Duane Morris Class Action Review - 2023 - Report - Page 206
certification motions in cases making other claims, including those against health benefit
plan administrators.
In Kazda, et al. v. Aetna Life Insurance Co., 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77880 (N.D. Cal.
Apr. 26, 2022), the plaintiff moved to certify a class of participants in health plans
administered by the defendant whose claims for liposuction treatment for their lipedema
(a rare condition causing abnormal buildup of fat tissue that causes pain, mobility
issues, and other physical problems) were denied as cosmetic. The plaintiff’s claim and
several subsequent appeals for benefits were denied by the defendant, the
administrator of her spouse’s employer’s health plan, based on policy exclusions and
other guidance directing the denial of claims for liposuction treatment as cosmetic. The
plaintiff asserted claims for denial of plan benefits and breach of fiduciary duties,
seeking a clarification of rights and injunctive relief and class certification under Rules
23(b)(1) and 23(b)(2). In opposing class certification, the defendant argued that the
plaintiff was an inadequate and atypical class representative under Rule 23(a) because
she lacked standing to pursue injunctive relief insofar as she could not show a future
injury. The court disagreed. It held that the injunctive relief that the plaintiff sought was
retrospective in nature, i.e., notice to the class that the defendant had changed its
procedures with respect to the treatment and reprocessing of previously denied
requests for it. Id. at *12-13. Insofar as the initial injury continued to exist, the court
concluded that the plaintiff had standing to seek retroactive injunctive relief and
otherwise satisfied Rule 23(a)’s typicality and adequacy requirements. Id. at *14-16. The
court found that the plaintiff had satisfied Rule 23(a)’s commonality requirement and,
despite a class size of no more than 25 individuals, concluded that the class was
sufficiently numerous under the circumstances, and applied a relaxed numerosity
standard where only injunctive and declaratory relief were sought. Id. at *20-25. Finally,
the court concluded that certification was appropriate under Rule 23(b)(1) because of
the risk “that different courts might come to different conclusions about whether [the
defendant’s] denial of claims was” wrong, which would lead to incompatible standards
for defendant’s future conduct. Id. at *25-27. It also held that certification was
appropriate under Rule 23(b)(2) because the plaintiff had sufficiently alleged that the
defendant had acted pursuant to a common policy or practice of denying the kind of
benefit claim that the plaintiff had made, noting that courts have recognized that Rule
23(b)(2) certification is appropriate when a plaintiff seeks a claims-reprocessing
injunction, as the plaintiff did here. Id. at *27-28. Finding the requirements of Rules
23(a), 23(b)(1), and 23(b)(2) satisfied, the court granted the plaintiff’s motion for class
certification.
III.
Top ERISA Class Action Settlements
The value of the top 10 ERISA class action settlements in 2022 was $399.60, which
was almost the same as the total of $411.05 million in 2021. The top 10 values over the
preceeding four years have been nearly flat.
In 2022, the top ten ERISA settlements totaled $399.60 million.
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Duane Morris Class Action Review – 2023
