Jabbari v. Wells Fargo & Co., No. 18-16213 (9th Cir. 2020)
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It is generally not legal error for a district court to hold that a settlement class satisfies predominance, particularly for a class asserting a unifying federal claim, without first performing a choice-of-law analysis.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's holding that the class satisfied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3)'s predominance requirement under the precedent set by the panel's recent en banc decision in In re Hyundai & Kia Fuel Economy Litigation, 926 F.3d 539 (9th Cir. 2019). The class action complaint alleged that Wells Fargo pressured their employees to meet arbitrary and unrealistic sales quotas unrelated to true consumer demand which resulted in Wells Fargo's systematic exploitation of its customers for profit. Applying Hyundai, the panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in holding that common questions predominate. The panel explained that the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) claim unified the class because plaintiffs could show that the FCRA's elements were proven by a common course of conduct, and the existence of potential state-law claims did not outweigh the FCRA claim's importance.
Court Description: Class Action The panel affirmed the district court’s holding that a nationwide class satisfied Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(3)’s predominance requirement set forth in In re Hyundai & Kia Fuel Economy Litigation, 926 F.3d 539 (9th Cir. 2019) (en banc). This appeal presented objections to the settlement of a nationwide class action against Wells Fargo. Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(3) requires that “the questions of law or fact common to class members predominate over any questions affecting only individual members.” The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in holding that common questions predominated. Specifically, the panel held that Hyundai made clear that it generally was not legal error to forego a choice-of-law analysis in a settlement-class predominance inquiry; and this principle applied with even greater force here, where the class was unified by a claim under federal law. The panel further held that the class’s federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) claim unified the class because the plaintiffs could show that the FCRA’s elements were proven by a common course of conduct, and the existence of potential state-law claims did not outweigh the FCRA claim’s importance. JABBARI V. FARMER 7 In a separately filed memorandum disposition, the panel affirmed the district court’s certification of the settlement class, approval of the settlement, award of attorneys’ fees, and approval of notice.
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