Court Opinion

ID: 9572060
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:37:59.397583+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:31:27.903291
License: Public Domain

G. BARRY ANDERSON, Judge
(concurring specially).
I concur with the majority here, largely because of our prior holding in Peterson v. BASF Corp., 618 N.W.2d 821 (Minn.App.2000), review denied (Minn. Jan. 26, 2001).
But while respondents have put together a persuasive set of facts outlining misconduct on the part of appellants, at the end of the day, this dispute is the poster child for national class action reform. We have here a Minnesota district court, applying a New Jersey consumer fraud statute to a nationwide class of plaintiffs, with few of those plaintiffs residing in New Jersey. And, it is probably a fair assumption that the legislative authors of the New Jersey consumer protection scheme did not have in mind midwestern farmers purchasing agricultural chemicals as the protected class. Indeed, at least one of the amicus briefs notes that the connections with New Jersey are hardly overwhelming.
This is not a recipe for uniformity or consistency, it is fair neither to claimants nor defendants and it is long past time for national policy makers to address class action procedures.