Mussat v. IQVIA, Inc., No. 19-1204 (7th Cir. 2020)
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Mussat, an Illinois professional services corporation, received unsolicited faxes from IQVIA, a Delaware corporation with its headquarters in Pennsylvania. These faxes failed to include the required opt-out notice. Mussat brought a putative class action in Illinois under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. 227, on behalf of itself and all persons in the country who had received similar junk faxes from IQVIA in the four previous years. The district court granted IQVIA's motion to strike the class definition, reasoning that under the Supreme Court’s 2017 “Bristol-Myers” holding, not just the named plaintiff, but also the unnamed class members, each had to show minimum contacts between the defendant and the forum state. Because IQVIA is not subject to general jurisdiction in Illinois, the court turned to specific jurisdiction and found that it had no jurisdiction over the claims of parties who were harmed outside of Illinois.
The Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that Bristol-Myers does not apply to the case of a nationwide class action filed in federal court under a federal statute. Bristol-Myers did not reach the question of whether, in a Rule 23 class action, each unnamed class member must separately establish specific personal jurisdiction over a defendant. In such an action the lead plaintiffs earn the right to represent the interests of absent class members by satisfying Rule 23(a) and Rule 23(b) criteria. Absent class members are not full parties to the case for many purposes.
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