Waldron v. Raymark Industries, Inc.

124 F.R.D. 235, 13 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 850, 1989 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1709, 1989 WL 14660
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Georgia
DecidedJanuary 31, 1989
DocketCiv. A. No. 1:88-CV-1229-RLV
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 124 F.R.D. 235 (Waldron v. Raymark Industries, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Waldron v. Raymark Industries, Inc., 124 F.R.D. 235, 13 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 850, 1989 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1709, 1989 WL 14660 (N.D. Ga. 1989).

Opinion

ORDER

VINING, District Judge.

In this personal injury action, the plaintiffs seek recovery for damages allegedly resulting from the manufacture and sale of asbestos-containing products by Raymark Industries, Inc. Raymark previously moved this court to certify a mandatory class action to consolidate all present and future asbestos-related personal injury actions brought against it. The court granted that motion and certified the class. However, in responding to petitions filed by plaintiffs with claims pending against Raymark in several different states, the Eleventh Circuit issued a writ of mandamus and directed this court to vacate its order certifying the class and staying all related litigation. In re Temple, 851 F.2d 1269 (11th Cir.1988).

Raymark has now filed a new motion to certify a mandatory class action and has tried to meet the objections raised by the Eleventh Circuit when it granted the writ of mandamus. Also pending before the court is the motion by certain plaintiffs in other actions seeking to intervene in order to have an opportunity to appear and oppose Raymark’s motion. That motion to intervene is GRANTED, but the intervention will be for the limited purpose of participating in any appeal of this order.

In its new motion, Raymark seeks to avoid some of the problems that occurred when the court granted its earlier motion to certify this as a class action by asking this court to appoint a guardian ad litem for all future claimants, to order that all present and future claimants who oppose the proposed class certification be given an opportunity to be heard prior to any such certification, and to allow discovery with respect to Raymark’s claims that it has only a limited fund which is insufficient to cover its potential liability in the actions pending against it and which may be filed against it in the future.

Although this court is sympathetic with Raymark’s financial position and with its apparent desire to see that as many plaintiffs as possible are compensated for any injury done to them (as opposed to letting a potentially small number of plaintiffs enforce large judgments against it, thereby depleting its assets), this court has concluded that it cannot certify a mandatory plaintiff class in this litigation. Despite Ray-mark’s commendable efforts, this court believes that such efforts would prove fruit[237]*237less. Even if Raymark’s proposals regarding notice to class members and determination of its financial position were implemented, there would still be major barriers blocking Raymark’s attempts to have this case certified as a class action. Because the court has determined that these barriers are insurmountable, the court does not reach the issue of whether Raymark’s assets do in fact constitute a limited fund.

The court is of the firm belief that the process of having each individual litigate his or her claim against Raymark in all the thousands of cases pending against Ray-mark is ineffective and inefficient and results in substantial funds being expended for attorney’s fees that could more properly be used to compensate asbestos victims. Furthermore, the current method of handing asbestos litigation does nothing to insure that those persons whose injuries have not yet been manifested will be able to receive compensation for their injuries, since the funds to pay them may by that time be depleted. Despite these misgivings, however, this court must work within the bounds of the law as interpreted by it and by higher courts.

Raymark seeks to have this case certified as a class action pursuant to Rule 23(b)(1)(B), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which provides that an action may be maintained as a class action if, in addition to the other prerequisites for a class action, the prosecution of separate actions by individual members of the class would create a risk of “adjudications with respect to individual members of the class which would as a practical matter be dispositive of the interests of the other members not parties to the adjudications or substantially impair or impede their ability to protect their interests.” A Rule 23(b)(1)(B) class action is commonly referred to as a “limited fund” since such an action is based upon the theory that there is only a limited fund to satisfy the claims of potential plaintiffs and that individuals who sue first could exhaust the fund, leaving subsequent plaintiffs with no remedy.

Despite its laudatory purposes, the practical scope of Rule 23(b)(1)(B) is extremely limited, and the restrictions placed upon its application by the federal appellate courts make it appear that availability of a Rule 23(b)(1)(B) class action to protect plaintiffs is purely illusory. Although many commentators have seen Rule 23(b)(1)(B) as a solution to the problem of determining the rights of large numbers of injured persons, see e.g., Comment, Federal Mass Tort Class Actions: A Step Toward Equity and Efficiency, 47 Albany L.Rev. 1180 (1983); Note, Mass Exposure Torts: An Efficient Solution to a Complex Problem, 54 U.Cin.L.Rev. 467 (1985), attempts to utilize this form of a class action have been uniformly rejected by the appellate courts. See In re Dennis Greenman Securities Litigation, 829 F.2d 1539 (11th Cir.1987); In re School Asbestosis Cases, 789 F.2d 996 (3d Cir.1986); In re Bendectin Products Liability Litigation, 749 F.2d 300 (6th Cir.1984); In re Northern District of California, Dalkon Shield IUD Products Liability Litigation, 693 F.2d 847 (9th Cir.1982); In re Federal Skywalk Cases, 680 F.2d 1175 (8th Cir.1982).

Although most Rule 23(b)(1)(B) class certifications have been set aside on the basis of an inadequate record to support the finding of a limited fund, the courts, and some commentators, have also recognized two other obstacles to such a class action—personal jurisdiction over unwilling plaintiffs and the Anti-Injunction Act.

In order to fulfill the purpose of Rule 23(b)(1)(B), a class action maintained under that subsection would have to be a mandatory plaintiff class. Otherwise, large numbers of plaintiffs could opt out and continue to exhaust the limited fund through the filing of their own lawsuits. Nevertheless, this court would have no basis by which to exercise personal jurisdiction over plaintiffs who did not have sufficient minimum contacts to allow the exercise of such jurisdiction. Since lack of personal jurisdiction can be waived, in the typical class action, which allows plaintiffs to opt out, those plaintiffs who do not opt out have, in effect, waived the court’s lack of personal jurisdiction over them. However, in a mandatory class action, where [238]*238plaintiffs are not permitted to opt out, no such waiver is present. Any attempt to exercise jurisdiction over such non-consenting plaintiffs would undoubtedly violate those plaintiffs’ constitutional due process rights.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
124 F.R.D. 235, 13 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 850, 1989 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1709, 1989 WL 14660, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/waldron-v-raymark-industries-inc-gand-1989.