Duane Morris Class Action Review - 2023 - Report - Page 278
have the same name as his name. The parties ultimately reached a settlement.
Appellant Glenn Miller filed a motion to intervene, and the district court denied the
motion on the grounds that the plaintiff originally filed the action as an individual action
against the defendants. On appeal, the Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s
ruling. The district court had held that Miller could not have relied on the plaintiff to
protect his interests because the plaintiff had not brought his case as a class action.
Miller raised three issues on appeal, including: (i) whether the district court abused its
discretion in denying his motion to intervene as untimely; (ii) whether the district court
erred by striking the plaintiff’s motion for class certification because the complaint did
not include any class allegations; and (iii) whether the district court erred by later
denying the plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend his complaint to add class allegations.
Id. at 596. The Seventh Circuit ruled that the district court did not abuse its discretion in
denying Miller’s motion to intervene as untimely. The Seventh Circuit ruled that the
plaintiff was not a named class representative and “never even successfully proposed a
class action.” Id. at 600. Therefore, the Seventh Circuit determined that Miller could not
reasonably rely on any “named class representatives” to protect his interests because
this case was not proceeding as a class action. Id. For these reasons, the it ruled that
the plaintiff was litigating only his own claim against the defendants; he was not
representing Miller’s interests, and therefore, the district court did not abuse its
discretion in denying intervention.
In Guenther, et al. v. BP Retirement Accumulation Plan, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 28100
(5th Cir. Oct. 7, 2022), the Fifth Circuit also upheld the denial of intervention. It opined
that held when injuries are not common among prospective plaintiffs, intervention of
additional plaintiffs is not warranted. The plaintiffs, a group of employees, filed a class
action alleging that the defendant filed violated numerous provisions of the Employee
Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) by causing employees to forfeit accrued
benefits and failing to properly disclose this change in benefits. The plaintiffs in a related
matter (the Press plaintiffs) filed a motion to intervene in the instant action, and the
district court denied the motion. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the ruling. The Fifth
Circuit ruled that “the Press plaintiffs cannot demonstrate that their interests diverge
from those of the Guenther plaintiffs in any meaningful way.” Id. at *12. The Fifth Circuit
reasoned that the groups of the plaintiffs had claims alleging the same violations of the
ERISA and all of the plaintiffs sought the same remedy of being made whole due to the
defendant’s alleged inaccurate disclosures. The Fifth Circuit determined that the Press
plaintiffs failed to establish that their interests diverged from the plaintiffs’ interests in a
manner germane to the case in order to merit intervention. Accordingly, the Fifth Circuit
affirmed the district court’s ruling denying the motion to intervene.
M.
Voluntary Dismissal Issues In Class Actions And Collective Actions
Rule 41(a) allows a plaintiff to voluntarily dismiss their lawsuit. The application of the
rule raises interesting procedural issues in a class action or collective action setting.
In Askew, et al. v. Intercontinental Hotels Corp., 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 140459 (W.D.
Ky. Aug. 8, 2022), the plaintiffs were a group of tip-earning bartenders who filed a
collective action alleging that the defendants failed to pay minimum wages and failed to
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Duane Morris Class Action Review – 2023
