly applies to later filed addon cases, states that the order “does not constitute a determination that these actions should be consolidated for trial.” We recognize that the Byetta plaintiffs submitted a status conference report in June 2014—after the plaintiffs in four of the five cases, including Kreis, had filed suit—in which the Byetta plaintiffs represented that they “have said several times that a small group of bellwethers provide an extremely useful and practical backdrop and context for the many issues that will arise as the [pancreatic cancer] cases progress, including the generic causation phase.” A bellwether trial is a test case that is typically used to facilitate settlement in similar cases by demonstrating the likely value of a claim or by aiding in predicting the outcome of tricky questions of causation or liability. See Alexandra D. Lahav, Bellwether Trials, 76 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 576, 577–78 (2008). Ordinary principles of collateral estoppel may apply in subsequent cases, but we agree with Judge Battaglia that a bellwether trial is not, without more, a joint trial within the meaning of CAFA. Compare Atwell, 740 F.3d at 1163–66 -29- (affirming the denial of motions to remand where three sets of plaintiffs filed motions proposing that the state court assign all three cases “to a single Judge for purposes of discovery and trial,” and where plaintiffs’ counsel discussed bellwether case selection at a hearing in state court); Abbott Labs., 698 F.3d at 571, 573 (reversing an order granting a motion to remand where plaintiffs moved for consolidation “through trial” and “not solely for pretrial proceedings,” in part to “prevent inconsistent . . . trial rulings”); Bullard, 535 F.3d at 762 (stating that “[a] trial of 10 exemplary plaintiffs, followed by application of issue or claim preclusion to 134 more plaintiffs without another trial, is one in which the claims of 100 or more persons are being tried jointly,” in the course of holding that a single complaint identifying 144 plaintiffs constitutes a proposal for a joint trial (emphasis added)). Thus, even if we were to impute the Byetta plaintiffs’ expressed wish for bellwether trials to the Kreis plaintiffs, that would not transform the Kreis plaintiffs’ add-on petition into a proposal for a joint trial.