Opinion ID: 4519703
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Denial of Class Certification

Text: (…continued) brought in 2011 for a fax sent in 2006. FDS stated in its complaint that this suit was the second class action that had been brought against All Plumbing, and that the earlier suit, brought by a different plaintiff, tolled the statute of limitations for FDS and for the entire class it purported to represent. The earlier suit was brought by Love the Beer, Inc. and was filed on September 14, 2010. As the trial court later noted: “The Love the Beer case was originally pled as a class action suit, but after discovering that the defendant’s [All Plumbing’s] insurance carrier was considering denying insurance coverage due to improper notice of the Love the Beer suit, the class claims were dropped in favor of pursuing the instant case”; “[t]he Love the Beer matter was then dismissed in its entirety by stipulation on June 9, 2012.” All Plumbing did not raise a statute of limitations defense in this case. 5 On March 1, 2012, FDS had filed an amended motion for class certification, and, on November 6, 2014, a second amended motion for class certification, the latter of which defined the class as: “All persons who between September 14, 2006 and September 30, 20[06] were sent telephone facsimile messages of material advertising the commercial availability of any property, goods, or services by or on behalf of [All Plumbing].” Following several written submissions from the parties and four days of hearings between January and June 15, 2015, on September 3, 2015, Judge Motley issued an order denying class certification. In its lengthy and thorough order, the trial court summarized the evidence that had emerged from discovery – including a deposition of Shafik – which revealed that, in 2006, a company called Business to Business Solutions (“B2B”) approached Shafik about advertising All Plumbing’s services to other companies via fax. 4 Shafik provided written authorization to B2B to send 5,000 faxes to “all apartments, condo[]s [,] managements, [and] resta[u]rants” within thirty listed zip codes, all within Virginia, at a cost of $350. Shafik could not recall who submitted the payment from All Plumbing to B2B, but admitted that it may have been 4 B2B was not named as a defendant by FDS in its original complaint or later named as a third-party defendant by All Plumbing. 6 another employee of All Plumbing. In any event, between September 22 and 28, 2006, for reasons that are unclear, B2B faxed ads for All Plumbing’s business to 10,281 fax numbers located in Virginia, Maryland, and D.C., of which about 5,000 were in Virginia and about 5,000 were in D.C. FDS received one of these faxes at its place of business in D.C. The trial court then discussed All Plumbing’s proposed defense, which was that FDS would be unable to prove that the fax it received was sent “on behalf of” All Plumbing because FDS was located in D.C., and All Plumbing had only authorized faxes to be sent to Virginia fax numbers. After reviewing case law from other jurisdictions, the court stated: [T]his Court finds that FDS would have the burden to prove that the faxes sent by B2B were sent on behalf of All Plumbing – that is, within the scope of All Plumbing’s authorization. All Plumbing’s defense relating to the lack of authorization for the advertisement sent to FDS, the proposed class representative, therefore, has merit and will be a highly contested issue at trial. With practically no other issues in dispute, it is likely that a large portion of the litigation – perhaps all of the litigation – will be spent focused on this defense. Based on this holding, the court proceeded to analyze whether FDS had met the requirements of commonality, typicality, and adequacy under Rule 23(a). It found that, because the question of whether a fax ad was sent “on behalf of” All 7 Plumbing was likely to generate different answers for different groups of proposed class members based on whether or not they were located in Virginia – and that, even for proposed class members located in Virginia, the answers would be different depending on whether or not they fell into the business types (e.g., restaurants) or particular zip codes identified by Shafik – FDS had failed to demonstrate sufficient commonality. Similarly, because FDS would be susceptible to All Plumbing’s defense in a way that 5,000 Virginia fax recipients would not – and because, again, these Virginia class members would be differently situated from FDS and from each other based on whether they fell into the business types or particular zip codes identified by Shafik – FDS had failed to show that its claim was typical of putative class members. The court also found that, for the same reasons articulated above, FDS could not demonstrate that it was an adequate class representative. The trial court then considered FDS’s request to cure potential defects in its class definition by narrowing the definition to include only fax recipients located in D.C. 5 The court noted that this “D.C.-only class definition” had been presented to 5 FDS also sought leave to secure an additional Virginia class representative. The trial court found that “the interest of comity weighs heavily against . . . concentrating the claims of a subclass comprised entirely of Virginia citizens and businesses in a single District of Columbia courtroom,” particularly (…continued) 8 the court “more than five months after the filing of the [second amended] motion [for class certification] and more than three years after the filing of the complaint,” as it was contained in “FDS’ third supplemental memorandum, and after three lengthy hearings on class certification.” The court found that FDS had submitted an “eleventh-hour fallback position, after years of litigation and ample notice of its originally proposed class definition’s deficiencies,” and the court “exercise[d] its discretion to reject an attempt to remake a suit more than four years after it began” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). 6