Prantil v. Arkema ( 2021 )

Case: 19-20723 Document: 00515716552 Page: 1 Date Filed: 01/22/2021
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
January 22, 2021
No. 19-20723 Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
Corey Prantil; Ronald Whatley; Betty Whatley; Bret
Simmons; Phyllis Simmons; Greg Nason; Larry
Anderson; Tanya Anderson; Keith Lyons; Beverly
Flannel; Roland Flannel,
Plaintiffs—Appellees,
versus
Arkema Incorporated,
Defendant—Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Texas
USDC No. 4:17-CV-2960
Before Higginbotham, Elrod, and Haynes, Circuit Judges.
Patrick E. Higginbotham, Circuit Judge:
As Hurricane Harvey deluged southeastern Texas with record floods,
volatile chemicals at a facility in Crosby, Texas, combusted, releasing toxic
ash and smoke into the surrounding communities and causing the evacuation
of nearby residents. Seeking redress for the physical and financial effects of
the incident, certain Crosby-area property owners brought a class action
against the facility’s owner—Arkema, Inc.—on behalf of themselves and
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their neighbors. Arkema appeals from an order granting class certification.
We vacate the district court’s certification order and remand the case for
further proceedings under Rule 23.
I.
Arkema’s facility in Crosby, Texas, produces Luperox, a liquid
organic peroxide used to make plastics and composites. Luperox is a volatile
compound that decomposes and combusts unless refrigerated. The Crosby
facility sits in a flood plain near the Gulf Coast, leaving it vulnerable to the
approach of Hurricane Harvey. By August 24, 2017, it was clear that Harvey
would make landfall and likely stall over Texas. Arkema continued
production at Crosby until August 25, 2017, before implementing the
facility’s hurricane preparedness plan. Several days of heavy rain and rising
flood waters at Crosby forced the facility’s “ride-out” team to move nearly
350,000 pounds of combustible materials to refrigerated trailers set on higher
ground. But the floodwaters’ continued rise eventually threatened the
trailers’ cooling systems as well, and on August 29, 2017, Arkema alerted
local authorities that a combustion event was imminent. The authorities
responded by establishing a 1.5-mile evacuation zone around the facility.
Between August 31 and September 4, nine refrigerated trailers burned in
three separate ignitions, the last of which was a controlled burn by emergency
personnel. Further, two of the facility’s wastewater tanks overflowed,
dispersing contaminated water and bringing the count to five total emissions
events. Shortly afterward, local residents saw clouds of white smoke and
accumulating ash on their properties, and persons inside and outside of the
established 1.5-mile evacuation zone reported physical symptoms including
bodily rashes, headaches, eye irritation, blisters, and respiratory difficulty.
Plaintiffs are local property owners who seek to represent a class of all
property owners within a seven-mile radius of the Crosby facility to pursue
2
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injunctive relief and damages against Arkema. They claim to have suffered
adverse health effects, property damage, or both, because of Arkema’s
emissions. They bring claims against Arkema under the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), and
the common-law doctrines of negligence, trespass, and public nuisance.
After extended oral argument on Plaintiffs’ motion for class
certification and Akrema’s motions to exclude certain experts, the district
court granted Arkema’s motion to exclude Plaintiffs’ damages expert, but it
credited three of Plaintiffs’ experts and granted Plaintiffs’ motion for class
certification. 1 In granting certification, the district court held that the
proposed class met the elements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a) and
that it should be certified as a damages class under Rule 23(b)(3) because
common issues would predominate in the resolution of the class claims and
that a class action was the superior method for adjudicating the dispute. 2 The
district court also certified an injunctive-relief class under Rule 23(b)(2)
because the “actions alleged apply broadly to the entire class, and the
injunctive relief sought will commonly address this injury.” 3 We granted
leave to appeal on October 17, 2019.
Arkema urges four arguments on appeal: (1) that the district court did
not conduct the rigorous analysis required by Fifth Circuit and Supreme
Court precedent, to ensure that the individual claims can be fairly and
effectively adjudicated in a class action; (2) that the district court erred when
1
Prantil v. Arkema, No. 17-2960 at 39 (S.D. Tex. June 3, 2019) (order granting class
certification).
2
Id. at 19-27, 29-39.
3
Id. at 28.
3
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it determined that the proposed class met Rule 23(b)(3)’s predominance
requirement and Rule 23(b)(2)’s cohesiveness requirement; (3) that the
benefits realized by classwide adjudication of common questions would be
lost in the necessary sifting through individualized evidence on the causation
and injury elements in addition to the intractably individualized nature of the
damages and injunction inquiries; and (4) that the district court erred by
relying on certain expert opinions in its certification decision without first
ensuring those opinions would be admissible at trial under the Daubert
standard.
II.
We review the district court’s decision to certify a class for abuse of
discretion. 4 Although a district court has broad discretion to certify a class, it
must “rigorously analyze Rule 23’s prerequisites” before doing so. 5 Such
analysis requires “the district court to go beyond the pleadings to determine
whether the requirements of Rule 23 have been met: ‘a court must
understand the claims, defenses, relevant facts, and applicable substantive
law in order to make a meaningful determination of the certification
issues.’” 6 Additionally, the district court must consider “how a trial on the
merits would be conducted” if the class were certified. 7
We begin with the standard applicable to expert evidence at the class-
certification stage. We then address the predominance of common questions
4
Crutchfield v. Sewerage & Water Bd. of New Orleans, 829 F.3d 370, 375 (5th Cir.
2016).
5
Spence v. Glock, G.m.b.H., 227 F.3d 308, 310 (5th Cir. 2000).
6
Cole v. Gen. Motors Corp., 484 F.3d 717, 724 (5th Cir.2007) (quoting Castano v.
Am. Tobacco Co., 84 F.3d 734, 745 (5th Cir. 1996)).
7
Castano v. Am. Tobacco Co., 84 F.3d 734, 740 (5th Cir. 1996).
4
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in the Rule 23(b)(3) damages class and the cohesiveness of the Rule 23(b)(2)
injunctive-relief class.
A. Daubert’s Applicability to Class Certification
Since its early days, Rule 23 with its b(2) and b(3) classes has played
an increasingly important role in addressing the challenges of aggregating
large numbers of persons seeking recompense for a single event or for injuries
suffered from a common set of facts—product failures, myriad disasters at
the hand of man and nature. With all its difficulties in application, the class
device has proven to be a powerful workhorse to the benefit of plaintiffs and
defendants so as now to be essential.
Yet, certification changes the risks of litigation often in dramatic
fashion. 8 Thus, under Rule 23(f), we have the discretion to hear interlocutory
appeals of class certification orders. 9 This rule was a response to the
determinative character of the certification decision and a perceived need for
developing a jurisprudence of federal class actions across substantive lines in
conformity with the Enabling Act. 10 The Supreme Court in turn developed a
mootness doctrine that treated certification of a class as the determinant—
loss of the class representative did not moot a certified class. 11 In short, these
responses to the consequential character of class certification frames the
8
See Blair v. Equifax Check Servs., Inc., 181 F.3d 832, 834 (7th Cir. 1999) (“[A]
denial of class status can doom the plaintiff,” while “a grant of class status can put
considerable pressure on the defendant to settle.”).
9
Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(f).
10
Advisory Committee’s 1998 Note on subd. (f) of Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23.
11
See Genesis Healthcare Corp. v. Symczyk, 569 U.S. 66, 75–76 (2013) (explaining
that under Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393 (1975) and United States Parole Comm’n v.
Geraghty, 445 U.S. 388 (1980), “a putative class acquires an independent legal status once
it is certified under Rule 23”).
5
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question of the quality of evidence its rests upon. And, we ask, when the
cementing of relationships among proffered class members of liability or
damages or both turns on scientific evidence should we insist that the metric
of admissibility be the same for certification and trial. We answer that
question in the affirmative; the Daubert hurdle must be cleared when
scientific evidence is relevant to the decision to certify.
In so holding, we join three other federal courts of appeal. 12 The Third
Circuit’s reasoning on this issue in In re Blood Reagents Antitrust Litigation, is
particularly instructive, drawing as it does on recent Supreme Court
precedent. 13 The Third Circuit saw the need to apply Daubert at the
certification stage as a natural extension of the Supreme Court’s admonition
in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. 338, 351 (2011), and Comcast Corp.
v. Behrend, 569 U.S. 27, 35 (2013), to conduct a “rigorous analysis” of the
proposed class’s conformity with Rule 23. 14 In Dukes, the Supreme Court
expressed “doubt” that “Daubert did not apply to expert testimony at the
certification stage of class-action proceedings.” 15 And in Comcast, which
concerned use of an expert’s damages model to certify an antitrust class
action, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that it is incumbent on plaintiffs to
submit “evidentiary proof” of their compliance with Rule 23. 16 As the Third
Circuit observed, “[e]xpert testimony that is insufficiently reliable to satisfy
the Daubert standard cannot ‘prove’ that the Rule 23(a) prerequisites have
12
In re Blood Reagents Antitrust Litig., 783 F.3d 183, 187 (3d Cir. 2015); Sher v.
Raytheon Co., 419 F. App’x 887, 890–91 (11th Cir. 2011); Am. Honda Motor Co. v. Allen, 600
F.3d 813, 816 (7th Cir. 2010).
13
783 F.3d 183 (3d Cir. 2015).
14
Id. at 187.
15
564 U.S. at 354.
16
569 U.S. at 33–34.
6
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been met ‘in fact,’ nor can it establish ‘through evidentiary proof’ that Rule
23(b) is satisfied.” 17 This is consistent with our prior holding that the class
“certification inquiry . . . must be made based on adequate admissible
evidence to justify class certification.” 18 Thus, if an expert’s opinion would
not be admissible at trial, it should not pave the way for certifying a proposed
class.
Plaintiffs do not take issue with this reasoning; they do not contend
that case law or practical considerations militate against using Daubert for
class certification. Instead, they contend that Arkema has no grounds for
complaint here because the district court applied a full-bore Daubert analysis
when it assessed Plaintiffs’ experts. Our able district judge here was sensitive
to the concerns presented by expert evidence. He heard arguments on each
of Arkema’s motions, and granted one, excluding Plaintiffs’ damages expert
“because he has not actually built or tested any regression analyses that he
suggests could be appropriate for determining damages on a class-wide
basis.” 19 The district court did not disregard its gate-keeping role, but its
analysis of the expert reports reflect hesitation to apply Daubert’s reliability
standard with full force.
The district court began its discussion of the expert reports by
observing that “[w]hether a full Daubert analysis at the class certification
stage is required is unclear.” 20 When discussing Plaintiffs’ evidence of
chemical contamination, the district court observed that “[w]hile it certainly
would have been better for Dr. Kaltofen additionally to include the
17
In re Blood Reagents, 783 F.3d at 187.
18
Unger v. Amedisys Inc., 401 F.3d 316, 319 (5th Cir. 2005).
19
Prantil, No. 17-2960 at 15.
20
Id. at 6.
7
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background levels, it was not necessary under Daubert at the class
certification stage,” 21 implying that Daubert is less applicable to evidence
used for certification. In its certification order, the district court was not as
searching in its assessment of the expert reports’ reliability as it would have
been outside the certification setting. We do not suggest that the remaining
reports should be excluded; some of Arkema’s objections may only affect the
weight of the reports without undermining their fundamental reliability. In
sum, an assessment of the reliability of Plaintiffs’ scientific evidence for
certification cannot be deferred.
B. The Predominance of Questions Common to the Damages
Class
The district court determined that the proposed damages class was
suitable for certification under Rule 23(b)(3), which provides that a class
action can be maintained if Rule 23(a) is satisfied, if “questions of law or fact
common to class members predominate over any questions affecting only
individual members, and [if] a class action is superior to other available
methods for fairly and efficiently adjudicating the controversy.” 22 Arkema
does not dispute that the proposed class meets Rule 23(a)’s threshold
requirements or that a class action is the superior litigation vehicle. 23 This
leaves the issue of predominance.
The predominance requirement “tests whether proposed classes are
sufficiently cohesive to warrant adjudication by representation.” 24 It “calls
21
Id. at 12.
22
Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(3).
23
Prantil, No. 17-2960 at 18-27 (finding that the class satisfies the requirements of
numerosity, commonality, typicality, adequacy, and ascertainability).
24
Torres v. S.G.E. Mgmt., L.L.C., 838 F.3d 629, 636 (5th Cir. 2016) (en banc)
(quoting Amchem Prods., Inc. v. Windsor, 521 U.S. 591, 623 (1997)).
8
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upon courts to give careful scrutiny to the relation between common and
individual questions in a case.” 25 Predominance is a “far more demanding”
hurdle than Rule 23(a)’s commonality requirement. 26
Courts should consider predominance on a claim-by-claim basis, 27 and
the district court did so here: for negligence, it found duty and breach to be
common issues; 28 for trespass, the question of unlawful entry was common
to the class;29 for public nuisance, the question of unreasonable interference
was common. 30 Similarly, the district court concluded that all three elements
of Plaintiffs’ RCRA claim presented common questions. 31 As for CERCLA,
25
Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo, 136 S. Ct. 1036, 1045 (2016). “An individual
question is one where ‘members of a proposed class will need to present evidence that
varies from member to member,’ while a common question is one where ‘the same
evidence will suffice for each member to make a prima facie showing [or] the issue is
susceptible to generalized, class-wide proof.’” Id. (alteration in original) (quoting
2 William B. Rubenstein, Newberg on Class Actions § 4:50 (5th ed.
2012)).
26
Amchem Prods., Inc., 521 U.S. at 623–24.
27
Castano, 84 F.3d at 744.
28
Prantil, No. 17-2960 at 31.
29
Id. at 31-32. For a claim of trespass to real property, the plaintiff must show
ownership or a right to possess property; physical, intentional, and voluntary entrance by
the defendant; and injury. Wilen v. Falkenstein, 191 S.W.3d 791, 798 (Tex. Ct. App.—Fort
Worth 2006, pet. denied).
30
Prantil, No. 17-2960 at 32. The elements of a public nuisance claim are an
“unreasonable interference with a right common to the general public” and a “special
injury” that is “distinct from the injury to the public at large.” Peiqing Cong v.
ConocoPhillips Co., 250 F. Supp. 3d 229, 233 (S.D. Tex. 2016).
31
Prantil, No. 17-2960 at 33. To bring an RCRA claim, the plaintiff must show “(1)
that the defendant is a person, including, but not limited to, one who was or is a generator
or transporter of solid or hazardous waste or one who was or is an owner or operator of a
solid or hazardous waste treatment, storage, or disposal facility; (2) that the defendant has
contributed to or is contributing to the handling, storage, treatment, transportation, or
disposal of solid or hazardous waste; and (3) that the solid or hazardous waste may present
9
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the district court found that three issues—Arkema’s status as a qualifying
responsible person, the Crosby site’s status as a qualifying facility, and the
occurrence of a hazardous release—were common. 32
The district court then addressed whether Plaintiffs’ alleged damages,
the diminution in their property values, would entail individual inquiries
outweighing the common inquiries relating to liability. Plaintiffs proposed to
calculate classwide damages through mass property appraisals, but the
district court rejected the report of Plaintiffs’ damages expert because he
failed to offer a reliable means of making these calculations. Neither the court
nor Plaintiffs identified another means by which Plaintiffs could calculate
damages on a classwide basis. Nonetheless, the district court found that
common legal and factual questions still predominated because “‘virtually
every issue prior to damages is a common issue,’” and Plaintiffs proposed to
bifurcate the proceedings so that damages could be addressed separately, if
at all. 33
The district court identified elements of each claim that would present
common questions, but its predominance inquiry then paused. With that
pause, the district court’s approach resembles that taken by the district court
an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment.” Cox v. City of
Dallas, 256 F.3d 281, 292 (5th Cir. 2001).
32
Prantil, No. 17-2960 at 33-34. A CERCLA plaintiff must show “(1) that the site
in question is a ‘facility’ as defined in [42 U.S.C.] § 9601(9); (2) that the defendant is a
responsible person under [42 U.S.C.] § 9607(a); (3) that a release or a threatened release
of a hazardous substance has occurred; and (4) that the release or threatened release has
caused the plaintiff to incur response costs.” Vine St. LLC v. Borg Warner Corp., 776 F.3d
312, 315 (5th Cir. 2015).
33
Prantil, No. 17-2960 at 37 (quoting Bertulli v. Ind. Ass’n of Continental Pilots, 242
F.3d 290, 298 (5th Cir. 2001)).
10
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in Madison v. Chalmette. 34 In Madison, the district court certified a class of
individuals who sought damages for exposure to a refinery’s emission of coke
dust while attending a reenactment of the Battle of New Orleans. The district
court concluded that class certification was appropriate because “there is one
set of operative facts that [will] determine liability[:] Plaintiffs were either on
the battlefield and exposed to the coke dust or they were not.” 35 We vacated
the order because, despite the appealing simplicity of its formulation, “[t]he
district court did not meaningfully consider how Plaintiffs’ claims would be
tried.” 36 The inadequacy of the district court’s predominance inquiry was
due, in part, to its failure to account for issues implicated by the asserted
claims and defenses, issues turning on potentially nuanced determinations of
plaintiffs’ “location, exposure, dose, susceptibility to illness, nature of
symptoms, type and cost of medical treatment, and subsequent impact of
illnesses on individuals.” 37 Although we did “not suggest that class
treatment [was] necessarily inappropriate,” we vacated the certification
order and remanded the case because the lack of “‘analysis or discussion
regarding how [the district court] would administer the trial’” was an abuse
of discretion. 38
Here, as in Madison, the district court’s certification order did not
discuss the considerations affecting the administration of trial, and it
concluded that common questions would predominate without adequately
addressing Arkema’s arguments that causation, injury, and damages would
34
637 F.3d 551 (5th Cir. 2011).
35
Id. at 556.
36
Id.37
Id. at 557.
38
Id. at 556–57 (quoting Robinson v. Tex. Auto. Dealers Ass’n, 387 F.3d 416, 425–26
(5th Cir. 2004)).
11
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be highly individualized. The district court’s discussion of trial
administration was limited to observing that it was amenable to Plaintiffs’
proposal to bifurcate the trial of liability and damages. But it did not discuss
the manner in which it would conduct the liability phase or how it would
implement Plaintiffs’ proposed “bellwether trials” at the damages phase.
Although the district court acknowledged that Plaintiffs’ mass appraisal
approach to property damages was untenable after their expert was
disqualified, it did not discuss how this difficulty might affect an eventual
damages phase in the proceedings. The district court recognized that
individualized damages do not make the case per se unsuitable for class
treatment, 39 and then concluded that any issues could be addressed as they
arose. In so doing, the court drifted to the “figure-it-out-as-we-go-along”
approach, one to be avoided. 40
When considering the propriety of class certification, the district
court must “respond to the defendants’ legitimate protests of individualized
issues that could preclude class treatment.” 41 This is part of the district
court’s obligation to “understand the claims [and] defenses” at play. 42 A
39
See, e.g., In re Deepwater Horizon, 739 F.3d 790, 815–16 (5th Cir. 2014) (“[I]t is
indeed possible to satisfy the predominance ... requirements of Rule 23(b)(3) in a mass tort
or mass accident class action despite the particular need in such cases for individualized
damages calculations.” (internal quotations omitted)).
40
Madison, 637 F.3d at 557.
41
Chavez v. Plan Ben. Servs., Inc., 957 F.3d 542, 546 (5th Cir. 2020) (citing M.D. ex
rel. Stukenberg v. Perry, 675 F.3d 832, 842-43 (5th Cir. 2012) (noting that “[t]he district
court clearly rejected” the defendant’s individualization argument but had not
“sufficiently analyzed” it)).
42
Castano, 84 F.3d at 745.
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certification order ought to reflect the district court’s consideration of a
defendant’s weightiest arguments against certification. 43
We find that the certification order is wanting in its answer to
Arekma’s arguments that a trial of class claims would devolve into
individualized inquiries on causation, injury, and damages. For instance, the
district court rejected Arkema’s contention that causation would become too
individualized by reasoning that because “Plaintiffs focus only on chemicals
with a strong link to the facility explosion, there are fewer hyper-localized
alternative sources that would turn proof of causation into a series of mini-
trials. . . . [and] alternative causes would likely apply to large chunks or all of
the class area.” 44 The basis for this conclusion that few alternative sources
need be considered is unclear. Other parts of the order suggest that the
district court may have relied on Plaintiffs’ expert, Dr. Kaltofen, to conclude
that alternative sources for the chemicals in question would not be an issue.
But the order also states that Dr. Kaltofen addressed only “some of these
alternative sources and ruled them out in his rebuttal report.” 45 The
difficulty is that we are uncertain whether alternative sources will be a factor
at trial and whether these alternative sources can be dealt with in groups, as
the district court suggested.
The district court also held that injury resulting from Arkema’s
alleged negligence, trespass, etc. could be proven on a classwide basis because
“individuals’ exposure to contaminants results not just from contaminants
43
See, e.g., Chavez, 957 F.3d at 549 (reversing a class certification where the district
court responds to “warring factual contentions” concerning putatively common issues,
with a “thin survey” and “unsupported assurance” as explanations for why predominance
is satisfied).
44
Prantil, No. 17-2960 at 31.
45
Id. at 14 (emphasis added).
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on their properties, but from community-wide contaminants that individuals
are exposed to as they go about their daily lives in the area.” 46 This reasoning
has a welcome, commonsense appeal, but “Rule 23 requires the court to
‘find,’ not [] assume, the facts favoring class certification.” 47 The issue is
whether the record contains scientific evidence supporting the conclusion
that the movements of class members could result in exposure sufficient to
cause cognizable harm. 48 An assumption about the movement of persons
throughout the class area cannot relieve Plaintiffs of their burden to
“‘affirmatively demonstrate [their] compliance with [] Rule [23].’” 49 And by
itself, the assumption does not allay the concern that proof of causation and
harm could vary greatly from one class member to another based on the
location of their property and the extent and frequency of their movements
within the class area.
Much of the district court’s predominance analysis proceeded from
its view that “all injuries resulted from [a] single course of conduct,” and
thus “the focus will be on Defendant’s actions.” 50 Of course, a case may be
relatively more suitable for class treatment where only one defendant and one
course of conduct are at issue. 51 But what is needed here is discussion of how
proof of Arkema’s conduct will affect trial. 52 Absent such analysis, we are
46
Id. at 26-27.
47
Unger, 401 F.3d at 321.
48
“[C]ourts must certify class actions based on proof, not presumptions.” Flecha
v. Medicredit, Inc., 946 F.3d 762, 768 (5th Cir. 2020).
49
Id. at 766–67 (quoting Dukes, 564 U.S. at 350).
50
Prantil, No. 17-2960 at 32.
51
See, e.g., Crutchfield, 829 F.3d at 378 (listing cases).
52
See Gene & Gene LLC v. BioPay LLC, 541 F.3d 318, 326 (5th Cir. 2008) (“The
district court did not explain how the common course of conduct it described would affect
14
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unable to judge whether the common issues relating to Arkema’s conduct in
the leadup to Hurricane Harvey are relatively more complex such that they
can be expected to predominate over individualized issues. 53 Future
certification proceedings would here benefit from detailing the evidence the
parties may use to prove or defend against liability and its commonality to all
class members.
We do not exhaustively catalogue the matters deserving consideration
under Rule 23(b)(3) on remand. And we do not suggest that Arkema is
entitled to prevail on its counterarguments to certification. We hold only that
the relative balance of concededly common claim elements to contested
elements of causation and injury warrants closer attention.
C. The Cohesiveness of the Injunctive-Relief Class
Plaintiffs seek two separate forms of injunctive relief from Arkema:
medical monitoring and property remediation. Rule 23(b)(2) provides that a
class action may be maintained if “the party opposing the class has acted or
refused to act on grounds that apply generally to the class, so that final
injunctive relief or corresponding declaratory relief is appropriate respecting
the class as a whole[.]” 54 “It is well-established that ‘[i]nstead of requiring
common issues, [Rule] 23(b)(2) requires common behavior by the defendant
a trial on the merits. Thus, the district court’s assertion that this case would not degenerate
into a series of individual trials is largely unsupported and is, in our opinion, mistaken.”).
53
Cf. Steering Comm. v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 461 F.3d 598, 603 (5th Cir. 2006)
(“Based on the evidence presented to the district court regarding the complexity of the
medical causation and damages issues, and with little evidence that the liability issues are
similarly complex, it was not an abuse of its discretion for the district court to conclude that
Appellants had failed to demonstrate that the class issue of Appellee’s negligence or strict
liability predominates over the vastly more complex individual issues of medical causation
and damages.”).
54
FED. R. CIV. P. 23(b)(2).
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toward the class.’” 55 Thus, 23(b)(2) certification has three requirements:
“(1) ‘class members must have been harmed in essentially the same way’;
(2) ‘injunctive relief must predominate over monetary damage claims’; and
(3) ‘the injunctive relief sought must be specific.’” 56 “The specificity
element requires plaintiffs to give content to the injunctive relief they seek so
that final injunctive relief may be crafted to describe in reasonable detail the
acts required.” 57
The district court concluded that members of the proposed class had
been harmed in essentially the same way because the injuries for which they
seek injunctive relief arise from Arkema’s conduct in preparing for and
mitigating the effects of Hurricane Harvey on its Crosby facility. Concerning
Plaintiffs’ request for medical monitoring, the district court found that “[i]f
their allegations are true, Plaintiffs need to be repeatedly tested for health
effects so that cancer or other diseases may be caught early and treated,” and
“the injunctive relief sought will commonly address [Plaintiffs’] injury.” 58
The district court envisioned the medical monitoring injunction as an
iterative process involving “early detection and treatment” through which
“a more complete understanding of the potential consequences of exposure
is attained and treatment plans are put into place.” 59 But the district court
did not discuss the range or types of medical monitoring the injunction would
implement.
55
Yates v. Collier, 868 F.3d 354, 366 (5th Cir. 2017) (quoting In re Rodriguez, 695
F.3d 360, 365 (5th Cir. 2012)).
56
Id. (quoting Maldonado v. Ochsner Clinic Found., 493 F.3d 521, 524 (5th Cir.
2007)).
57
Yates, 868 F.3d at 367 (internal quotations omitted)
58
Prantil, No. 17-2960 at 27.
59
Id. at 27-28.
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Concerning Plaintiffs’ request for property remediation, the district
court explained that “a remediation program can be applied class-wide—
perhaps one that orders testing of Plaintiffs’ properties and cleanup of
contaminants, as described” in the report of one of Plaintiffs’ experts, Dr.
Glass. 60 The district court observed that it was necessary to deal with
remediation on a classwide basis because “[i]ndividual clean-up attempts
would be ineffectual, [and] because landowners could still be exposed as they
move throughout the class area.” 61 Although it mentioned the possibility of
implementing the testing program in Dr. Glass’s report, the district court
made no specific findings as to what the property remediation program would
entail.
These discussions of the injunctions in their broad strokes do not
satisfy the requirement that injunctive relief be reasonably specific. Our
decisions make clear that more is needed than a common failure by the
defendant and the prospect that all class members could realize some benefit
if the defendant is compelled to act or desist. 62 To be sure, “Rule 23(b)(2)
does not require that every jot and tittle of injunctive relief be spelled out at
the class certification stage,” but some “‘reasonable detail’ as to the ‘acts
required’” is necessary. 63
We do not agree with Arkema that our decision in M.D. ex rel.
Stukenberg v. Perry necessarily precludes all possible forms of injunctive relief
for the proposed class. In Stukenberg, a proposed class of foster care children
sought “at least twelve broad, classwide injunctions, which would require the
60
Id. at 28.
61
Id.
62
Stukenberg, 675 F.3d at 846.
63
Yates, 868 F.3d at 368 (quoting Stukenberg, 675 F.3d at 848).
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district court to institute and oversee a complete overhaul of Texas’s foster
care system.” 64 Although we reversed the district court’s finding that the
class was cohesive, we clarified that Rule 23(b)(2) does not require “a
specific policy uniformly affecting—and injuring—each [plaintiff] . . . so long
as declaratory or injunctive relief ‘settling the legality of the [defendant’s]
behavior with respect to the class as a whole is appropriate.’” 65 The
proposed class in Stukenberg sought injunctive relief addressing years of
varied neglect and requiring the district court to outsource responsibility for
determining the form of the injunctions to expert panels that would do the
actual work of tailoring relief. 66
Here, by contrast, there is stronger evidence that through its response
to a specific event, Hurricane Harvey, Arkema “acted or refused to act on
grounds that apply generally to the class.” 67 The current record does not
compel the conclusion that Plaintiffs’ medical and property injuries are
incapable of being addressed by classwide injunctions. For instance, it is not
necessarily fatal to a uniform scheme of property remediation that certain
properties may contain higher concentrations of contaminants than others,
provided Plaintiffs can identify a common method of remediation and some
reasonable standard by which remediation might be assessed. 68
64
Stukenberg, 675 F.3d at 845.
65
Id. at 847–48 (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2) 1966 Amendment advisory
committee note).
66
Id. at 846-47.
67
Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2)
68
Cf. Yates, 868 F.3d at 368 (requested injunction deemed reasonably specific for
class certification where plaintiffs “identified air-conditioning as a remedy that would
provide relief to each member of the class” and identified “maintaining a heat index of 88
degrees or lower” as the applicable standard).
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Still, we are sensitive to the challenges inherent in crafting appropriate
injunctions. As Arkema notes, there is some uncertainty as to what symptoms
or conditions will be medically monitored for all class members, whether
individual health considerations need to be addressed for relief to be
adequate. Concerning property, the certification order leaves us uncertain as
to how the extent of necessary property remediation can be determined, and
whether a responsive injunction can be fashioned to account for Arkema’s
past remediation efforts. If the district court intends to wholly adopt one or
another proposal from Plaintiffs’ experts, it must say so and explain how that
proposal overcomes Arkema’s concerns. 69 Despite the present uncertainty
concerning the propriety of classwide injunctive relief, we are confident that
by evaluating the particulars of each injunction on remand, both the parties
and the district court will arrive at a nuanced assessment of whether
Plaintiffs’ claims for relief can be effectively addressed in a class action. 70
III.
We do not here limit the tools necessary to the district court’s
management of complex litigation, such as the oft-deployed bifurcation of
liability and damages. The reality of Rule 23 is that it depends upon the
69
Cf. Maldonado, 493 F.3d at 524 (plaintiffs could not seek classwide injunctive
relief under 23(b)(2) requiring defendant to provide “mutually affordable healthcare”
when plaintiffs “failed [] to identify any way to determine what a reasonable or ‘mutually
affordable’ rate [was] for the wide variety of medical services offered”).
70
See id. (“The difficulty in specifying exactly what Appellants seek from an
injunction highlights the fact that individualized issues here overwhelm class
cohesiveness.”).
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management skills of our able district courts. We only set the boundaries of
the field on which their discretion is applied.
We vacate the district court’s order certifying the proposed class and
remand the case for further proceedings including certification of the class.
20