Duane Morris Class Action Review - 2023 - Report - Page 100
discrimination and the injuries alleged required distinct inquiries into each of the
plaintiff’s circumstances, qualifications, and the alleged discrimination. For similar
reasons, the court also concluded that the plaintiffs could not satisfy Rule 23(b)’s
predominance requirement because individualized issues were more prevalent than
common ones and Defendants’ liability was not subject to common proof.
Similarly, in Helm, et al. v. Duval County School Board, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 180934
(M.D. Fla. Oct. 3, 2022), the Court declined to grant class certification to a group of
parents and children challenging the Defendant school board’s mask policy on
constitutional grounds given the paucity of the factual allegations supporting the
elements of Rule 23(a). For example, regarding numerosity, although responsive
affidavits attempted to provide more substance regarding the proposed class members,
the volume was still alleged to be only approximately 40 members, and it was unclear
whether all of them even attended the school. Id. at *5. The court concluded that the
other Rule 23 elements suffered from similar factual deficiencies and failed to allege a
common grievance. Id. at *6. Citing Wal-Mart, the court concluded that a party seeking
class certification “must affirmative demonstrate . . . compliance with the Rule,” which
precluded class certification for the plaintiffs. Id.
Finally, in Anders, et al. v. California State University, Fresno, Case No. 21-CV-179
(E.D. Cal. Nov. 22, 2022), the court denied a renewed motion for class certification
against the defendant California State University, Fresno for alleged violations of Title
IX. The court previously had found the proposed classes for both the effective
commendation and equal treatment claims too broad and refined them, but denied class
certification under Rule 23(a)(4)’s adequacy requirement given it found a “disqualifying
conflict between the proposed class representatives, as former members of Fresno
State’s varsity women’s lacrosse team, and putative class members who were “deterred
from athletics “and who do not play…lacrosse.” Id. at 2. The court subsequently denied
reconsideration, since the plaintiffs failed to provide proper grounds for such relief in the
form of any new evidence to warrant a different outcome. Id. at p. 7. The court also
rejected the plaintiffs’ substantive arguments that any conflict between the proposed
class representatives and the putative class members was speculative because the
evidence demonstrated that there was evidence supporting the conclusion that
allocation of resources would necessarily benefit some women’s sports and not others,
and as several pertinent case law authorities similarly found a conflict in multi-sport
classes represented by only athletes from a single sport in the Title IX arena. Id. at 8-11.
The court likewise rejected the proposal that the class be certified as to liability only,
since that could be accomplished without conflicts, since class representatives must
adequately represent the class members at all times. For these reasons, the court
denied the plaintiffs’ second motion for class certification. Id. at 16.
B.
Rulings Granting Class Certification On Civil Rights Claims
In contrast, classes that overcame the commonality and predominance hurdles were
granted certification where they were able to persuasively present their claims as arising
under a single policy or procedure that would afford resolution to all class members.
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Duane Morris Class Action Review – 2023
