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Sitton v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co.2/18/2003
ominate, and that a class action is unmanageable.
Predominance. State Farm contends the claims of each class member will necessarily require litigation regarding the facts of each accident, the medical condition of each insured, the specific action taken by each review panel, individual causation, and individual damages. In essence, State Farm contends that the presence of individual issues regarding causation, reliance, or damages precludes certification. Plaintiffs respond that the predominance requirement is satisfied, because the overriding common issue is whether State Farm had a practice of implementing utilization reviews in bad faith.
The predominance requirement is not a rigid test, but rather contemplates a review of many factors, the central question being whether 'adjudication of the common issues in the particular suit has important and desirable advantages of judicial economy compared to all other issues, or when viewed by themselves.' The predominance requirement is not a demand that common issues be dispositive, or even determinative; it is not a comparison of court time needed to adjudicate common issues versus individual issues; nor is it a balancing of the number of issues suitable for either common or individual treatment. Rather, '{a} single common issue may be the overriding one in the litigation, despite the fact that the suit also entails numerous remaining individual questions.' The presence of individual issues may pose management problems for the judge, but as the chief commentator has observed, courts have a variety of procedural options to reduce the burden of resolving individual damage issues, including bifurcated trials, use of subclasses or masters, pilot or test cases with selected class members, or even class decertification after liability is determined. Division Two applied this analysis in its recent decision in Behr:
In deciding whether common issues predominate over individual ones, the court is engaged in a ''pragmatic' inquiry into whether there is a 'common nucleus of operative facts' to each class member's claim.' That class members may eventually have to make an individual showing of damages does not preclude class certification.
When appropriate, therefore, a suit may be maintained as a class action with respect to particular issues; as the case progresses, the trial court has discretion to narrow the issues to be resolved as part of the class action. The predominance standard is not strictly applied to every aspect of the plaintiffs' claims; rather, questions of judicial economy are central:
When a court decides to limit a class action with respect to particular common issues only, such limitation will necessarily afford predominance as to those issues. Because a limitation of a class action to designated common issues lies in the court's discretion under Rule 23(c)(4) in every class action, and because this court power has the capability of automatically satisfying the predominance test under Rule 23(b)(3), it follows that the predominance test of Rule 23(b)(3) must be read with a recognition of the power of the court to uphold a class with respect to particular issues under Rule 23(c)(4).
. . . Judicial economy considerations are central to the predominance test of Rule 23(b)(3) and the court's power to limit a class to selected issues under Rule 23(c)(4). Because of authorized court powers under this latter subdivision, a Rule 23(b)(3) class may be certified in appropriate circumstances, without strictly satisfying the predominance test which was designed to apply to the totality of issues in a lawsuit. Many precedents construing the predominance requirement reflect the confluence of the provi
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