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Christensen v. Philip Morris USA Inc.6/8/2005
es a uniform federal rule of decision that mandates suspension rather than renewal whenever a federal class action tolls a statute of limitations.
Our research reveals that numerous state courts have adopted the concept of class action tolling, as articulated in American Pipe and its progeny. For example, in First Baptist Church of Citronelle v. Citronelle-Mobile Gathering, Inc., 409 So. 2d 727, 728 (Ala. 1981), the court held that, "when the interests of putative class members may not be adequately protected by the class representative or by the judiciary, the statute of limitations is tolled from the date of commencement of the action until the date of denial of class certification." The Alabama court was persuaded by American Pipe, noting that "Rule 23 of the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure is identical to Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure." Id. at 729. It reasoned:
The principal function of the class action - to avoid multiplicity in filing suits, motions and papers - will be defeated if the statute of limitations is not tolled in favor of the plaintiffs. A putative class member could protect his or her interests only by filing an individual action or intervening before the statute of limitations runs. Filing of individual actions in such a case as the case before the Court is precisely what Rule 23 was designed to avoid.
Id. (emphasis added) (citations omitted).
Similarly, in Levi v. Univ. of Hawaii, 679 P.2d 129 (Haw. 1994), the Supreme Court of Hawaii stated:
One of the purposes of a class action suit is to prevent multiplicity of actions, thereby preserving the economies of time, effort and expense. This objective can be effectively achieved only by allowing the proposed members of a class to rely on the existence of a suit which protects their rights. We therefore adopt the rule enunciated in [American Pipe], and clarified in [Crown] which states that the commencement of a class action suspends the applicable statute of limitations as to all asserted members of a class who would have been parties had the suit continued as a class action. To hold otherwise would be to encourage intervention and filings of separate actions in the event class certification might be denied, thus creating the multiplicity of actions that class suits were designed to avoid.
Id. at 132 (citations omitted).
Numerous other courts have reached similar conclusions. See, e.g., Nolan v. Sea Airmotive, Inc., 627 P.2d 1035, 1041-42 (Alaska 1981) (finding the Supreme Court's rationale in American Pipe "persuasive," and holding that Alaska class action rule "tolls the statute of limitations as to all members of the class, whether or not named in the complaint"); Blaylock v. Shearson Lehman Brothers, Inc., 954 S.W.2d 939, 941 (Ark. 1997) (citing American Pipe and holding that "the commencement of a class action tolls the running of the statute [of limitations] as to purported members of the class during the pendency of the litigation"); S.F. Unified Sch. Dist. v. W.R. Grace & Co., 44 Cal. Rptr. 2d 305, 317-18 (Cal. Ct. App. 1995) (determining that limitations period was tolled when school district was a party to a federal class action against asbestos manufacturers); Rosenthal v. Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc., 883 P.2d 522, 531 (Colo. Ct. App. 1994) ("The commencement of a class action tolls the statute of limitations for all members of the putative class, thereby preserving for the individual class members the portion of the limitations period that remained at the time the class action was commenced"), aff'd in part, rev'd in part on other grounds, 908 P.2d 1095 (Colo. 1995); Campbell v. New Milford Bd. of Educ., 423 A.2d 900, 905 n.6 (
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