USA – LOUISIANA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Allan Kanner, Conlee Whiteley and Cynthia St. Amant, Kanner & Whiteley, LLC
Federal courts have wielded this principle to bar so- called no-injury class lawsuits. For example, class representatives were found to lack standing in a class action on behalf of a class of prescription drug pur- chasers who sought only economic damages for the purchase of the drug but who suffered no ill effects from the drug. The court reasoned that the class rep- resentative plaintiffs lacked any injury-in-fact because they had not experienced the injury (liver damage) that prompted the drug’s recall and had no contract with the manufacturer to claim a benefit-of-the-bargain loss. Though not bound by the same Article III requirements, Louisiana state courts impose comparable limits. Lou- isiana’s concept of “right of action” requires a class representative to have a real interest in the claim, and courts have refused to let an uninjured person repre- sent a class. However, if a case is removed to federal court under CAFA, Article III’s stricter requirements apply. Defendants, thus, frequently invoke standing in CAFA-removed cases to narrow or defeat class claims that state law might have tolerated under a broader statutory right. In a doctrinal example, the US Supreme Court held in Spokeo v Robins , 578 U.S. 330 (2016) that a statutory cause of action provided in the Fair Credit Reporting Act did not eliminate the need for a concrete, par- ticularised injury where the defendant had violated the statute but the violation did not otherwise harm the plaintiff. After Spokeo , federal courts have dis- missed consumer class claims based on technical violations or abstract harms if plaintiffs cannot show a tangible loss, such as an out-of-pocket loss or a product defect that actually diminished the prod- uct’s value. Conversely, courts find standing when a consumer alleges a definite economic injury, such as paying more for a product than it was worth due to an undisclosed defect. Economic losses are treated as concrete injuries; speculative or purely emotional grievances are not. Additionally, defendants often argue that a class including uninjured members cannot be certified, since courts lack jurisdiction over claims by those with no injury. Some courts have adopted this stricter view, insisting that class definitions exclude anyone without
an injury-in-fact, forcing plaintiffs to narrow the class to only those actually harmed or else face denial of certification. Other courts take a more accommodat- ing approach, treating the inclusion of some uninjured individuals as a matter for Rule 23 (typicality, predomi- nance) rather than a constitutional bar, as long as the class representative has standing. In such courts, standing is primarily a threshold question for the class representative, and any uninjured class members can be screened out by refining the class or at the dam- ages phase. At judgment, however, every class member who seeks relief must have standing. The Supreme Court held in TransUnion LLC v Ramirez , 594 U.S. 413 (2022), that uninjured class members cannot recover damages and overturned a class damages award for members whose credit reports were shown to be inaccurate, but whose reports were never disseminated, because the risk of harm never materialised into a concrete injury. The standing doctrine is also used to narrow class claims by product and geography. Courts often hold that a plaintiff lacks standing to sue over products never purchased or purchased in another state with laws that do not recognise an injury. Thus, multi-prod- uct classes are limited to the products the plaintiff actually purchased, and nationwide classes are pared down to the states in which the plaintiff was injured. This prevents a class representative from extending his or her claims beyond his or her own transactions and jurisdictions. Finally, standing limits certain remedies in class actions, most notably claims for injunctive relief. To have standing for an injunction, a plaintiff must show a likelihood of future injury. In consumer cases, how- ever, a past purchaser now aware of an alleged fraud or defect ordinarily cannot demonstrate a likelihood of future injury since no imminent threat remains. Absent a credible ongoing threat, class-wide injunctive relief
is, thus, unavailable in federal court. Motions to strike class allegations
Motions to strike have become increasingly powerful weapons to eliminate class actions entirely or sub- stantially narrow the scope of claims and/or relief early on in a litigation. In Louisiana, plaintiffs should care-
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