Court Opinion

ID: 9800774
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 08:35:59.58808+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:48:41.690901
License: Public Domain

*532MELTON, Justice,
concurring.
Although I concur fully in the majority opinion, I write separately to point out that, for many of the same reasons discussed with regard to commonality, certification of the class in this case would be inappropriate due to a lack of typicality. OCGA § 9-11-23 provides that “(a) One or more members of a class may sue or be sued as representative parties on behalf of all only if: . . . (3) The claims or defenses of the representative parties are typical of the claims or defenses of the class.” The named plaintiffs in this case have not been shown to be typical of the claims or defenses of the proposed class, as its members own different tracts of land subjected to varying uses (some residential, some agricultural, some commercial and/or industrial, some vacant and unused) and located at different distances and directions from the sludge fields in question. Therefore, the purported class in this instance fails for both lack of commonality and typicality.