The U.S. Supreme Court could finally rule on a key question in class actions, often raised by the defense at the certification stage: What happens when some of the class members haven’t been injured?
It’s an issue that the Supreme Court has heard before, namely in Tyson Foods Inc. v. Bouaphakeo and TransUnion v. Ramirez. But those decisions, in 2016 and 2021, sidestepped that broader question, leaving circuit courts of appeal increasingly fractured, former U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco, now at Jones Day, wrote in a petition for a writ of certiorari on behalf of Laboratory Corporation of America. His client sought review of a 2024 class certification decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, whose “lax approach to certification,” Francisco wrote, “harbors fundamental defects.”