h/t SCOTUSblog
Shady Grove Orthopedic Associates, P.A. v. Allstate Insurance Company (08-1008)
Short short holding: Fed class action to recover interest is ok under FRCP 23, despite CPLR 901 prohibiting same in New York.
You can find my other posts on this case HERE and HERE.
I’ll add more later, after I’ve had time to read the decision.
[Update]
I’m going to stick with the short holding. If you want a discussion on the procedural stuff, check out the Scotusblog link above or JT. I might post more on the decision over at the CPLRblog, but I won’t do that until tomorrow at the earliers.
As it relates to no-fault, my guess is that the case will settle. At no point in the case did Allstate deny that it withheld interest that was due and owing. Instead it argued that each plaintiff should have to start its own action. That in itself is funny
because Allstate, like every other insurer, bitches and moans about litigation costs and how no-fault is clogging up the courts.
because Allstate, like every other insurer, bitches and moans about litigation costs and how no-fault is clogging up the courts.
To summarize the decision:
The Federal Rule relating to certification of class actions is procedural in nature. As such, it preempts the state rule regarding limitations on class actions to enforce statutory penalties (ie interest). If you care about no-fault, that’s really all the case says.
The decision is 72 pages because this case is one of many battles of preemption of state rules in federal court. Only procedural rules are preempted, but some rules are not easily characterized as procedural or substantive because they have elements of both. Therefore, the different justices disagree on where to draw the line between procedural and substantive rules for preemption.
If you care about no-fault
If?
If you *ONLY* care about no-fault.
Zuppa collapsed under the strain. He’s been hospitalized. His last words before the next wave of foam shot out of his mouth were: “if they pass a law that the IME doctor does not have to testify I will challenge it via the confrontation clause of the United States Constitution.”
The purpose of Erie was to eliminate the federal common law, as it applied to state choses of action. Thus, Erie was to, among other things, prevent the federal court from being the repository of non-federal actions that could not be brought in state court. This action could not be brought in state court, as pleaded. That should be the test – plain and simple.
To me, this decision has now allowed federal substantive rules, guises as procedural rules, to trump substantive state procedural rules.
And the author of the opinion is a renowned “champion of states rights”. Go figure.
Now, Mr. Zuppa has to learn how to practice in Federal Court, because apparently, that may be the only venue that will apply his way of reasoning.
Nino is not amused
