Court Opinion

ID: 9912813
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-23 01:00:36.123795+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:04:55.215221
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-30126     Document: 00517012140         Page: 1     Date Filed: 12/22/2023

           United States Court of Appeals
                for the Fifth Circuit                                    United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                  Fifth Circuit
                                ____________                                    FILED
                                                                        December 22, 2023
                                  No. 22-30126
                                                                           Lyle W. Cayce
                                ____________
                                                                                Clerk

   Connie Bourque, on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated,

                                                             Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                       versus

   State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company,

                                           Defendant—Appellant.
                  ______________________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Western District of Louisiana
                            USDC No. 6:19-CV-1359
                  ______________________________

   Before Jones, Clement, and Haynes, Circuit Judges.
   Edith Brown Clement, Circuit Judge:
          State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. challenges the district
   court’s decision to certify a class action against it. In Sampson v. United
   Services Automobile Ass’n, we addressed a certified class nearly identical to
   that at issue here and determined that class certification was error. 83 F.4th
   414 (5th Cir. 2023). Because that decision controls the outcome of this case,
   we VACATE the district court’s class certification decision and
   REMAND.
Case: 22-30126         Document: 00517012140               Page: 2       Date Filed: 12/22/2023

                                           No. 22-30126

                                                 I.
                                                A.
           Connie Bourque is a Louisiana resident whose car was insured by
   State Farm. Under the terms of her insurance policy, Bourque was entitled
   to receive the actual cash value (“ACV”) of her vehicle upon the occurrence
   of a total loss. Louisiana law prescribes three methods for calculating ACV
   including, as relevant here, using “a generally recognized used motor vehicle
   industry source; such as, an electronic database, if the valuation documents
   generated by the database are provided to the first-party claimant, or a
   guidebook that is available to the general public.” La. Stat. Ann. §
   22:1892.
           When Bourque totaled her car in March 2018, she filed a claim with
   State Farm, and State Farm used a product known as the Autosource Market-
   Driven Valuation to determine the ACV of Bourque’s vehicle. Believing that
   the Autosource valuation of her car was less than the true ACV, Bourque
   filed a class-action suit in October 2019. 1 She alleged that by using the
   Autosource valuation for ACV, State Farm breached the insurance contract
   and violated its duty of good faith and fair dealing under Louisiana Law. See
   La. Stat. Ann. § 22:1973.
           In May 2021, Bourque moved to certify a class of “[a]ll persons
   insured by State Farm who have made a claim for first party total loss, which
   claim State Farm evaluated using Autosource, or a predecessor product,
   from January 1, 2017 to the present date.” But the district court found that
   this class definition encompassed uninjured individuals, namely those for
   whom the Autosource valuation of their vehicle was equivalent to (or even
           _____________________
           1
             Bourque was originally a co-plaintiff with Darren Shields. But Shields’ claims
   were later dismissed on the grounds of judicial estoppel, and he is not a party to this appeal.

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Case: 22-30126      Document: 00517012140             Page: 3   Date Filed: 12/22/2023

                                       No. 22-30126

   more than) the ACV. So, the court redefined the class to include only
   individuals whose car’s Autosource valuation was less than the value
   according to the National Automobile Dealers Association (“NADA”)
   Official Used Car Guide. On January 3, 2022, the district court certified a
   class consisting of:
          All persons insured by State Farm in Louisiana who have made
          a claim for first party total loss, which State Farm evaluated
          using Autosource, or a predecessor product, from January 1,
          2017, to October 15, 2021, and whose Autosource Base Value
          was less than the NADA Fully Adjusted Value (“Clean
          Retail”).
   We granted interlocutory review.
                                           B.
          At the same time as they were seeking class certification in this case,
   Bourque’s attorneys were litigating a nearly identical class-action dispute—
   Sampson—against the United Services Automobile Association (“USAA”)
   in the same court before the same district judge. The only appreciable factual
   difference between the case against USAA and the case against State Farm
   was that instead of using Autosource to calculate ACV, USAA used the CCC
   One Market Valuation Report.
          Although the complaint in Sampson had been filed three months
   before Bourque’s, the Sampson plaintiffs did not move for class certification
   until after the Bourque class was certified. So, unsurprisingly, the Sampson
   plaintiffs’ proposed class definition mirrored that of the class certified in
   Bourque in every material respect. On May 3, 2022, the district court certified
   a class in Sampson consisting of:
          All persons insured by USAA and USAA General Indemnity
          Company who have made a claim for first party total loss,
          which claim USAA and USAA General Indemnity Company

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                                    No. 22-30126

          evaluated using CCC, or a predecessor product from August
          15, 2010 to the present date and whose CCC Base Value was
          less than the NADA Fully Adjusted Value (“Clean Retail”).
   We granted interlocutory review in Sampson as well, and ultimately held this
   case in abeyance pending the outcome of Sampson.
          The Sampson opinion was filed on October 6, 2023. Our court noted
   that, under Louisiana law, proof of injury is an essential element of a breach
   of contract claim. Sampson, 83 F.4th at 421. So, class certification was only
   proper if plaintiffs could prove injury—i.e., underpayment—on a class-wide
   basis. Id. at 422. Plaintiffs contended that they had met this standard because
   any class member who was paid less than the NADA value of their vehicle
   necessarily received less than ACV and therefore suffered an injury. But we
   rejected that premise, explaining that NADA value was just one of many
   statutorily acceptable methods for calculating ACV, and therefore pinning
   ACV to NADA value constituted an impermissibly arbitrary choice of a
   liability model. Id. We therefore vacated the district court’s grant of class
   certification. Id. at 423.
                                         C.
          Due to the similarities between the two cases, we ordered the parties
   in this case to file supplemental briefs concerning the effect of Sampson here.
   State Farm claims that “Sampson resolves all issues relevant to this appeal
   and requires the same result.” Bourque argues that the facts and record here
   are different, and therefore a different result is called for. In particular,
   Bourque notes that Sampson did not reach the question of whether proof of
   injury is an element of a bad faith claim under Louisiana law, and therefore
   Bourque contends that Sampson does not preclude class certification here.

                                         4
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                                     No. 22-30126

                                          II.
            We review de novo whether the district court applied the correct legal
   standard in determining whether to certify a class and review the ultimate
   certification decision for abuse of discretion. Chavez v. Plan Benefit Servs.,
   Inc., 77 F.4th 370, 378 (5th Cir. 2023). “Where a district court bases its legal
   analysis on an erroneous understanding of the governing law, it has abused
   its discretion.” Mims v. Stewart Title Guar. Co., 590 F.3d 298, 304 (5th Cir.
   2009).
            “Under our rule of orderliness, one panel of our court may not
   overturn another panel’s decision, absent an intervening change in the law,
   such as by a statutory amendment, or the Supreme Court, or our en banc
   court.” Davis v. Fort Bend Cnty., 893 F.3d 300, 305 (5th Cir. 2018) (internal
   quotation marks and citation omitted), aff’d, 139 S. Ct. 1843 (2019).
                                         III.
            We find that our decision in Sampson controls the outcome of this
   case. Here, as in Sampson, the district court’s class certification decision was
   based, in relevant part, on its determination that “[t]he difference between a
   lawful measure, such as NADA, and the Autosource-derived ACV provides
   an appropriate measure for determining who might have suffered economic
   harm as a result of State Farm’s allegedly improper use of Autosource.” But,
   as was the case in Sampson, Bourque did not propose looking to “a system
   like NADA” to establish injury; instead, she “picked out NADA and NADA
   alone” despite the fact that “other valuation methods, including [Kelley Blue
   Book] and others, [are] equally legal and legitimate alternatives.” Sampson,
   83 F.4th at 419. Thus, per Sampson, Bourque’s “arbitrary choice of a liability
   model” fails to meet the strictures of Rule 23. Id. at 422–23 (emphasis
   omitted).

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                                     No. 22-30126

          True, Bourque—unlike the plaintiffs in Sampson, id. at 422 & n.6—
   properly preserved her argument that proof of injury is not an element of a
   bad faith claim under § 22:1973. But even if she is correct in that assertion, it
   makes no difference. Under Louisiana law, “[b]reach of contract is a
   condition precedent to recovery for the breach of the duty of good faith.”
   Bayle v. Allstate Ins. Co., 615 F.3d 350, 363 (5th Cir. 2010); accord Pelle v.
   Munos, 296 So. 3d 14, 25 (La. Ct. App. 2020). And to establish the underlying
   breach of contract, proof of injury is required—proof that Bourque failed to
   establish can be made on a class-wide basis. Sampson, 83 F.4th at 421–23.
                                         IV.
          For these reasons, we VACATE the district court’s grant of class
   certification and REMAND for further proceedings.

                                          6