Class Actions -- 2016



Brown v. Electrolux Home Prods., Inc.   (11th Circuit)

Class action certification without injury

The NAM filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to review a class action certification where the trial court improperly certified a class of plaintiffs that included individuals who were not harmed and individuals who may never be harmed by the product at issue. The plaintiffs alleged that they overpaid for front loading washers because they were more likely than top-loading washers to develop mold and odors. This matter is important to manufacturers because improper class certification places undue pressure on companies to settle otherwise meritless cases. The NAM’s brief argued that the trial court improperly took the position that all doubts about certifying a class should be resolved in favor of certification and should have instead, followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s view that class actions remain “an exception to the usual rule that litigation is conducted by and on behalf of the individual named parties only.” In a win for manufacturers, the Eleventh Circuit held that class certification was improperly granted and remanded the case to the lower court.