disability discrimination lacked commonality because the existence of a qualifying disability is an individual inquiry. Thus, the court granted the motion for class certification only for the unpaid leave sub-class for its Title VII claims. Finally, in Miall, et al. v. City Of Asheville , 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7940 (W.D.N.C. Jan. 15, 2024), the plaintiffs filed a class action and sought a declaratory judgment that the defendants employed illegal discriminatory policies in creating and administering a city advisory board. The plaintiffs, a group of white residents of the City of Asheville who were denied selection for the position, claimed that the race-based appointment preferences utilized by the defendants disadvantaged applicants who were not racial minorities, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. After being denied a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, the plaintiffs filed a motion for class certification of a class consisting of “past, present, future, and deterred nonminority Asheville or Buncombe County applicants to the Human Relations Commission of Asheville (HRCA) that - but for their race - are qualified to apply and compete for an appointment to the HRCA on equal footing.” Id. at *8. In denying class certification, the court found that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that their proposed class was readily identifiable, a threshold matter in any proposed class action. Specifically, while the plaintiffs sought to represent a group of 46 white applicants who were denied selection, they failed to indicate whether these applicants were rejected solely on the basis of their race, as opposed to other criteria like experience or interest. Moreover, at least a handful of the proposed class members were rejected prior to a policy amendment passed by the City, and therefore lacked standing to challenge the City’s actions. Finally, while the court observed that potential applicants who might have but failed to apply for the position could have constituted part of the class, the plaintiffs did not produce any evidence that such a class existed. Taking all of this into account, the court opined that the proposed class fell well below the 40-person threshold typically relied upon to establish numerosity under Rule 23. As a result, the court determined that there were ample grounds to deny the motion for class certification. 2. Rulings On Class Certification Motions Based On Superiority Rule 23(b)(3) issues involving superiority were also spotlighted in 2024. As discussed in the prior section, the court in Chavez, et al. v. San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14785 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 28, 2024), partially justified its denial of class certification on the grounds that the superiority prong of Rule 23 had not been met. Specifically, given the diverging nature of each employees’ religious beliefs, as well as the undue hardship the defendant faced to accommodate these beliefs, a class action would not be the superior method for adjudicating these claims. This was in part due to the complexity of the individual issues raised, and the significant personal and financial stakes for the plaintiffs. Accordingly, the court denied the motion for class certification. Similarly, the court in Burns, et al. v. SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, Inc. , 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68283 (E.D. Penn. Apr. 15, 2024), ruled that plaintiffs did not carry their burden of proving numerosity, and therefore, considering joinder was not impracticable, they could not prove a class action was the superior method of litigating the claims. The plaintiffs merely speculated that approximately 100 class members existed, and the court found that the plaintiffs cannot satisfy the numerosity requirement by say-so alone. Due to the lack of evidentiary support, the court determined that class certification was not appropriate. 3. Rulings On Class Certification Motions Based On Adequacy Of Representation While less common than the other Rule 23 factors, adequacy of representation can also present a barrier to plaintiffs looking to certify a class action. In Anders, et al. v. California State University, Fresno , 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 1063 (9th Cir. Jan. 17, 2024), the plaintiffs, a group of former women’s lacrosse team members, filed a class action alleging that the defendant violated Title IX by depriving current and former female athletes at California State University, Fresno of effective accommodations and equal treatment. The district court denied the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification, and their motion for reconsideration of the ruling, finding that the named plaintiffs were not adequate representatives as required under Rule 23(a)(4) because their affiliation and positions favored the women’s lacrosse team over other women’s varsity sports teams. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit reversed and
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Duane Morris Discrimination Class Action Review – 2025
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