Opinion ID: 3188539
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Certified Conflict

Text: R.J. Reynolds advances two primary arguments before this Court as to why the Fourth District allegedly erred in concluding that there is no knowledge requirement for establishing “manifestation.” First, R.J. Reynolds asserts that the Fourth District erred in rejecting well-settled principles from the statute of limitations context, which derive from “creeping disease” cases and require the - 17 - plaintiff to have knowledge of the causal connection between the symptoms and the cause of action. Second, R.J. Reynolds contends that the Fourth District’s decision undermines the ability of a plaintiff to exercise any meaningful “opt-out” right, in contravention of Engle and class actions more generally. We address each argument in turn.
As to R.J. Reynolds’ first argument, we conclude that statute of limitations principles are inapplicable to the “manifestation” issue of Engle class membership. The Fourth District directly and persuasively addressed this issue, explaining why the policy concerns driving cases involving the accrual of a cause of action for statute of limitations purposes have no bearing on the policy for requiring “manifestation” to prove membership in the Engle class. Reviewing this Court’s decision in Carter v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 778 So. 2d 932 (Fla. 2000), a “creeping disease” case relied on by R.J. Reynolds and the dissent, the Fourth District stated that the policy behind requiring knowledge in the statute of limitations context “reflects common sense,” as “it is both illogical and unfair for the statute to begin to run before the plaintiff knows or should have known of the causal connection that is the basis for his suit.” Ciccone, 123 So. 3d at 611. Indeed, while R.J. Reynolds and the dissent place much emphasis on Carter and the “creeping disease” line of cases, the rationales of those cases in resolving - 18 - statute of limitations issues are not, as R.J. Reynolds contends, easily transplanted to the issue of Engle class membership. In Carter, 778 So. 2d at 934, this Court held that the statute of limitations begins to run in a products liability cause of action involving a “creeping disease” when “the accumulated effects of the deleterious substance manifest themselves to the claimant in a way which supplies some evidence of a causal relationship to the manufactured product.” This Court based its holding in Carter on what the Fourth District in Ciccone accurately described as “concerns about fairness to the plaintiff.” Ciccone, 123 So. 3d at 611. Specifically, Carter and other “creeping disease” cases, by their very nature, involve latent illnesses that are acquired “as a result of long-term exposure to injurious substances,” where the deleterious effects that give rise to the cause of action may not become symptomatic for many years after the initial exposure. Carter, 778 So. 2d at 936-37. For this reason, “the connection between a plaintiff’s initial symptoms and a defendant’s conduct can remain unknown until reaching a later stage of worsened development.” Ciccone, 123 So. 3d at 610. A “creeping disease” presents unique problems in the statute of limitations context, where a plaintiff in Florida has only four years to bring a products liability claim “from the date that the facts giving rise to the cause of action were discovered, or should have been discovered with the exercise of due diligence.” §§ 95.031(2)(b), 95.11(3), Fla. Stat. Yet, it is clear that a plaintiff should not, and - 19 - cannot, be required to file a cause of action before even realizing that the cause of action exists. Such a rule would, as the Fourth District cogently articulated, completely undermine the purpose of statutes of limitations: [I]n the context of “creeping diseases,” the requirement of knowledge of the causal connection between the infirmity and the product is grounded in balancing fairness to the plaintiff with the policy driving the statute of limitations. The primary purpose of a statute of limitations is to compel the exercise of a right of action within a reasonable time “to protect defendants from unfair surprise and stale claims.” Major League Baseball v. Morsani, 790 So. 2d 1071, 107475 (Fla. 2001); see 35 Fla. Jur. 2d, Limitations and Laches § 1 (2013). If courts were to find that “creeping diseases” “manifest” at first sign of “symptoms,” such policy would be disserved, as the statute of limitations would bar plaintiffs from pursuing fruitful causes of action before the plaintiff even knows enough “to commence a non-frivolous tort lawsuit.” Frazier [v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., 89 So. 3d 937, 946 (Fla. 3d DCA 2012)]. Ciccone, 123 So. 3d at 612. Unlike the statute of limitations context, where the statute itself actually requires a reasonable plaintiff to know of the existence of the cause of action, there is no corresponding policy concern underlying the establishment of membership in the Engle class. This Court has clearly held that diagnosis of the tobacco-related disease or medical condition is not required in order to be included in the Engle class. As the Fourth District explained, the deadline imposed by this Court for keeping the class from becoming “open-ended” was not “tied to the plaintiff’s knowledge.” Id. at 613. Instead, “all a plaintiff had to show was that he or she was included among ‘those people who were affected in the past or who were - 20 - presently suffering at the time the class was recertified by the trial court.’ ” Id. (quoting Engle, 945 So. 2d at 1275). Placing a burden on the plaintiff to have knowledge of the causal connection between symptoms and smoking would, thus, actually require the plaintiff to know as much or more than a medical professional—that is, only plaintiffs with a competent doctor who is able to quickly link the correct illness with smoking, or those plaintiffs who are particularly sophisticated on their own, would be able to establish class membership. Again, this is a point the Fourth District clearly recognized: [A]s shaped by the Supreme Court under the unique circumstances of Engle, the question of class membership is a fact issue viewed with the benefit of hindsight from the vantage point of 2006, where expert testimony may establish the link between a plaintiff’s concrete symptoms and tobacco; class membership is not an inquiry into the abstraction of what a plaintiff knew or should have known over ten years earlier. The unfairness to a plaintiff that informs the knowledge requirement of the statute of limitations cases is absent in this scenario. The term “manifested” as used in Engle has a narrower definition than that given to it in Castleman. As the plaintiff argues in her brief, the Supreme Court’s use of the term “manifested” in Engle signifies an “event that is neither dependent on the skill of the [treating] physician nor the sophistication of the patient—it is enough that the decedent have suffered a medical condition that first” became symptomatic before November 21, 1996. Id. at 613-14. Simply put, the policy undergirding the “manifestation” of an injury for the accrual of a cause of action is not the same as the policy rationale for the - 21 - “manifestation” requirement to establish Engle class membership. Accrual is simply not the relevant inquiry for determining Engle class membership. If anything, the concerns about fairness to the plaintiff that drive the knowledge requirement for purposes of the statute of limitations actually compel the opposite result here. Because R.J. Reynolds’ argument regarding statute of limitations principles “fails to take into account the differences in policy between the accrual of a cause of action for the purpose of the statute of limitations and pinpointing a date for class membership by looking back in time from the 2006 Engle decision,” id. at 613, this argument is unavailing as a justification for rejecting the Fourth District’s definition. B. The Fourth District’s Definition is Consistent with Engle R.J. Reynolds also contends that the Fourth District’s interpretation of “manifestation” is erroneous because it is inconsistent with the “opt-out” rights of a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit, in that a plaintiff with no reason to know that he or she is included in the class could not meaningfully determine whether to join the class and be bound by any final judgment or whether to “opt-out” and proceed individually against the defendant in a separate cause of action. In support of this argument, R.J. Reynolds points to an order entered by the Engle trial court in January 1998, in which the trial court stated that class members must be “residents of the state of Florida at the time of [the] medical diagnosis or at the time [the] - 22 - evidence of the causal relationship of the cause of action had manifested itself.” R.J. Reynolds contends that this order demonstrates that, in order to exercise a meaningful right to “opt out,” the potential Engle class member must have known about the connection between smoking and his or her symptoms, particularly when considered in conjunction with the trial court’s November 1996 notice informing Florida smokers that they were not members of the Engle class if they had “not manifested or been diagnosed with any disease or medical condition caused by [their] addiction to cigarettes that contain nicotine.” As Ciccone points out, however, the trial court’s January 1998 order concerned the accrual of the cause of action for determining the proper choice of law—in other words, this order invokes the inapplicable statute of limitations principles that have no impact on the issue of Engle class membership. Moreover, R.J. Reynolds’ citation to the trial court’s orders does not assist in analyzing the “manifestation” issue because R.J. Reynolds reads a knowledge requirement into the definition that simply is not there. “Rather, the requirements for class membership are: (1) that the plaintiff was a Florida resident, (2) that he or she either suffered or was suffering from a smoking related illness before November 21, 1996, and (3) that his or her addiction to nicotine caused the disease.” Ciccone, 123 So. 3d at 614. The “key point in determining Engle class membership,” as stated by the Fourth District based on the correct interpretation of this Court’s - 23 - decision in Engle, “is pinpointing when the plaintiff began ‘suffering’ from the smoking-related illness.” Id. at 615 (quoting Engle, 945 So. 2d at 1275). In any event, the trial court orders cited by R.J. Reynolds are not dispositive for the additional reason that this Court’s 2006 Engle decision is the pertinent point of reference for defining the scope of the Engle class in progeny cases. This Court clearly held that the class included “those people who were affected in the past or who were presently suffering at the time the class was recertified by the trial court.” Engle, 945 So. 2d at 1275. That definition did not include any requirement of knowledge—only a requirement of past or present “suffering” of tobaccorelated symptoms. Further, the current procedural posture of the litigation, where the class was actually decertified moving forward, differentiates Engle progeny cases from typical class actions. The Engle class was closed by this Court’s Engle decision itself. While R.J. Reynolds, echoed by the dissent, contends that defining “manifestation” without reference to knowledge of causality would violate potential class members’ right of access to the courts and eliminate the “mutuality” necessary for the Engle jury’s Phase I findings to be given preclusive effect— because it would expand the class too broadly—this Court already clearly defined the parameters of the “finite class” in Engle to avoid these concerns. Id. - 24 - The Engle class could have continued for even longer than the date of the trial court’s recertification order—indeed, this Court explicitly noted in Engle that the “final class description could lead one to believe that the class is open-ended because there is no stated cut-off date for membership.” Id. at 1274. But this Court declined to permit such an “open-ended” class, recognizing the date of final class certification as the “cut-off date for class membership,” in order to “avoid multiple similar lawsuits and to make legal process more effective and expeditious, important goals of a class action suit.” Id. at 1275. It was in this context of explaining why the class could not be “open-ended,” and not in the context of explaining the necessary “manifestation” of symptoms, that this Court referenced the access to courts and “mutuality” issues R.J. Reynolds now improperly attempts to rely on. For similar reasons, R.J. Reynolds’ reliance on Amchem Products, Inc. v. Windsor, 521 U.S. 591 (1997), and alleged federal due process concerns, are also misplaced. R.J. Reynolds cites to Amchem Products in asserting that the “Fourth District’s extension of Engle class membership to individuals who had no reason to know they might have a smoking-related condition rendered meaningless the notice and opt-out rights protected by the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure and by the state and federal constitutions.” In particular, R.J. Reynolds asserts that the Supreme Court in Amchem Products “rejected a class certification in an asbestos - 25 - case that included exposure-only plaintiffs who ‘may not even know of their exposure, or realize the extent of the harm they may incur.’ ” 521 U.S. at 628. But, in Amchem Products, the United States Supreme Court confronted a class much different than the Engle class. It was a class described by the Supreme Court as “sprawling”—the very type of “open-ended” class this Court was careful to avoid in Engle. 521 U.S. at 622. And, because the Supreme Court concluded that the class in Amchem Products could not “satisfy the requirements of common issue predominance and adequacy of representation,” the Supreme Court did not “definitively” rule on the notice provided. Id. at 628. There were, in addition, numerous other factors present in Amchem Products, not present in Engle, that impacted the Supreme Court’s decision, including that the class was for settlement purposes only, id. at 620, and that the class members would be bound by the settlement even though they were not suffering from any disease, id. at 628. Accordingly, Amchem Products is wholly distinguishable. In sum, this Court carefully limited the “finite class” in Engle to ensure that class membership was not “open-ended.” Engle, 945 So. 2d at 1274-75. There remain numerous limitations on the scope of the class, including the statute of limitations, the one-year time bar set forth by this Court for filing an individual action based on Engle, Florida residency, and the requirement we address here that the smoker “ha[d] suffered” or be “presently suffering” from a tobacco-related - 26 - disease or medical condition at the time the class was recertified by the trial court. See id. at 1275-77. Knowledge of the causal link between smoking and the symptoms that the smoker previously “suffered” or was, at that time, “presently suffering,” was not required by Engle, and R.J. Reynolds has offered no compelling reason this Court should now hold that a plaintiff must establish this additional element in order to prove class membership.