Opinion ID: 2193202
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: American Pipe Class Action Tolling and Mass-Tort Suits

Text: Petitioners argue that even if we recognize a class action tolling rule, we should restrict the rule so that the statutes of limitations are never tolled by the filing of a putative class action complaint that alleges causes of action arising out of a mass-tort incident. We are not persuaded. To our knowledge, no court that has recognized some form of American Pipe class action tolling has adopted the per se mass-tort exception advocated by petitioners. In Jolly, the California Supreme Court supported this view in dicta, but it did not reach the issue of whether to adopt a mass-tort exception. Petitioners point to one other opinion discussing a potential mass tort exception to the American Pipe class action tolling rule, In re Rezulin Products Liability Litigation, No. 00 Civ. 2843(LAK), MDL 1348, 03 Civ. 8933, 2005 WL 26867 (S.D.N.Y. Jan.5, 2005). There, the court, applying New Mexico law, held that New Mexico would not extend American Pipe class action tolling to mass-tort cases. Id. at . The court based its conclusion on a lack of positive indication in New Mexico case law that New Mexico would apply American Pipe class action tolling to mass-tort cases, coupled with the court's cursory observation that [t]he wisdom of adopting the American Pipe rule in mass-tort cases is, to say the least, highly debatable. Id. (citing Mitchell A. Lowenthal & Norman Menachem Feder, The Impropriety of Class Action Tolling for Mass Tort Statutes of Limitations, 64 Geo. Wash. L.Rev. 532 (1996)). Furthermore, we are not persuaded by the reasons offered by courts and commentators in support of a mass-tort exception to the American Pipe class action tolling rule. In dicta, the Jolly court expressed skepticism as to whether American Pipe tolling should be applied to mass-tort suits: [B]ecause personal-injury mass-tort class-action claims can rarely meet the community of interest requirement in that each member's right to recover depends on facts peculiar to each particular case, such claims may be presumptively incapable of apprising defendants of `the substantive claims being brought against them' . . . a prerequisite, in our view, to the application of American Pipe. This being so, putative class members would be ill advised to rely on the mere filing of a class action complaint to toll their individual statute of limitations. The presumption, rather, should be to the contraryi.e., that lack of commonality will defeat certification and preclude application of the American Pipe tolling doctrine. Jolly, 245 Cal.Rptr. 658, 751 P.2d at 937-38 (citations omitted). We note that the Jolly court here is not endorsing the per se mass-tort rule advocated by petitioners, but is only endorsing the rule that a class action complaint that is not certified on grounds of lack of commonality is  presumptively incapable of giving defendants adequate notice of the substantive claims being brought against them, not invariably so. Id. at 937 (emphasis added). We think there is good reason for not extending this presumption to a per se exception. The mere fact that class certification is denied for lack of commonality does not mean that the class action complaint failed to give adequate notice to the defendant of the substantive claims of every member of the putative class who may file an individual action or intervene after denial of class certification. As the Jolly court correctly points out, denial of class certification in a mass-tort suit may indicate that the notice provided by the complaint to the defendant was inadequate, but it does not invariably render the class action complaint incapable of giving adequate notice to the defendant of an individual putative class member's claims. This determination must be made on a case-by-case basis. The defects in the arguments offered in support of a per se mass-tort exception support our view. Lowenthal and Feder argue as follows: For mass tort personal injury cases, that notice must be sufficient to identify who the absent class members are. In such cases, each plaintiff's experience with the tort-causing agent, medical history, condition and prospects, and economic and personal profile are unique. Although some issueslike whether the product causes injurymay be common to all members of the putative class, the crux of each plaintiff's claim is the individualized experience with and reaction to the tort-causing agent .... The inadequacy of notice for tolling purposes is highlighted by examining how such classes are typically described in pleadings. Although each pleading is unique, personal injury mass tort classes are typically described as `all persons injured by their use of drug x,' or `all persons injured by their exposure to y.' Such descriptions provide defendants with no basis for gathering evidence about any particular plaintiff  other than those specifically named. Indeed, the only `notice' the defendant receives is that something it did (e.g., the design or manufacture of its product) is alleged to have caused harm. That notice is sufficient to alert the defendant to preserve and gather evidence relating to its own conduct. The filing of an individual action, however, provides that notice, too. Yet, no one suggests that an individual filing should toll the limitations period for all possible plaintiffs. Rather, the notice provided in the class actionif it is to be sufficient to toll the limitations periodmust do more: it must enable the defendant to gather evidence necessary to defend itself on the unique issues presented by the class of mass tort plaintiffs. Lowenthal & Feder, supra at 575-77 (footnotes omitted). In short, Lowenthal and Feder argue that a mass-tort class action complaint is per se incapable of providing notice to a defendant adequate to apply American Pipe tolling because the complaint does not permit the defendant to identify non-named putative class members, and knowledge of the identity of the putative class members is necessary for the defendant to gather and preserve the evidence necessary to defend against their claims. This argument is defective in two main respects. First, there is no basis for the assumption that a defendant will invariably be unable to identify particular putative class members simply because the class action complaint involves claims arising out of a mass-tort incident. Even if the class is defined in terms of the persons who may have been injured by a particular product or exposed to a particular event, whether such a class definition is adequate to permit the defendant to ascertain the identities of the putative class members will depend upon the type of class involved, the particular class description provided in the complaint, and, most significantly, the information the defendant possesses concerning the relation between the product or event involved and the putative class members. There is no reason to assume, as do Lowenthal and Feder, that a defendant will never possess the necessary information to ascertain the identities of putative class members. For example, if a class action complaint asserts claims on behalf of a class of persons injured by the use of a particular product, it is entirely possible that the defendant may be able to ascertain the identities of the putative class members on the basis of its sales records. [10] A second, equally significant, defect in Lowenthal and Feder's argument is their assumption that the defendant must be able to ascertain the identity of every putative class member in order for any member of the putative class to claim the benefit of class action tolling. They claim that the notice provided in the class actionif it is to be sufficient to toll the limitations periodmust ... enable the defendant to gather evidence necessary to defend itself on the unique issues presented by the class of mass-tort plaintiffs.  Lowenthal & Feder, supra at 577 (emphasis added). This is mistaken. The class action complaint must give the defendant sufficient notice to enable the defendant to defend itself on the unique issues presented by each particular member of the putative class who later files an individual action or intervenes in the underlying action after denial of class certification, if that particular member of the putative class is to be able to claim the benefits of class action tolling. If a class action complaint gives a defendant adequate notice of the claims of a particular member of the putative class who later files an individual action or intervenes after a denial of class certification, we see no reason why the statute of limitations should not be tolled for the claims of that particular member of the putative class simply because the class action complaint did not give the defendant adequate notice of the claims of some other member of the putative class. In such a situation, the defendant is placed on notice of the particular class member's claims, and it therefore has the opportunity to preserve and gather evidence specific to that class member's claim, even if it cannot do so for some other class members. Given that the defendant had adequate notice of the particular class member's claims, the purpose of the statute of limitations is satisfied with respect to the claims of that particular class member, and thus it is appropriate to extend the benefit of class action tolling to that particular defendant regardless of the adequacy of the notice received by the defendant of the claims of other putative class members.