Hammett v. American Bankers Insurance

203 F.R.D. 690, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19415, 2001 WL 1517425
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Florida
DecidedNovember 19, 2001
DocketNo. 00-CV-3560
StatusPublished
Cited by28 cases

This text of 203 F.R.D. 690 (Hammett v. American Bankers Insurance) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hammett v. American Bankers Insurance, 203 F.R.D. 690, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19415, 2001 WL 1517425 (S.D. Fla. 2001).

Opinion

ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR CLASS CERTIFICATION

UNGARO-BENAGES, District Judge.

THIS CAUSE is before the Court upon Plaintiffs Motion for Class Certification (DE 41) filed February 28, 2000, Defendants’ Motion for Leave to File Sur-Reply to Plaintiffs Reply Memorandum (DE 56), filed April 3, 2001, and Plaintiffs Motion for Leave to Respond to Defendants’ “Surreply” in Opposition to Motion for Class Certification (DE 57), filed April 12, 2001.

THE COURT has considered the Motions, the pertinent portions of the record and is otherwise fully advised in the premises. For [693]*693the reasons explained below, Plaintiffs Motion will be denied.

BACKGROUND

This case concerns the Defendants’ administration process for paying the minimum monthly payment to credit cardholders (“the Insureds”) who have purchased Involuntary Unemployment Insurance (“IUI”) from Defendants. Plaintiffs First Amended and Restated Class Action Complaint (“the Complaint”) alleges that Defendants issued IUI policies to thousands of consumers, using standard, uniform applications in which the Defendants represented that they would make “the minimum monthly payment on Your account” in the event of “involuntarily loss of employment.” Compl. ¶ 10. Rather than making the minimum monthly payment in its Insureds’ accounts as it had represented, Defendants allegedly devised a scheme wherein claims were not processed on a timely basis, Defendants failed to pay amounts equal to the Insureds’ finance charges plus the credit insurance premiums it automatically charged to the Insureds’ accounts, and thereby created self terminating policies.

In December 1995, Plaintiff entered into an insurance policy with Defendants to provide coverage for her Discover credit card payments in the event she became involuntarily unemployed. In March 1996, Plaintiff became involuntarily unemployed and submitted her first claim to Defendants on April 29,1996. At the time Plaintiff became unemployed and Defendants paid her first claim, her balance was approximately $900.00. Over the course of the next three and one-half years of her unemployment, Plaintiffs balance increased to approximately $1650.00. In February 1998, the interest rate on Plaintiffs debt increased from 19.8% to 22.4%. Additionally, Plaintiff incurred late fees and over limit charges at various times while her policy was in effect.

Plaintiff seeks class action status on behalf of “[a]ll persons in the United States who entered into involuntary unemployment insurance agreements with Defendants, or either of them, since September 22, 1996.” Motion at 3.

DISCUSSION

To maintain a class action, Plaintiff bears the burden of showing that the proposed class satisfies the four prerequisites of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 23(a). Rule 23(a) provides that one or more members may sue on behalf of all only if (1) the class is so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable (“numerosity”), (2) there are questions of law or fact common to the class (“commonality”), (3) the claims of the representative are typical of the claims of the class (“typicality”), and (4) the representative parties must fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class (“adequacy”). Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(a). If the prerequisites are met, then the action must satisfy one of the three provisions of Rule 23(b). In making this determination, the Court must take the factual allegations of the Complaint as true and examine only whether those factual allegations meet the requirements of Rule 23.

It is well settled that a court is not to conduct a preliminary inquiry into the merits of a suit when deciding whether it may be maintained as a class action. See Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U.S. 156, 177-178, 94 S.Ct. 2140, 40 L.Ed.2d 732 (1974) (stating “[i]n determining the propriety of a class action, the question is not whether the plaintiff or plaintiffs have stated a cause of action or will prevail on the merits, but rather whether the requirements of Rule 23 are met)” (quoting Miller v. Mackey Int’l, 452 F.2d 424, 427 (5th Cir.1971)). However, a court may look beyond the allegations of the complaint in assessing whether a motion for class certification should be granted. See General Tel. Co. of Southwest v. Falcon, 457 U.S. 147, 160, 102 S.Ct. 2364, 72 L.Ed.2d 740 (1982). “It is inescapable that in some cases there will be overlap between the demands of Rule 23(a) and (b) and the question of whether plaintiff can succeed on the merits.” Huff v. N.D. Cass Co., 485 F.2d 710, 714 (5th Cir.1973) (en banc); Rutstein v. Avis Rent-A-Car Sys., Inc., 211 F.3d 1228, 1234 (11th Cir.2000), cert. denied, Zeirei Agudath Israel Bookstore v. Avis Rent-A-Car Sys., Inc., — U.S. -, 121 S.Ct. 1354, 149 L.Ed.2d 285 (2001).

[694]*694Indeed, the Supreme Court has noted as follows:

Evaluation of many of the questions entering into determination of class action questions is intimately involved with the merits of the claims. The typicality of the representative’s claims or defenses, the adequacy of the representative, and the presence of common questions of law or fact are obvious examples. The more complex determinations required in Rule 23(b)(3) class actions entail even greater entanglement with the merits.

Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 469 n. 12, 98 S.Ct. 2454, 57 L.Ed.2d 351 (1978) (quoting 15 Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Edward H. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 3911, p. 485 n. 45 (1976)).

A. Rule 23(a) Prerequisites

1. Numerosity

The first requirement is that the class is so numerous that joinder is impracticable, not impossible. Rule 23(a)(1); see Kreuzfeld, A.G. v. Carnehammar, 138 F.R.D. 594, 599 (S.D.Fla.1991). Practicability of joinder depends on many factors, including, for example, the size of the class, ease of identifying its numbers and determining their addresses, facility of making service on them if joined and their geographic dispersion. See, e.g., Zeidman v. J. Ray McDermott & Co., 651 F.2d 1030, 1038-39 (5th Cir.1981). Plaintiffs have identified thou sands of individual class members from all over the country. There is no definite standard as to the size of a given class, and Plaintiffs estimate need only be reasonable. See Kilgo v. Bowman Transp., Inc., 789 F.2d 859, 878 (11th Cir.1986). Classes as small as 25 have been certified. Kreuzfeld, 138 F.R.D. at 599 (certifying class of 130). Plaintiff estimates that thousands of persons are potential members of this class.

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203 F.R.D. 690, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19415, 2001 WL 1517425, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hammett-v-american-bankers-insurance-flsd-2001.