Prudhomme v. Govt Empl Ins ( 2022 )

Case: 21-30157 Document: 00516210259 Page: 1 Date Filed: 02/21/2022
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
February 21, 2022
No. 21-30157 Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
Eric Prudhomme, individually and on behalf of others similarly situated;
Elvin Jack, individually and on behalf of others similarly situated,
Plaintiffs—Appellants,
versus
Government Employees Insurance Company; Geico
General Insurance Company,
Defendants—Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Louisiana
USDC No. 6:15-CV-98
Before King, Costa, and Willett, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam:*
In this appeal of the district court’s denial of class certification,
Appellants are a group of GEICO customers in Louisiana who received
payouts for total-loss automobile claims. These customers allege GEICO’s
*
Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this
opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited
circumstances set forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4.
Case: 21-30157 Document: 00516210259 Page: 2 Date Filed: 02/21/2022
No. 21-30157
proprietary valuation system violated La. R.S. 22:1892B(5) and La. R.S.
22:1973(A), (B)(5), but their suit veered off the road at the class-certification
stage. The district court concluded that Appellants’ proposed class failed for
want of commonality, adequacy, and predominance. Because the district
court did not abuse its discretion in denying class certification based on its
adequacy concerns, we AFFIRM without comment on commonality or
predominance. Cf., e.g., Bell Atl. Corp. v. AT&T Corp., 339 F.3d 294, 303 (5th
Cir. 2003) (affirming narrowly).
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require that the “representative
parties [in a class-action] will fairly and adequately protect the interests of the
class.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(4); see also, e.g., Amchem Prods., Inc. v.
Windsor, 521 U.S. 591, 625–26 (1997) (observing that “[a] class
representative must . . . ‘possess the same interest and suffer the same injury’
as the class members” (citations omitted)). This compels attention to “the
risk of ‘conflicts of interest between the named plaintiffs and the class they
seek to represent.’” Slade v. Progressive, 856 F.3d 408, 412 (5th Cir. 2017)
(quoting Feder v. Elec. Data Sys. Corp., 429 F.3d 125, 130 (5th Cir. 2005)).
Consistent with this obligation, the district court questioned whether
Appellants’ theory of liability was, in fact, beneficial to the proposed class. It
was not. Indeed, a portion of the proposed class members received payments
above (that is, benefitted from) the allegedly unlawful valuation. This
undermined Appellants’ class-wide theory of liability and thereby doomed
adequacy. See, e.g., Langbecker v. Elec. Data Sys. Corp., 476 F.3d 299, 315 (5th
Cir. 2007) (noting “intra class conflicts may negate adequacy,” citing as
examples Valley Drug Co. v. Geneva Pharms., Inc., 350 F.3d 1181, 1189–92
(11th Cir. 2003), and Pickett v. Iowa Beef Processors, 209 F.3d 1276, 1280 (11th
Cir. 2000)); see also, e.g., Slade, 856 F.3d at 411–12 (remanding given newly
raised claim that created intra-class conflict and thereby implicated
adequacy). See generally Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. 338, 350 n.5
2
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No. 21-30157
(2011) (recognizing other Rule 23(a) requirements “tend to merge with” the
adequacy standard, which typically pertains to conflicts (citation omitted)).
Neither are we compelled by Appellants’ belated, remedial assertion
that class members who received overpayments were hypothetically entitled
to other damages under Louisiana law. Even if true, this does little more than
raise uncontemplated impediments to certification—like typicality, see Fed.
R. Civ. P. 23(a)(3) (“[T]he claims . . . of the representative parties [must
be] typical of the claims or defenses of the class.”); see also, e.g., Stirman v.
Exxon Corp., 280 F.3d 554, 562 (5th Cir. 2002) (analyzing typicality)—that
we decline to address as a matter of first impression on these facts. Cf. Slade,
856 F.3d at 412–15 & n.1 (remanding intervening adequacy problems).
Appellants simply offer too little, too late.
Appellants’ remaining arguments are equally unavailing. For one,
Appellants suggest cases like Mitchell v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 954 F.3d
700 (5th Cir. 2020), or Stuart v. State Farm, 910 F.3d 371 (8th Cir. 2018),
involved adequacy. They did not. See Mitchell, 954 F.3d at 710–12 (discussing
predominance and superiority); Stuart, 910 F.3d at 375–77 (analyzing
predominance, superiority, and standing). Likewise, Appellants’ invocation
of Slade is inapt. Nary a word of Slade supports the notion that class
representatives can shoulder a theory of liability that disadvantages a portion
of the class they allegedly represent. 1 Nor did we insinuate in Slade that a
lower court errs by failing to sua sponte remediate intra-class conflicts through
opt-out. 2 Appellants’ belief otherwise is mistaken.
1
To the contrary, we remanded precisely because the district court needed to
assess adequacy given the potential waiver of class members’ claims. Slade, 856 F.3d at 415.
2
This much is evident in the fact that questions about a potential intra-class
conflict (and as a corollary, the remedial capacity of opt-outs) arose after appeal—not
before. Id. at 412–15 & n.1.
3
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No. 21-30157
AFFIRMED.
4