is necessary at the class certification stage and all that is necessary is to examine the four corners of the complaint. The plaintiff also attempted to counter the Rule 23 arguments by simplifying them. Essentially, the plaintiff argued that Rule 23(b)(2) does not have a cohesion requirement and the common question to the class is basically whether the defendants created the PFAS, which is the same threshold issue for each class member. Countering the damages argument, the plaintiff contended it was a request for injunctive relief because no payments for medical treatment were sought. Finally, the plaintiff argued that the class definition was specific enough to ascertain the membership of the entire class. The Sixth Circuit issued its ruling on November 27, 2023 in Hardwick, et al. v. 3M Co., 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 31297 (6th Cir. Nov. 27, 2023). The Sixth Circuit reversed and remanded the district court ’ s ruling. The plaintiffs’ proposed class contained nearly every person in the United States as a possible class member due to exposure to PFAS. The district court granted class certification to the class, but limited the class to residents of the state of Ohio. The defendants argued that the plaintiff lacked standing to bring claims against all defendants, most notably because he could not assert that he was actually injured by the trace amounts of PFAS in his blood, nor could he establish which defendants actually manufactured the products that contained PFAS which allegedly related to his specific injury. The Sixth Circuit agreed with the defendants that the plaintiff ’ s claims were conclusory and confusing. The Sixth Circuit explained that the plaintiff ’ s complaint was that his bloodstream contained trace quantities of five chemicals, which were part of a family of thousands of chemicals whose usage is nearly ubiquitous in modern life. Id. at *3. The Sixth Circuit reasoned that the plaintiff was not aware of which companies manufactured the particular chemicals in his bloodstream, whether those chemicals would ever make him sick, and he did not have any reported sickness or illness at the present time. The Sixth Circuit also determined that the plaintiff ’ s treatment of the defendants as a singular collective entity could not establish traceability of any injury to any one defendant. Further the Sixth Circuit explained that plaintiff ’ s allegations that the defendants manufactured or otherwise distributed “PFAS,” was patently insufficient to support a plausible inference that any of them bear responsibility for the particular PFAS in the plaintiff ’ s blood. Id. at *10. For these reasons, the Sixth Circuit found that the district court erred in granting class certification, and remanded the action to the district court. IV. Key Rulings On Products Liability Class Certification Motions 1. Rulings Granting Class Certification Rulings The plaintiffs in the litigation captioned In Re Delta Airlines Inc., Case No. 20-CV-786 (C.D. Cal. Feb. 8, 2023), were a group of homeowners who filed a class action alleging that the defendant, Delta Airlines, caused damage to their properties when a jet released over 15,000 gallons of fuel over their homes after an engine failure in 2020. The plaintiffs filed a motion for class certification pursuant to Rule 23, and the court granted the motion in part. The plaintiffs sought certification of their claims for trespass and nuisance. The court granted the motion with respect to the trespass claims and denied it as to the nuisance claims. It found that the plaintiffs failed to establish a common method to determine liability. As to the trespass claim, the court held that the common question of whether the jet dumped fuel on the properties and whether the fuel release was reckless would generate common answers as to all class members. The court also found that the common issue of whether the jet fuel trespassed on the plaintiffs’ properties predominated over any individual issues. Accordingly, the court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification of the trespass claims, and denied the motion as to the nuisance claims. The court in the case entitled In Re Nissan North America Inc. Litigation, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 56425 (M.D. Tenn. Feb. 1, 2023), also granted class certification. The plaintiffs, a group of car purchasers, filed a class action alleging that the Automatic Emergency Braking System (AEB System) in Nissan vehicles was defective and caused unintended brake activation when there are no hazards in the vehicle ’ s path, which the plaintiffs referred to as the “SUBA defect.” Id. at *8. The plaintiffs argued that the defect was from the Continental ARS410 sensor used in the vehicles, which erroneously detected obstacles and triggered
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Duane Morris Product Liability And Mass Torts Class Action Review – 2024
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