Court Opinion

ID: 9691736
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 00:00:31.389721+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:18:21.012935
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-30243     Document: 00516871910         Page: 1     Date Filed: 08/24/2023

           United States Court of Appeals
                for the Fifth Circuit
                                                                       United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                Fifth Circuit

                                ____________                                  FILED
                                                                        August 24, 2023
                                 No. 23-30243                             Lyle W. Cayce
                                ____________                                   Clerk

   In re Jefferson Parish; Louisiana Regional Landfill
   Company; Waste Connections Bayou, Incorporated;
   Waste Connections US, Incorporated; Aptim
   Corporation,

                                                                     Petitioners.
                  ______________________________

                       Petition for a Writ of Mandamus
                      to the United States District Court
                     for the Eastern District of Louisiana
                   USDC Nos. 2:18-CV-7889, 2:18-CV-8071,
                         2:18-CV-8218, 2:18-CV-9312,
                        2:19-CV-11133, 2:19-CV-14512
                  ______________________________

   Before King, Smith, and Elrod, Circuit Judges.
   Jennifer Walker Elrod, Circuit Judge:
          Jefferson Parish Landfill emitted noxious gases and odors into
   surrounding areas, so nearby residents sued. One of those lawsuits is the
   Ictech-Bendeck putative class action, which has not yet had a hearing on class
   certification. Another is the Addison mass action, which is comprised of over
   500 plaintiffs and is against the same defendants as Ictech-Bendeck. The
   matters are not consolidated. This mandamus proceeding arose because the
   defendants object to the district court’s scheduling of a small group of
   Addison plaintiffs for trial before Ictech-Bendeck will finish its class
   certification process, which the defendants have repeatedly delayed.
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                                     No. 23-30243

          Petitioners ask us to stop the Addison trial and to order the district
   court to rule on class certification in Ictech-Bendeck before allowing any
   further proceedings in Addison. Petitioners raise the novel theory that under
   Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the filing of a putative class
   action bars any possible class members from reaching the merits of their own,
   separate suits until class-certification proceedings conclude in the putative
   class action. The district court rejected that argument, and Petitioners
   sought mandamus.
          Mandamus is an extraordinary form of relief saved for the rare case in
   which there has been a “usurpation of judicial power” or a “clear abuse of
   discretion.” In re JPMorgan Chase & Co., 916 F.3d 494, 500 (5th Cir. 2019)
   (alteration and citation omitted). It is not for testing novel legal theories.
   And Petitioners’ theory is not merely new; it is also wrong. Rule 23
   establishes a mechanism for plaintiffs to pursue their claims as a class. It does
   not cause the filing of a putative class action to universally estop all separate
   but related actions from proceeding to the merits until the class-certification
   process concludes in the putative class action, after years of motions practice.
   Because Petitioners have failed to establish their entitlement to a writ of
   mandamus, their petition is DENIED.
                     I. Factual and Procedural Background
          From July 2017 to December 2019, the Jefferson Parish Landfill
   released noxious emissions on its premises and into nearby neighborhoods.
   In regular English: the landfill made the surrounding areas smell bad. The
   “odors and gases emitted by the Jefferson Parish Landfill during the relevant
   time period were capable of causing headaches, nausea, vomiting, loss of
   appetite, sleep disruption, dizziness, fatigue, anxiety and worry, a decrease in
   quality of life, and loss of enjoyment or use of property in the general
   population.”

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           Several collections of residents near Jefferson Parish Landfill sued the
   landfill’s owner (Jefferson Parish) and its operators (four companies). This
   mandamus action arises out of the Eastern District of Louisiana’s case
   management of two of those lawsuits: the Ictech-Bendeck class action 1 and the
   Addison mass action. 2 The Ictech-Bendeck class action plaintiffs seek damages
   on a state-law nuisance theory under Louisiana Civil Code articles 667, 668,
   and 669. The Addison mass action plaintiffs seek damages from the same
   defendants, although they plead claims for both nuisance and negligence, as
   codified in Louisiana Civil Code articles, 2315, 2315.1, and 2316. “Ictech-
   Bendeck and Addison are not and have never been consolidated actions. They
   remain completely distinct actions, aside from the parties’ agreement to try
   the issue of general causation in one bench trial.” Ictech-Bendeck is a putative
   class action. Addison is not.
           Ictech-Bendeck was filed in July 2018 and removed to federal court in
   August 2018. Addison was filed in December 2018 and removed in June 2019.
   In recounting the ensuing procedural history, the petition—which complains
   that five years have elapsed without a ruling on class certification in Ictech-
   Bendeck—skips straight from the 2018 filings to a hearing scheduled by the
   district court for February 2022. Omitted from that four-year span is the
   extensive motions practice engaged in and led by Petitioners in both Ictech-
   Bendeck and Addison.

           _____________________
           1
              Ictech-Bendeck v. Waste Connections Bayou, Inc., et al., No. 18-CV-7889,
   consolidated with 18-CV-8071, 18-CV-8218, and 18-CV-9312, is a consolidation of several
   proposed class actions brought by Elias Jorge “George” Ictech-Bendeck; Savannah
   Thompson; Nicole M. Landry-Boudreaux; Larry Bernard, Sr.; and Mona Bernard,
   individually, and on behalf of similarly situated individuals.
           2
             Addison, et al. v. Louisiana Regional Landfill Co., et al., No. 19-CV-11133,
   consolidated with 19-CV-14512, is a consolidation of two mass actions containing over 500
   individual plaintiffs.

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          In April 2019, Petitioner moved to dismiss the Ictech-Bendeck class
   action and requested a case management order that would delay the
   plaintiffs’ moving for class certification until 91 days after the district judge
   ruled on the motion to dismiss. The court dismissed the motion in August
   2019. Ictech-Bendeck v. Waste Connections Bayou, Inc., No. 18-CV-7889, 2020
   WL 2037185, at *1 (E.D. La. Apr. 28, 2020). In September 2019, Petitioners
   then “proposed the Court enter a ‘Lone Pine’ case management order that
   permitted discovery on both general and specific causation.” Id. at *2. This
   proposed order would not have had the court rule on a class certification
   order for at least 16 months. That would have been January 2021, at the
   earliest.
          While conferring on this proposed case management plan, the parties
   consented to the district court’s determining the issue of general causation
   for both cases before the parties proceeded with either the certification of the
   class or the Addison trial. The first case management plan was therefore
   entered in November 2019, and it set a trial on general causation for April
   2021. This trial date got pushed back by COVID, Hurricane Ida, and seven
   joint motions by the parties for extensions.
          Because of the requested extensions, the evidentiary hearing on
   general causation occurred in February 2022 (which now brings us back to
   Petitioners’ version of the procedural history). At this hearing, which
   occurred over nine days, “the district court heard live testimony from
   thirteen witnesses, heard excerpts of the Rule 30(b)(6) depositions of
   corporate representatives for Waste Connections and Jefferson Parish, and
   admitted into evidence dozens of exhibits.” The parties submitted post-trial
   briefs in April 2022, and in November 2022 “the district court entered its
   46-page-long Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, in which it found
   general causation had been satisfied in both cases.” That is, the court found
   that Jefferson Parish Landfill had emitted noxious gases, that the landfill had

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   done so during the relevant time period, and that these fumes were capable
   of causing the complained-of injuries.
           On April 12, 2023, the district court granted in part and denied in part
   Petitioners’ motion for summary judgment against some of the Addison
   plaintiffs. Then on April 17, and over some objection from Petitioners, the
   district court adopted a new case management order drafted by the parties
   that scheduled a September 2023 trial for several of the Addison plaintiffs. 3
   This was to be a so-called “bellwether” trial, wherein counsel for both sides
   select a small group of test plaintiffs to proceed to trial as a way of gathering
   information about what the outcome of the mass action as a whole might be.
   In re Chevron U.S.A., Inc., 109 F.3d 1016, 1019 (5th Cir. 1997). 4 Under the
   adopted case management order, the parties were to meet and confer after
   the close of discovery in the Addison trial (July 2023) to discuss class
   certification and any related discovery in Ictech-Bendeck.
           Petitioners were dissatisfied with that case management order. They
   filed this mandamus action on April 17, the same day that the district court
   adopted the management order. Subsequently, on April 26, the district court
   adopted yet another case management order (the ninth one in total),
   requiring the parties to meet and confer about class certification earlier, in
   May 2023, “so the parties might simultaneously proceed with discovery

           _____________________
           3
              Petitioners had filed a motion in January 2023 to adopt an alternative case
   management order and filed a motion for “reverse bifurcation” in February 2023. The
   district court denied both motions.
           4
             “The term bellwether is derived from the ancient practice of belling a wether (a
   male sheep) selected to lead his flock. The ultimate success of the wether selected to wear
   the bell was determined by whether the flock had confidence that the wether would not lead
   them astray, and so it is in the mass tort context.” In re Chevron U.S.A., Inc., 109 F.3d 1016,
   1019 (5th Cir. 1997).

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   related to the first Addison trial while also conducting discovery related to
   class certification in Ictech-Bendeck.”
          On June 8, 2023, this court stayed all proceedings in the Addison case
   pending further order. We then expedited the case for oral argument, which
   we heard in July. Following oral argument, we clarified that the stay shall not
   affect the Ictech-Bendeck proceedings.
                             II. Mandamus Standard
          The All Writs Act provides this court with the power to issue a writ of
   mandamus directed to a district court. 28 U.S.C. § 1651. However, this “is
   a ‘drastic and extraordinary’ remedy ‘reserved for really extraordinary
   cases.’” Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for the Dist. of Columbia, 542 U.S. 367, 380
   (2004) (quoting Ex parte Fahey, 332 U.S. 258, 259–60 (1947)). To merit
   relief, Petitioners must demonstrate “that there has been a ‘usurpation of
   judicial power’ or a ‘clear abuse of discretion.’” In re Volkswagen of Am., Inc.,
   545 F.3d 304, 311 (5th Cir. 2008) (en banc) (citation omitted).
          We use a three-pronged test to analyze that standard. Petitioners
   must show: (1) that there is a “clear and indisputable” right to the writ; (2)
   that there are “no other adequate means to attain the relief” requested; and
   (3) that the appellate court’s exercise of discretion to issue the writ would be
   “appropriate under the circumstances.” In re Itron, Inc., 883 F.3d 553, 567
   (5th Cir. 2018) (numbering reordered) (quoting Cheney, 542 U.S. at 380–81).
                             III. Merits of the Petition
          Mandamus petitioners must satisfy all three conditions to obtain
   issuance of the writ (clear and indisputable right, no other remedies, and
   appropriate exercise of discretion). Petitioners in this case cannot satisfy
   even one of them. We address each requirement in the sections below.

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                            A. Indisputable Right to the Writ
             “The ‘right to the issuance of the writ is necessarily clear and
   indisputable’ if ‘the district court clearly abused its discretion.’” In re Itron,
   883 F.3d at 568 (quoting In re Volkswagen, 545 F.3d at 311). And it is an abuse
   of discretion if a district court “makes an error of law or applies an incorrect
   legal standard.” Klier v. Elf Atochem N. Am., Inc., 658 F.3d 468, 474 (5th Cir.
   2011). So this first mandamus-test prong is about the legal merits of a
   petitioner’s claim. But because the standard is a clear abuse of discretion, the
   merits of the claim must also be clear: “the writ will not issue to correct a
   duty that is to any degree debatable.” United States v. Denson, 603 F.2d 1143,
   1147 n.2 (5th Cir. 1979) (en banc).
                               1. Clear Abuse of Discretion
             Petitioners claim that it is clearly established that Rule 23 requires a
   district court to rule on class certification in a putative class action before
   reaching the merits in any related—but unconsolidated—cases. And yet,
   Petitioners cannot identify even a single case with this holding. Without any
   controlling authority in support of it, their theory about Rule 23’s scope is
   not clearly established, and their request for the writ fails at this threshold
   stage.5
             Petitioners spend the bulk of their argument successfully defending
   the uncontroversial claim that a purported class action generally cannot itself

             _____________________
             5
             Cf. Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (2009). In Pearson, the Supreme Court held
   that courts may rule on claims to qualified immunity by determining only that a right is not
   clearly established, without also reaching whether there is such a right. Id. at 237. One
   virtue identified by the Court of this approach is that “[t]here are cases in which it is plain
   that a constitutional right is not clearly established but far from obvious whether in fact
   there is such a right.” Id. Here, it is clear that Petitioners’ claimed interpretation of Rule
   23 is not well settled, regardless of whether or not it is correct upon closer examination.

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   go to trial if its class-certification hearing is still pending. But the crux of
   Petitioners’ mandamus petition relies on the very different proposition that
   this “bar on trial before certification fully applies to closely related individual
   actions.” To attempt to support this claim, Petitioners string cite to four
   cases, none of which has the same procedural posture or factual background
   as the instant case. See In re Citizens Bank, N.A., 15 F.4th 607 (3d Cir. 2001);
   In re Fibreboard Corp., 893 F.2d 706 (5th Cir. 1990); Byerson v. Equifax Info.
   Servs., LLC, No. 07-CV-00005, 2009 WL 82497, at *2 (D.S.C. Jan. 9, 2009);
   In re Zetia (Ezetimibe) Antitrust Litig., No. 18-MD-2836, 2021 WL 9870367,
   at *5 (E.D. Va. May 7, 2021)). Petitioners’ citations to those cases fail to
   establish their theory beyond debate. 6
           The first two cases—In re Citizens Bank and In re Fibreboard Corp.—
   do not even involve separate class and non-class actions. It is therefore
   difficult to see at first glance how those cases could support the proposition
   that Rule 23 reaches beyond class actions and into the management of other,
   unconsolidated non-class actions. However, we examine each case in more
   detail below.
           In re Citizens Bank did not involve two separate cases. Instead, the
   named plaintiffs in a putative class action also filed non-class claims in the
   same complaint. 15 F.4th at 610. Because of the unitary nature of the lawsuit,
   the Third Circuit held that the class representatives should not be able to try
   their tightly related non-class claims before certifying their class claims. 7 Id.

           _____________________
           6
             By way of further analogy to the qualified-immunity context, the Supreme Court
   has repeatedly stated that a right’s being clearly established may “not require a case directly
   on point, but existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question
   beyond debate.” Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. 7, 12 (2015) (quoting Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563
   U.S. 731, 741 (2011)).
           7
            It is worth mentioning, though, that the Third Circuit did not grant a petition for
   writ of mandamus on the relevant merits portion. The posture of the case at the time was

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           Petitioners say that In re Citizens Banks cannot be distinguished on the
   “non-substantive ground that the different claims were ‘brought in one
   complaint.’” That is incorrect. The distinction is not just substantive, it is
   the entire ball game. Petitioners are trying to show that Rule 23 reaches
   beyond a putative class plaintiff’s complaint and into actions brought by other
   individuals who have no interest in joining the class plaintiff’s action.
   Because In re Citizens Bank does not involve such a posture, it cannot clearly
   establish that legal theory.
           In re Fibreboard Corp. also did not involve two separate cases. In that
   case, the district court consolidated 3,031 asbestos cases for common trial in
   one class action. 893 F.2d at 707. This court then granted a writ of
   mandamus to vacate parts of the consolidation as improper. Id. at 711–12.
   Rather than seeking to stop individual trials from happening independently
   of the class action (like Petitioners here seek), the petitioner-defendants in In
   re Fibreboard Corp. wanted to disaggregate the class action and have more trials.
   Id. at 709 (“Defendants insist that one-to-one adversarial engagement or its
   proximate, the traditional trial, is secured by the seventh amendment . . . .”).
   Furthermore, we allowed individual representatives to proceed to trial even
   though a class was not certified. Id. at 712 (“We find no impediment to the
   trial of Phase I should the district court wish to proceed with that trial.”). In
   re Fibreboard Corp. therefore does not stand for the proposition that Rule 23
   has the universal reach that Petitioners assert it does.
           The second pair of cases that Petitioners cite—Byerson v. Equifax
   Information Services, LLC, and In re Zetia (Ezetimibe) Antitrust Litigation—

           _____________________
   a motion for stay pending resolution of a mandamus petition. Given this special procedural
   circumstance, the court could “grant a stay even if the ultimate likelihood of granting the
   mandamus petition is below 50 percent.” In re Citizens Bank, N.A., 15 F.4th 607, 616 (3d
   Cir. 2021).

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   are unpublished district court decisions from outside this circuit. Byerson,
   2009 WL 82497; In re Zetia, 2021 WL 9870367. Even putting aside the fact
   that this makes them unable to clearly establish our caselaw in the Fifth
   Circuit, we discuss them to explain why their distinct factual circumstances
   do not control this case.
          In Byerson v. Equifax Information Services, LLC, an individual action
   sat on the docket for years because the lawyers wanted to see what happened
   in a distinct but related class action. Byerson, 2009 WL 82497, at *2. The
   district court dismissed the individual action, not because a related class
   needed to be certified, but because of failure to prosecute. Id. And in fact,
   the court seemed to endorse the kind of suit occurring in this case, where
   individuals decide to forgo the benefit of being a part of a class action so that
   they can risk litigating on their own. Id. (“Plaintiffs must either be a part of
   the class, or litigate on their own without the benefit of collateral estoppel.
   They have done neither.”).
          In re Zetia (Ezetimibe) Antitrust Litigation is the closest to helping
   Petitioners. But it is still not on point. In that case, several related class
   actions and an individual action had nearly identical summary-judgment
   motions pending at the same time. In re Zetia, 2021 WL 9870367, at *6. The
   district court delayed ruling on the individual action’s motion for summary
   judgment until one of the other classes finished its certification process. Id.
   However, the reasoning was rooted in the pendency of nearly identical
   dispositive motions. The district court acknowledged the individual action’s
   argument that “[t]he rule against one-way intervention is not implicated
   whenever an absent class member might learn something about the strength
   or weakness of the class case based on a related case.” Id. (alteration in
   original). But the court held that “this is not an instance where the absent
   class members might learn ‘something.’ Rather it is an instance where absent
   class members would learn the court’s exact ruling on identical dispositive

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   motions.” Id. That is not the circumstance here. The class and non-class
   actions are not waiting on identical rulings at the same time.

                                   *        *         *
          The most that Petitioners’ four authorities can show is an arguable
   case for extending the rule against pre-certification trials within class actions
   to also apply to related actions. Petitioners have not shown that preventing
   such trials in related cases is a judicial duty established beyond debate. This
   lack of clarity in the caselaw would persist even if all the above cases were
   binding on this court. But the point is made even stronger by the fact that
   Petitioners’ only cases involving separate class and non-class actions are
   district court decisions from outside this circuit. Those cases are not
   authoritative in this court, so they could not have clearly established the legal
   argument that Petitioners now make before us.
                           2. Any Abuse of Discretion
          As just explained, we could deny Petitioners’ request for the writ on
   the threshold ground that they have not shown a clear abuse of discretion.
   But we need not stop there. Petitioners have also failed to show any abuse of
   discretion. Their argument for extending Rule 23 to reach all lawsuits that
   might relate to a putative class action is mistaken. It is premised on the
   existence of two harms, neither of which apply here: (a) one-way
   intervention, and (b) collateral estoppel.
                             a. One-Way Intervention
          The primary harm that Petitioners point to is what the Supreme Court
   has called “one-way intervention.” Am. Pipe & Const. Co. v. Utah, 414 U.S.
   538, 547 (1974)). That harm is, by definition, not applicable to a case in this
   posture. To see why, it is important to specify what exactly “one-way

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   intervention” is and when it can occur. The Supreme Court provided a
   useful history of the topic in American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah.
          Before Rule 23 was substantially amended in 1966, it “contained no
   mechanism for determining at any point in advance of final judgment which
   of those potential members of the class claimed in the complaint were actual
   members and would be bound by the judgment.” Am. Pipe, 414 U.S. at 545–
   46. Taken to its maximal limit, this feature allowed a potential class member
   to sit on the sidelines during the pendency of the suit and then decide to join
   the class only after the plaintiffs in the suit were victorious. If the class
   plaintiffs lost, however, then the spectators would not opt in to being bound
   by the unfavorable judgment. They would simply bring their own individual
   suits instead. Id. at 547. When Rule 23 was amended in 1966, however, it
   “closed the ‘one-way intervention’ loophole . . . and made clear that class
   action judgments were binding on all class members.” Robert H. Klonoff,
   Class Actions and Other Multi-Party Litigation in a Nutshell 29 (6th ed. 2021);
   see also 7AA Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and
   Procedure § 1789 (3d ed. 2023).
          The unique part of one-way intervention is its “heads I win, tails you
   lose” nature. Sideline plaintiffs can swoop in to benefit from a class
   representative’s hard-won victory without having to share in that
   representative’s possible defeat. The Third Circuit raised this concern in In
   re Citizens Bank when considering whether to allow the class representatives
   in a class action to try their own related, non-class claims before certifying
   their class claims. 15 F.4th at 616–17. Raising the one-way intervention
   concern in that context makes sense, because when the plaintiffs of the class
   and non-class claims are the same, there is still a possibility of intervention
   from the sidelines.       A spectator plaintiff can observe the class
   representatives’ success in their individual action and then use that
   information when determining whether or not to opt out of the class

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   representatives’ later-certified class claims. In doing so, the spectator’s
   intervention allows him or her to benefit from the judgment when the class
   representative wins in the class portion of the lawsuit.
          The ability to become bound by the judgment is what makes the
   procedural differences between In re Citizens Bank and this case crucial.
   Petitioners’ citation to In re Citizens Bank does not merely fail to clearly
   establish their theory. It reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what
   one-way intervention is. In one-way intervention, a sideline spectator must
   be able to hitch his or her proverbial wagon onto the case that is going well.
   Merely “learn[ing] something about the strength or weakness of the class
   case based on a related case” is not one-way intervention because there is no
   possibility of intervention into the binding nature of the judgment. In re Zetia,
   2021 WL 9870367, at *6.
          That difference is not merely semantic: it is what allows sideline
   plaintiffs to accept benefits without also accepting losses. When the only
   thing at stake from watching the individual action is gaining more information
   about the likelihood of success on the merits in the class action, then the
   sideline plaintiffs take the losses as much as they take the gains. If the
   individual plaintiffs win, then the potential class members might learn more
   about the strength of their case, and their settlement position could
   strengthen.   But importantly, if the individual plaintiffs lose, then the
   potential class members observing the proceedings—as well as the
   defendant—learn more about the weaknesses of the claim, so the class’s
   settlement position likely weakens.
          The gamified nature of one-way intervention can be clarified by
   analogizing to other competitive contexts. Take baseball, for example. One-
   way intervention would be a problem if a free-agent baseball player could sit
   on the sidelines during the middle of the playoffs while watching the Astros

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   and Rangers play a game, then decide which team to sign onto only after that
   team has won. The free agent player (sideline plaintiff) gets to benefit from
   the very win (judgment) that he got to watch without having to put any skin
   in the game. That is not what is occurring here. No plaintiffs can jump onto
   either the Addison or Ictech-Bendeck suits after their judgments have issued.
          To continue the analogy: Addison and Ictech-Bendeck are separate
   teams. But they share something in common: they both have left-handed
   pitchers. Ictech-Bendeck can learn something by watching Addison’s left-
   handed pitcher play against Petitioners, just as baseball teams can scout other
   games. But Ictech-Bendeck isn’t the only “team” gathering information.
   Petitioners are learning too. If Petitioners lose against Addison, they may
   switch up their game strategy when playing Ictech-Bendeck to ward off any
   weaknesses that they have against left-handed pitchers. And if Petitioners
   win against Addison, then they will know what tactics to keep using when they
   play Ictech-Bendeck. Addison cannot lose and then join Ictech-Bendeck’s team
   to get a rematch. They already took their shot and are knocked out of the
   tournament (i.e., they are claim precluded from suing twice). Thus, the pros
   and cons of the additional information flow to all parties equally.
          Petitioners do not explain why, if the Addison plaintiffs lose, putative
   class members would be “more likely to opt-out and bring individual serial
   actions in search of a more favorable (but presumptively inaccurate result).”
   If putative class members saw that the merits of their case were bad, why
   would they be more inclined to go through the time and expense of filing their
   own suits? In the case of one-way intervention, putative class members must
   opt out of the class-action loss so that their claims do not become precluded,
   which would cause them to lose the ability to bring suit at all.
          Here, a putative class member has no risk of having his or her rights
   extinguished by a related, non-class lawsuit where the plaintiffs lose. The

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   putative class member still has to decide whether to vindicate his or her cause
   of action as part of a class or as an individual. Watching another plaintiff lose
   would not seem to suggest that a future lawsuit would be any more or less
   successful whether brought as part of a class action or as an individual action.8
           Because the posture of the instant case categorically removes the risk
   of one-way intervention, the district court did not abuse its wide case-
   management discretion in authorizing the preliminary Addison trial to
   commence before the Ictech-Bendeck class certification process concludes.
                                      b. Issue Preclusion
           The second (and related) harm that Petitioners identify is issue
   preclusion. Petitioners assert that any judgment entered against them in the
   Addison trial might be used against them in the class action through offensive
   non-mutual collateral estoppel. 9 This is mistaken. Louisiana law—which is
   what a federal court sitting in diversity would apply in conducting its issue-
   preclusion analysis—does not recognize non-mutual collateral estoppel.
           The preclusive effect of judgments issued by federal courts is
   determined by federal common law. Semtek Int’l Inc. v. Lockheed Martin

           _____________________
           8
              And in fact, Petitioners may even get the incentives exactly backwards. One
   reason that people choose not to opt out of class actions is that if they bring their own suits,
   they take on more risk. A plaintiff on his or her own must front the lawsuit’s cost but will
   only possibly obtain relief. If he or she instead rides along in a class action, then his or her
   downside risk is mitigated by not having to front the cost. If that person was, instead,
   certain of the merits of his or her claim, then it would be less risky for such a person to bring
   his or her own suit and swing for a higher recovery than what he or she might receive as a
   mere class member.
           9 “Offensive use of collateral estoppel occurs when the plaintiff seeks to foreclose

   the defendant from litigating an issue the defendant has previously litigated unsuccessfully
   in an action with another party.” Bradberry v. Jefferson County, 732 F.3d 540, 548–49 (5th
   Cir. 2013) (internal brackets omitted) (quoting Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U.S. 322,
   326 n.4 (1979)).

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   Corp., 531 U.S. 497, 508 (2001) (Scalia, J.); see also Reimer v. Smith, 663 F.2d
   1316, 1325 n.9 (5th Cir. 1981) (“When a federal court sitting in diversity is
   considering the collateral estoppel effect of a prior federal judgment, this
   circuit applies federal common law.”). And “[a]s a matter of federal
   common law, federal courts sitting in diversity apply the preclusion law of
   the forum state unless it is incompatible with federal interests.” Anderson v.
   Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 953 F.3d 311, 314 (5th Cir. 2020). In this case, that
   means Louisiana issue preclusion law will control. See Dotson v. Atl. Specialty
   Ins. Co., 24 F.4th 999, 1002 (5th Cir. 2022).
           This offshoot of Erie’s legacy matters because Petitioner’s collateral-
   estoppel fears are based on the common law of preclusion used by federal
   courts exercising federal-question jurisdiction. 10 In that species of federal
   common law, there is no requirement of strict mutuality for issue preclusion
   to apply. If a defendant loses an issue in a suit where the issue was actually
   litigated and necessary to the decision, then a different plaintiff can sue the
   defendant, identify the defendant’s prior loss, and then preclude the
   defendant from relitigating the issue. See Bradberry v. Jefferson County, 732
   F.3d 540, 548 (5th Cir. 2013). This is because the Supreme Court has
   determined that “the preferable approach . . . is not to preclude the use of
   offensive collateral estoppel, but to grant trial courts broad discretion to

           _____________________
           10
              The legal authority that Petitioners cite for this proposition on page 8 of the
   Petition is dicta from the district court’s order denying Petitioners’ motion to bifurcate.
   That would, of course, not bind this court in a future appeal. The only Fifth Circuit
   precedent that Petitioner cites in support of the argument that Parklane’s test would
   apply—rather than Louisiana law—is Hardy v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 681 F.2d 334
   (5th Cir. 1982). That case predates and is in conflict with Semtek International Inc. v.
   Lockheed Martin Corp., 531 U.S. 497 (2001), as is seemingly recognized by recent Fifth
   Circuit cases’ adoption of the Semtek rule instead of the Parklane test. E.g., Anderson v.
   Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 953 F.3d 311, 314 (5th Cir. 2020).

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   determine when it should be applied.”             Parklane, 439 U.S. at 331
   (emphasizing fairness to the defendant).
          The same is not true in Louisiana. Until 1991, Louisiana did not
   recognize any form of collateral estoppel at all. Welch v. Crown Zellerbach
   Corp., 359 So. 2d 154, 156 (La. 1978) (“Collateral estoppel is a doctrine of
   issue preclusion alien to Louisiana law.”). The state then codified a narrow
   form of collateral estoppel that requires strict mutuality of identities between
   the parties in the first and second actions:
          A judgment in favor of either the plaintiff or the defendant is
          conclusive, in any subsequent action between them, with
          respect to any issue actually litigated and determined if its
          determination was essential to that judgment.
   La. Rev. Stat. 13:4231(3) (1991) (emphasis added).
          As the emphasized portion of the quoted code suggests, Louisiana law
   requires that “the parties must be identical.” Cook v. Marshall, --- F. Supp.
   3d ---, 2022 WL 17555514, at *5 (E.D. La. Dec. 9, 2022). “Absent an identity
   of the parties in the first and subsequent actions, the exception of res
   judicata will not be maintained.” Alpine Meadows, L.C. v. Winkler, 154 So. 3d
   747, 757 (La. Ct. App. 2014). While this does not mean that the parties must
   be physically identical, they must at least be in privity with each other. Under
   Louisiana law, “a privy is defined as ‘one who, after the commencement of
   an action, has acquired an interest in the subject matter affected by the
   judgment through or under one of the parties, as by inheritance, succession,
   purchase or assignment.’” Id. at 757–58 (quoting Five N. Co. v. Stewart, 850
   So. 2d 51, 61 (La. Ct. App. 2003)). “It is not sufficient to merely show that
   the party and the nonparty have common or parallel interests in the factual
   and legal issues presented in the respective actions.” Slaughter v. Atkins, 305
   F. Supp. 3d 697, 709 (M.D. La. 2018).

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          The other requirements for collateral estoppel are the same as those
   used in federal-question cases: “(1) the issue to be precluded must be
   identical to that involved in the prior action; (2) the issue must have been
   actually litigated; and (3) the determination of the issue in the prior action
   must have been necessary to the resulting judgment.” Sevin v. Parish of
   Jefferson, 632 F. Supp. 2d 586, 594–95 (E.D. La. 2008) (renumbered)
   (quoting In re Keaty, 397 F.3d 264, 270–71 (5th Cir. 2005)).
          In this case, the Addison trial would be in the Eastern District of
   Louisiana. The class action is also in the Eastern District of Louisiana, and
   the asserted basis of jurisdiction for both cases is diversity. If a member of
   the class action suit attempted to wield issue preclusion based on anything
   that occurred in the Addison trial, then Louisiana law would apply. Mutuality
   between the plaintiffs in the first and second actions would not be satisfied
   because the second-suit plaintiffs would not have acquired an interest in the
   subject matter from one of the first-suit plaintiffs “by inheritance,
   succession, purchase or assignment.” Alpine Meadows, 154 So. 3d at 758.
   Thus, there would be no collateral estoppel.
          And even putting Louisiana law aside, issue preclusion would not be
   allowed under federal law. Parklane Hosiery’s fairness-focused test for non-
   mutual collateral estoppel announces that:
          The general rule should be that in cases where a plaintiff could
          easily have joined in the earlier action or where, either for the
          reasons discussed above or for other reasons, the application of
          offensive estoppel would be unfair to a defendant, a trial judge
          should not allow the use of offensive collateral estoppel.
   Parklane, 439 U.S. at 331. And we have previously taken particular note of
   the fact that the results of test plaintiffs in a bellwether trial are to be used for
   informational purposes only, not for issue preclusion. See In re Chevron
   U.S.A., Inc., 109 F.3d 1016, 1021 (5th Cir. 1997) (denying mandamus with

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                                        No. 23-30243

   regard to blocking the bellwether plaintiffs’ test trial, but granting mandamus
   “insofar as it relates to utilization of the results obtained from the trial of the
   thirty (30) selected cases for any purpose affecting issues or claims of, or
   defenses to, the remaining untried cases”). Our circuit’s caselaw would not
   allow plaintiffs to use any results in the preliminary Addison trial to preclude
   the defendants from litigating any issues in subsequent cases.
          Finally, even if Louisiana or federal law could possibly allow issue
   preclusion to be used in this case, the Ictech-Bendeck plaintiffs told this court
   during oral argument that they will not seek to use collateral estoppel
   offensively. Oral Arg. Transcript at 23:55–24:02. Any such attempt for them
   to do so in contravention of that representation would be judicially estopped.

                                    *        *         *
          The alleged harms of one-way intervention and collateral estoppel are
   not presented by the procedural posture of this dispute. Petitioners’ theory
   about Rule 23 is therefore not just lacking clear establishment in the caselaw;
   it is also wrong on the merits. Petitioners fail to satisfy clear entitlement to a
   writ of mandamus, which is a necessary requirement for our issuing the writ.
   However, we proceed and briefly analyze the remaining two prongs as well.
                            B. Lack of Other Remedies
          Prong two of the mandamus analysis—that there must be no other
   adequate means to obtain the relief desired—is “a condition designed to
   ensure that the writ will not be used as a substitute for the regular appeals
   process.” In re Volkswagen of Am., Inc., 545 F.3d 304, 311 (5th Cir. 2008) (en
   banc) (quoting Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for the Dist. of Columbia, 542 U.S. 367,
   380–81 (2004)).      If the issue presented in the mandamus petition is
   “effectively reviewable after trial,” then the writ should not issue. In re
   Chevron U.S.A., Inc., 109 F.3d 1016, 1022 (5th Cir. 1997) (Jones, J., specially

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   concurring). This makes prong two similar to an irreparable-injury analysis.
   See In re Volkswagen, 545 F.3d at 319 (holding this prong to be satisfied when
   “the harm . . . will already have been done by the time the case is tried and
   appealed, and the prejudice suffered cannot be put back in the bottle”).
           Petitioners are correct that they are unable to appeal the district
   court’s case management order because “that order is not a final decision
   under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.” In re Citizens Bank, 15 F.4th at 621. But they have
   not explained why they could not seek effective relief on appeal if the Addison
   plaintiffs were to win in their trial. Petitioners say that “a reversal on final
   appeal cannot restore witness memories or lost evidence from the passage of
   time.” But that is not a risk created by the district court’s case management
   order in this dispute. That is inherent to all appeals.
           If the harm allegedly caused here is that a judgment for the Addison
   plaintiffs allows for one-way intervention into their victory, then a denial of
   such joinder or a review of the judgment as to those who attempted to join
   the case would provide relief. And if the harm is that a future ruling in the
   class action on collateral estoppel grounds would erroneously allow offensive
   use of issue preclusion from the Addison trial, then any judgment flowing
   from such a ruling could be appealed. 11 Mandamus is not a mechanism for
   addressing hypothetical erroneous rulings in future cases.
           The Supreme Court has warned that appellate courts reviewing
   mandamus petitions “must be careful lest they suffer themselves to be misled
   by labels such as ‘abuse of discretion’ and ‘want of power’ into interlocutory
   review of nonappealable orders on the mere ground that they may be
           _____________________
           11
             And, to reiterate, the existence of this harm turns on the merits of Petitioners’
   one-way intervention and collateral estoppel arguments. If a case in this posture is
   categorically exempt from those harms, as we have explained, then an appeal in this case
   would be no different than in any other dispute.

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                                          No. 23-30243

   erroneous.” Will v. United States, 389 U.S. 90, 98 n.6 (1967). For this
   reason, we have specified that when a writ of mandamus issues as a form of
   review over a non-appealable order, the risk of prejudice should be specific
   to that order. For example, in In re Volkswagen of America, Inc., we granted
   mandamus over an erroneous venue transfer order because the harm asserted
   by the petitioners was the trial’s being carried out in the wrong location. 545
   F.3d at 319. A risk of delay, however, is not caused by an order scheduling a
   trial. Delay is a byproduct of all appeals. And if anything, the district court’s
   setting of a trial in Addison helps avoid delay, unlike Petitioners’ request to
   indefinitely postpone reaching the merits in either Addison or Ictech-Bendeck.
           As discussed in the prior section on Petitioners’ asserted right to the
   writ, it is not clear that either of the harms that Petitioners fear suffering is
   likely (or even possible). However, if either the alleged one-way intervention
   problem or an erroneous collateral estoppel ruling were to occur, Petitioners
   have access to effective review on appeal.
                        C. Appropriate Exercise of Discretion
           The third prong is “whether [the court], in the exercise of [its]
   discretion, [is] ‘satisfied that the writ is appropriate under the
   circumstances.’” 12 In re Itron, Inc., 883 F.3d 553, 567 (5th Cir. 2018)

           _____________________
           12
              This inquiry may sound equitable, but mandamus is a remedy at law. Ex parte
   Republic of Peru, 318 U.S. 578, 584 (1943) (“The common law writs, like equitable remedies,
   may be granted or withheld in the sound discretion of the Court . . . .”); see also James E.
   Pfander & Jacob P. Wentzel, The Common Law Origins of Ex parte Young, 72 Stan. L. Rev.
   1269, 1304 n.205 (2020) (“This equitable-style inquiry into adequate alternative remedies
   has led the Supreme Court to mislabel mandamus as an equitable remedy in the present
   day.” (citing Great-W Life & Annuity Ins. Co. v. Knudson, 534 U.S. 204, 215 (2002)).
            However, the prerogative writs have fallen “into desuetude” and no longer qualify
   “as adequate alternative remedies” in equitable analyses. Owen W. Gallogly, Equity’s
   Constitutional Source, 132 Yale L.J. 1213, 1316 (2023) (“At the Founding, public-law
   plaintiffs typically did have adequate avenues for redress outside of Chancery, namely the

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   (alteration in original) (numbering reordered) (quoting Cheney, 542 U.S. at
   380–81). We have said that our “traditional reluctance to meddle in the
   formulation of a district court’s trial plan is tempered by the demands placed
   upon judicial resources and the extraordinary expense to litigants that
   typically accompanies mass tort litigation.” In re Chevron, 109 F.3d at 1018.
   But this case is not like In re Chevron, and Petitioners’ own delays deflate
   their arguments that the district court has abused its discretion by extending
   the class certification timeline in Ictech-Bendeck.
           The facts of this case are substantially different from those in In re
   Chevron. And they do not give rise to the same reasons for discretionarily
   providing extraordinary relief. As Judge Jones highlighted in her In re
   Chevron special concurrence, the mass action in that case had 3,000
   individual cases. “The number of cases in which there are 3,000 plaintiffs is,
   even in these days of frenzied tort litigation, extremely rare.” In re Chevron,
   109 F.3d at 1022 (Jones, J., specially concurring). The mass action in this
   case, by contrast, has just over 500 plaintiffs—one sixth of the number in In
   re Chevron.       And the number of plaintiffs actually approved for the
   preliminary Addison trial was a mere fraction of that. In Addison, each side
   was to select its own, preferred three plaintiffs and one family group. The
   district court in In re Chevron selected thirty cases to proceed as
   representatives of the whole. In re Chevron, 109 F.3d at 1019. In re Chevron
   was also “an ‘immature’ mass tort action, in which the defendant’s liability
   ha[d] not even been tested, much yet firmly established.” 109 F.3d at 1022

           _____________________
   prerogative writs of certiorari, mandamus, and prohibition.”); see also Thomas Tapping,
   The Law and Practice of the High Prerogative Writ of Mandamus, as It Obtains Both in England,
   and in Ireland 22 (London, William Benning & Co. 1848) (“Where a legal right exists, it is
   no answer to an application for a mandamus, to shew that there is also a remedy in equity;
   for when the Court refuses to grant the writ, because there is another specific remedy, it
   means a specific remedy at law.”).

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   (Jones, J., specially concurring). Here, specific liability is still up in the air,
   but the extensive trial on general causation in both the class and mass actions
   makes this case much more “mature” in terms of factual development.
   Here, the facts are not “so unique as to warrant mandamus,” as that
   “remedy is only to be used sparingly and with the utmost care.” Id. at 1021.
          And Petitioners’ own delays make them less-compelling recipients for
   exceptional judicial treatment. Petitioners participated in and led much of
   the pre-trial motions practice, which pushed back any opportunity for the
   district court to rule on class certification. And Petitioners’ litigation strategy
   led to the trial on general causation, which also delayed class certification.
   Petitioners complain of a “five-year delay” between the filing of these cases
   and now. But the district court entered its findings of fact and conclusions of
   law from the general-causation trial in November 2022, just five months
   before this petition was filed.
          If Petitioners were actually interested in expediting the Ictech-Bendeck
   action, then they would want this court to order the district court to have a
   class-certification hearing as soon as possible. But at oral argument we asked
   Petitioners’ counsel about their preferred timeline for concluding the class-
   certification proceedings, and they seemed interested only in further delay.
   When we asked if they wanted us to order the district court to hold a class
   certification hearing within 60, 90, or 120 days, counsel responded that “it’s
   not a calendar issue, it’s no trials on the merits before that class certification
   decision is made.” Oral Argument Transcript at 39:35–39:43. We inquired
   further about Petitioners’ seeming lack of interest in proceeding with haste
   on class certification, so long as they could remain in pre-trial limbo in both
   Ictech-Bendeck and Addison, and counsel suggested that “no more than six
   months from today [July 12, 2023]” would be practicable. Oral Argument
   Transcript at 39:357–40:00. Yet Petitioners did not request that we issue

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                                          No. 23-30243

   relief to expedite the class-certification hearing’s occurring by any particular
   date.
           Such a timeline—after there has been multiple years’ worth of
   discovery—is not the kind of emergency intervention that mandamus is
   saved for. Petitioners were at least acquiescent in, and very likely the drivers
   of, the delays in certification. But that is not to say that we approve of
   litigation tactics that drag out class action proceedings. The fact that
   plaintiffs choose to join as a putative class rather than sue individually should
   not unreasonably extend the timeline for resolving the matter, even if
   statistically it might do so. Some defendants would like for there to be a
   requirement that “significant (or even complete) merits discovery must
   occur before class certification,” but “delaying certification until late in the
   case is contrary to the sequencing set forth in Rule 23.” Robert H. Klonoff,
   The Decline of Class Actions, 90 Wash. U. L. Rev. 729, 756 (2013). With this
   in mind, we are confident that the able district court will proceed
   expeditiously with the certification hearing.
           This court is not eager to allow the use of the mandamus process for
   parties to escape from the litigation positions that they have put themselves
   in. As the district court wrote in its invited brief to us, “While Petitioners
   imply the district court has wrongfully delayed the class certification hearing
   to such an extent that a writ of mandamus is the only appropriate relief, the
   delay in determining class certification has been the result of the parties’
   actions, not the district court’s.” 13

           _____________________
           13
            Or, as the Ictech-Bendeck plaintiffs put it in their brief opposing the petition for
   writ of mandamus, “Petitioners now complain about the position in which they find
   themselves. However, Petitioners need only look in the mirror to find the cause of their
   current woes.”

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                                      No. 23-30243

                                  *        *         *
          Petitioners cannot satisfy any of the three required prongs of our test
   for mandamus relief. First, Petitioners’ novel legal theory—that Rule 23
   applies to related actions when a class action exists—fails to demonstrate that
   Petitioners have a clear right to relief. And the harms that Petitioners
   allege—one-way intervention and collateral estoppel—do not apply to a case
   in this posture. Second, Petitioners have failed to show why those harms, if
   they exist, could not be corrected on appeal. Third, Petitioners have not
   demonstrated that this case is so unique that we, in our discretion, should
   issue this extraordinary relief. The petition is DENIED.

                                          25