Opinion ID: 4510978
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Who Needs Standing

Text: The parties first dispute who must demonstrate standing to recover damages—only the class representative (i.e., only Ramirez) or every class member. This Court has previously held that only the representative plaintiff need allege standing at the motion to dismiss and class certification stages, see In re Zappos.com, Inc., 888 F.3d 1020, 1028 n.11 (9th Cir. 2018); Melendres v. Arpaio, 784 F.3d 1254, 1262 (9th Cir. 2015), 5 and even at the final judgment stage in class actions involving only injunctive relief, see Bates v. United Parcel Serv., Inc., 511 F.3d 974, 985 (9th Cir. 2007) (en banc); Casey v. Lewis, 4 F.3d 1516, 1519–20 (9th Cir. 1993). But we have never addressed the question of who must have standing at the final stage of a money damages suit when class members are to be awarded individual monetary damages. We address that question today and hold that each member of a class certified under Rule 23 must satisfy the bare minimum of Article III standing at the final judgment stage of a class action in order to recover monetary damages in federal court. Although this is an issue of first impression for this Court, our holding today clearly follows from 5 See also Neale v. Volvo Cars of N. Am., 794 F.3d 353, 362 (3d Cir. 2015) (holding that “unnamed, putative class members need not establish Article III standing” in damages action at class certification stage). 20 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION Supreme Court precedent, as well as the fundamental nature of our judicial system. 6 The Supreme Court has held, albeit in a different context, that all parties seeking to recover a monetary award in their own name must show Article III standing. See Town of Chester, N.Y. v. Laroe Estates, Inc., 137 S. Ct. 1645, 1651 (2017) (holding that “an intervenor of right” under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a)(2) “must have Article III standing in order to pursue relief that is different from that which is sought by a party with standing[,]” including where “both the plaintiff and the intervenor seek separate money judgments in their own names.”); see also Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo, 136 S. Ct. 1036, 1053 (2016) (Roberts, C.J., concurring) (“Article III does not give federal courts the power to order relief to any uninjured plaintiff, class action or not. The Judiciary’s role is limited ‘to provid[ing] relief to claimants, in individual or class actions, who have suffered, or will imminently suffer, actual harm.’” (quoting Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 349 (1996))). 6 Our holding does not apply to class actions involving only injunctive relief. Nor does our holding alter the showing required at the class certification stage or other early stages of a case. We address only the circumstances of this case: court-awarded, individual monetary awards for class members at the final judgment stage of a class action. We note that, although the standing inquiry in the early stages of a case focuses on the representative plaintiffs, district courts and parties should keep in mind that they will need a mechanism for identifying class members who lack standing at the damages phase. See Torres v. Mercer Canyons Inc., 835 F.3d 1125, 1137 (9th Cir. 2016) (“[F]ortuitous noninjury to a subset of class members does not necessarily defeat certification of the entire class, particularly as the district court is well situated to winnow out those non-injured members at the damages phase of the litigation, or to refine the class definition.” (citing 1 W. Rubenstein, Newberg on Class Actions § 2:3 (5th ed. 2019))). RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 21 The same rule applies here. To hold otherwise would directly contravene the Rules Enabling Act, because it would transform the class action—a mere procedural device—into a vehicle for individuals to obtain money judgments in federal court even though they could not show sufficient injury to recover those judgments individually. See 28 U.S.C. § 2072(b) (“[Rules of procedure] shall not abridge, enlarge or modify any substantive right.”).