In re Eaton Vance Corp. Securities Litigation

220 F.R.D. 162, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5585, 2004 WL 720378
CourtDistrict Court, D. Massachusetts
DecidedApril 1, 2004
DocketNo. CIV.A. 01-10911-EFH
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 220 F.R.D. 162 (In re Eaton Vance Corp. Securities Litigation) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Massachusetts primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Eaton Vance Corp. Securities Litigation, 220 F.R.D. 162, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5585, 2004 WL 720378 (D. Mass. 2004).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM

HARRINGTON, Senior District Judge.

Put simply, this case involves the question of whether named plaintiffs can use the device of class certification to sue two defendants that have caused them no harm.

I. BACKGROUND

The pertinent facts are taken from this Court’s previous opinions in this case. See In re Eaton Vance Corp. Sec. Litig., 219 F.R.D. 38, 40 (D.Mass.2003); In re Eaton Vance Corp. Sec. Litig., 206 F.Supp.2d 142, 155 (D.Mass.2002). The four named plaintiffs sued several defendants, including four mutual funds, for violations of federal securities laws. The four mutual funds are each separate corporate entities. Although the named plaintiffs purchased shares in only two of the four mutual funds, they nevertheless filed a motion seeking to represent a class of investors who purchased shares in all four mutual funds.

As part of its ruling on the motion for class certification, this Court held, as an initial matter, that the four named plaintiffs lacked standing under Article III, Section 2 of the United States Constitution to sue the two mutual funds with which they had no contact, namely, the Eaton Vance Institutional Senior Floating-Rate Fund (“Institutional”) and the Eaton Vance Advisers Senior Floating-Rate Fund (“Advisers”). See In re Eaton Vance Corp. Sec. Litig., 219 F.R.D. at 41. The Court reasoned that the named plaintiffs had not been injured by the Institutional or Advisers funds, and therefore no ease or controversy existed between the named plaintiffs personally and these two particular defendants. Id. The Court further ruled that without Article III standing in their own right, the named plaintiffs could not represent other investors who may have purchased shares in the Institutional or Advisers funds. Id. The Court then proceeded to decide the issue of class certification. This Court’s decision on class certification was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Without ruling, the Court of Appeals stayed the case and remanded to this Court “for the limited purpose of obtaining ... a discussion” of Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp., 527 U.S. 815, 831, 119 S.Ct. 2295, 144 L.Ed.2d 715 (1999), and the “juridical link” doctrine-neither of which has received much, if any, comment by the First Circuit in prior case law. The following memorandum, therefore, is not a reconsideration of this Court’s decision on the motion for class certification, but simply a discussion of Ortiz and the juridical link doctrine, as requested by the First Circuit.

Before delving into the law, it should be noted at the outset that Ortiz and the juridical link doctrine answer two separate and distinct questions. Ortiz deals with tim[165]*165ing. It speaks to whether a court should address class certification issues before Article III standing issues. The juridical link doctrine deals not with timing, but rather with substance. It answers the question of whether two defendants are sufficiently linked so that a plaintiff with a cause of action against only defendant one can also sue the other defendant under the guise of class certification. The place to start is with Ortiz.

II. ORTIZ

In Ortiz, the Supreme Court stated that: Ordinarily, of course, this or any other Article III court must be sure of its own jurisdiction before getting to the merits. But the class certification issues are, as they were in Amchem, “logically antecedent” to Article III concerns and themselves pertain to statutory standing, which may properly be treated before Article III standing. Thus the issue about Rule 23 certification should be treated first, “mindful that [the Rule’s] requirements must be interpreted in keeping with Article III constraints .... ”

527 U.S. at 831, 119 S.Ct. 2295 (quoting Amchem Prods., Inc. v. Windsor, 521 U.S. 591, 612-13, 117 S.Ct. 2231, 138 L.Ed.2d 689 (1997)).

The Seventh Circuit has interpreted these statements broadly, holding that Ortiz is a “directive to consider issues of class certification prior to issues of standing.” Payton v. County of Kane, 308 F.3d 673, 680 (7th Cir.2002). The Fifth Circuit, on the other hand, has described Ortiz as a “limited exception” that only applies in cases where class certification issues are “logically antecedent” to Article III issues. Ford v. NYL-Care Health Plans of the Gulf Coast, Inc., 301 F.3d 329, 333 n. 2 (5th Cir.2002); Rivera v. Wyeth-Ayerst Labs., 283 F.3d 315, 319 n. 6 (5th Cir.2002). Under this reasoning, the general rule that “standing is an inherent prerequisite to the class certification inquiry,” still applies. Rivera, 283 F.3d at 319 (quoting Bertulli v. Indep. Ass’n of Cont’l Pilots, 242 F.3d 290, 294 (5th Cir.2001)). The First Circuit has not interpreted this particular portion of Ortiz.

This Court finds the Fifth Circuit’s description of Ortiz as a “limited exception” to be more persuasive, and joins several other post-Ortiz courts that have addressed Article III standing prior to analyzing class certification issues. See Matte v. Sunshine Mobile Homes, Inc., 270 F.Supp.2d 805, 826 (W.D.La.2003); Dash v. FirstPlus Home Loan Owner Trust 1996-2, 248 F.Supp.2d 489, 503 (M.D.N.C.2003); Miller v. Pac. Shore Funding, 224 F.Supp.2d 977, 995-96 (D.Md.2002); Mull v. Alliance Mortgage Banking Corp., 219 F.Supp.2d 895, 909 n. 10 (W.D.Tenn.2002); Knapp v. Americredit Fin. Serv., Inc., 204 F.R.D. 306, 307-08 (S.D.W.Va.2001); Caranci v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of R.I., 194 F.R.D. 27, 32 (D.R.I. 2000); Doe v. Unocal Corp., 67 F.Supp.2d 1140, 1142 (C.D.Cal.1999).

There are several reasons why the Fifth Circuit’s interpretation of Ortiz is persuasive. To begin with, the Supreme Court has never adopted a broad exception to jurisdictional requirements. Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 94, 118 S.Ct. 1003, 140 L.Ed.2d 210 (1998) (“We decline to endorse such an approach because it carries the courts beyond the bounds of authorized judicial action and thus offends fundamental principles of separation of powers.”). Instead, the Supreme Court has warned that, as a general rule, questions of jurisdiction must be considered before the merits “since if there is no jurisdiction there is no authority to sit in judgment of anything else.” Vermont Agency of Natural Res. v. United States ex rel. Stevens, 529 U.S. 765, 778, 120 S.Ct. 1858, 146 L.Ed.2d 836 (2000). The requirement that jurisdiction be established as a threshold matter has been described as “inflexible and without exception.” Steel Co., 523 U.S. at 94, 118 S.Ct. 1003; see also People to End Homelessness, Inc. v. Develco Singles Apartments Associates, 339 F.3d 1

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Bluebook (online)
220 F.R.D. 162, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5585, 2004 WL 720378, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-eaton-vance-corp-securities-litigation-mad-2004.