Duane Morris Class Action Review - 2023 - Report - Page 260
B.
Venue Issues In Class Actions
Venue is another important issue that impacts class actions, especially in multi-district
litigation. Various decisions addressed venue issues in 2022 in class action litigation.
In Stewart, et al. v. First Student, Inc., 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 202028 (E.D. Penn. Nov.
7, 2022), the plaintiffs filed a class and collective action alleging that defendant failed to
pay overtime compensation in violation of the FLSA. Id. The plaintiffs and the defendant
filed cross-motions to transfer venue. The court granted plaintiffs’ motion and denied
defendant’s motion. The defendant sought to have the matter transferred to the U.S.
District Court for the Southern District of Ohio; the plaintiffs request the U.S. District
Court for the Northern District of Ohio. The court had stayed the case pending the Third
Circuit’s decision in Fischer, et al. v. Federal Express Corp., 42 F.4th 366 (3d Cir.
2022). The Third Circuit ultimately ruled in Fischer that FLSA opt-in plaintiffs with no
connection to the forum state must either forfeit their claims or seek transfer to “a court
that can exercise general personal jurisdiction over their employer.” Id. at *2-3. Due to
the ruling in Fischer, the court reasoned that the plaintiffs here could either: (i) abandon
all claims for any of the 6,702 opt-in plaintiffs who did not have claims relating to the
defendant’s contacts with Pennsylvania; or (ii) move to transfer to Ohio for general
jurisdiction because the defendant was an Ohio-based corporation. The court noted that
several plaintiffs lived in the Northern District of Ohio and the defendant was based in
the Southern District of Ohio, so either would be an appropriate venue. However, in
examining the private interest factors, the court reasoned that the convenience of
parties weighed slightly in favor of transfer to the Northern District of Ohio, because the
plaintiffs lived in the Northern District and hence they could afford more easily the cost
of litigating there than in the Southern District of Ohio. The court also determined that
the public interest factors weighed in favor of the plaintiffs’ motion, because transfer to
the Northern District of Ohio would promote judicial economy since another collective
action involving similarly-situated Plaintiffs, common claims, and facts, was already
being litigated there. Id. at *11. The court therefore ruled that an analysis of the factors
favored transfer to the Northern District of Ohio. Accordingly, the court granted the
plaintiffs’ motion and denied the defendant’s motion to transfer.
Courts also determined that class actions must be brought only in appropriate venues.
For example, the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a class action due to it being
based out of extraterritorial claims in Laydon, et al. v. Coöperatieve Rabobank U.A.,
2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 28817 (2d Cir. Oct. 18, 2022). The plaintiff, a bank customer,
filed a class action alleging that defendants, five European banks, violated the
Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) by conspiring to manipulate the London Interbank
Offered Rate for Japanese yen. The district court granted defendants’ motion to
dismiss. On appeal, the Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling. The
defendants argued that since the actions leading to the alleged manipulation happened
in London, and were connected to the value of a foreign asset, the plaintiff could not
assert a claim under the CEA. The plaintiff argued that the district court erred by
dismissing his CEA claims as impermissibly extraterritorial. On review, the Second
Circuit ruled that the plaintiff’s CEA claims were impermissibly extraterritorial because
the conduct he alleged was “predominantly foreign.” Id. at *13. The Second Circuit
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Duane Morris Class Action Review – 2023
