Duane Morris Class Action Review - 2023 - Report - Page 353
brought a class action alleging conversion and seeking injunctive relief for all persons
who submitted similar claims with the defendant where the defendant claimed that there
was a “total loss” and filed report with the TXDOT. Id. at *4. The trial court granted class
certification and the defendant appealed. The Texas court of appeals reviewed the trial
court’s order for abuse of discretion, and focused mainly on the parameters of the
proposed class, noting that “[a] properly defined class is essential to the maintenance of
a class action” because “it is the class definition that determines who is entitled to
notice, the nature of relief to be awarded and who is entitled to that relief, and who is
bound by the judgment if they lose.” Id. at *8. The defendant argued that the trial court
abused its discretion in certifying a class because the class was objectively
unascertainable, overly broad, and included members who lack standing to sue. The
defendant’s main challenge was that the class definition included persons to whom the
defendant paid claims on “total loss” and those payments were not rejected; therefore,
putative class members would not be affected by the judgment, and that this constituted
the overwhelming majority of putative class members because no other person within
the six-year limitations period rejected payment like the plaintiff. Id. at *9-10. Analyzing
class certification under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 42(a), which closely tracks
Federal Rule 23, the court of appeals rejected the defendant’s argument. It reasoned
that the class definition was not overly broad and did not necessarily result in a class
where no person had standing, because the case was not about whether the payment
was rejected, but about the fact that the defendant sent the payment and then filed a
report with the TXDOT within three days, which necessarily resulted in any putative
class member having to obtain a new title to transfer the vehicle. Id. at *13.
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Duane Morris Class Action Review – 2023
