IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

Transcription

1 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA SHERYL YSBRAND and MARY COONEY, ) individually and on behalf of all ) others similarly situated, ) ) Plaintiffs/Appellees, ) ) v. ) No ) District Court No.: CJ DAIMLERCHRYSLER CORPORATION, ) a Delaware corporation, individually and ) as Successor in Interest to Chrysler ) Corporation, and CHRYSLER ) CORPORATION, a Delaware ) corporation, individually, ) ) Defendants/Appellants. ) APPLICATION OF WASHINGTON LEGAL FOUNDATION FOR LEAVE TO FILE AMICUS CURIAE BRIEF Washington Legal Foundation ( WLF ) hereby requests leave to file an amicus curiae brief, pursuant to Oklahoma Supreme Court Rule 1.12, in connection with the Petition for Rehearing of Defendants-Appellants DaimlerChrysler Corporation and Chrysler Corporation (collectively, DaimlerChrysler ). WLF is a non-profit public interest law and policy center with supporters in all 50 states, including many in Oklahoma. WLF devotes a substantial portion of its resources to advancing the interests of the free-enterprise system and to ensuring that economic development is not impeded by excessive litigation. This Court s February 25, 2003 opinion, which approved the application of Michigan law to the claims of more than one million class members, the overwhelming majority of whose claims have little or no connection with Michigan, for the purpose of facilitating the maintenance of a nationwide class action under a single set of legal rules, implicates the core concerns of WLF and its members.

2 In particular, WLF regularly participates in appellate litigation in support of its view that certification of class actions can undermine the fairness of our court system when undertaken in inappropriate situations. Among the many federal and state court cases in which WLF has appeared as an amicus curiae in order to present its views on the proper scope of class action litigation are: General Electric Capital Corp. v. Thiessen, 267 F.3d 1095 (10th Cir. 2001), cert. denied, 122 S. Ct (2002); Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. v. Epstein, 516 U.S. 367 (1996); State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Lopez, 45 S.W.3d 182 (Tex. Civ. App. 2001), review dismissed (Tex. 2002); Linder v. Thrifty Oil Co., 23 Cal. 4th 429 (2000); Diamond Multimedia Systems v. Superior Court, 19 Cal. 4th 1036 (1999), cert. denied, 527 U.S (2000); and Peterson v. BASF Corp., N.W.2d, No. C , 2003 WL (Minn. Ct. App. Mar. 3, 2003). WLF believe that permitting suits to proceed as class actions can serve several laudable goals. For example, class actions can promote judicial economy by reducing the number of occasions on which courts will be required to consider the legal consequences of a recurring fact pattern. Moreover: The policy at the very core of the class action mechanism is to overcome the problem that small recoveries do not provide the incentive for any individual to bring a solo action prosecuting his or her rights. A class action solves this problem by aggregating the relatively paltry potential recoveries into something worth someone s (usually an attorney s) labor. Amchem Prods., Inc. v. Windsor, 521 U.S. 591, 617 (1997). Nonetheless, WLF is concerned by the distortions being imposed on the litigation process by the ever-increasing number of class actions being certified in state and federal courts. When large and amorphous classes are certified, it often becomes impossible to protect litigants due process rights to have all issues individually adjudicated when they are not common to the class as a whole. Nationwide classes involving state-law issues, such as 2

3 the one certified in this case, virtually always suffer from this defect because it will almost never be appropriate to apply a single State s law to the claims of all class members, yet such cases become untriable if the laws of all 50 States must be applied to the claims of the various class members. WLF has no interest, direct or indirect, in the claims raised in this case by any of the class members against DaimlerChrysler, nor does it have an interest in other suits raising similar claims. WLF seeks to file an amicus curiae brief for the sole purpose of raising public policy issues implicated by the decision here to certify a nationwide class. The Court s February 25, 2003 opinion holds that the law of the defendant s principal place of business Michigan governs all of the individual class members warranty claims, even though the sales that gave rise to those warranties occurred in all 50 States and the District of Columbia. The Court reached this decision not because the individual claims had any substantial connection with Michigan, but because Michigan was the only jurisdiction that had at least some connection to the claims of all class members. Indeed, under settled Oklahoma law, if the claims of the class members were evaluated individually, the law of the State with the most significant relationship to each class member s claim would apply, and that State would be the site where the sale of the vehicle at issue occurred. See, e.g., Perry v. Lawson Ford Tractor Co., 613 P.2d 458, 465 (Okla. 1980). The result should be no different merely because individual claims are aggregated together through the procedural device of the class action. For example, if Oklahoma substantive warranty law would have applied to the claim of an individual who resides in Oklahoma and purchased his or her vehicle in Oklahoma, notwithstanding that the vehicle was manufactured in Michigan, there is no rational or legitimate basis for applying a 3

4 different State s substantive warranty law to that same claim merely because the individual has brought suit along with many other plaintiffs throughout the Nation. This temptation to bend substantive law to make class actions, particularly nationwide class actions, more manageable was noted long ago. See, e.g., Jack B. Weinstein, Some Thoughts on the Abusiveness of Class Actions, 58 F.R.D. 299, (1973). Courts throughout the Nation, including the United States Supreme Court, have emphatically rejected such attempts to tailor the substantive law to accommodate the procedural concerns implicated by class actions. See, e.g., Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts, 472 U.S. 797, (1985) (rejecting such reasoning as something of a bootstrap argument ); In re: Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc. Tires Prods. Liab. Litig., 288 F.3d 1012, 1020 (7th Cir. 2002) ( Tempting as it is to alter doctrine in order to facilitate class treatment, judges must resist so that all parties legal rights may be respected. ), cert. denied, 123 S. Ct. 870 (2003); Southwestern Refining Co. v. Bernal, 22 S.W.3d 425, 437 (Tex. 2000) ( The class action is a procedural device intended to advance judicial economy by trying claims together that lend themselves to collective treatment. It is not meant to alter the parties burdens of proof, right to a jury trial, or the substantive prerequisites to recovery under a given tort. ); City of San Jose v. Superior Court, 525 P.2d 701, 711 (Cal. 1974) ( Altering the substantive law to accommodate procedure would be to confuse the means with the ends to sacrifice the goal for the going. ). Yet altering the substantive law by applying a different State s warranty law than would have applied in individual, non-class litigation is exactly what this Court s February 25, 2003 decision accomplished. In addition to being unsound from the standpoint of public policy, this Court s determination that Michigan law governs the claims of all class members in all 50 States and 4

5 the District of Columbia violates the Due Process, Full Faith and Credit, and Commerce Clauses of the United States Constitution. In Shutts, the United States Supreme Court rejected a state court ruling that would have applied one State s law nationwide in order to facilitate a class action, even though most of the claims of the individual class members bore little or no connection to that State. 472 U.S. at Indeed, where, as here, the substantive law to be applied nationwide may conflict directly with the substantive law of States whose law should otherwise have applied, the result is especially arbitrary and unfair, because the result defeats the expectation of the parties, id., and fails to respect the legitimate interests of other States and to avoid infringement upon their sovereignty. Allstate Ins. Co. v. Hague, 449 U.S. 302, 322 (1981) (Stevens, J., concurring). WLF s extensive experience as a friend of the court in class action appeals across the country makes it well-suited to offer additional insight into these procedural and constitutional issues. The implications of this Court s February 25 ruling are far-reaching, involving not only the rights of DaimlerChrysler and the more than one million class members nationwide, but also the very sovereignty of Oklahoma s sister States and the District of Columbia. WLF therefore requests that it be granted the opportunity to submit an amicus curiae brief to assist the Court in its resolution of these exceedingly important issues. 5

6 DATE: March 17, Respectfully submitted, Terry W. Tippens, OBA No Brooks A. Richardson, OBA No Fellers, Snider, Blankenship, Bailey & Tippens, P.C. Bank One Tower 100 North Broadway, Suite 1700 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Telephone: (405) Facsimile: (405) Of Counsel: Daniel J. Popeo, Esq. Richard A. Samp, Esq. WASHINGTON LEGAL FOUNDATION 2009 Massachusetts Ave., NW Washington, DC Telephone: (202) Attorneys for Amicus Curiae The Washington Legal Foundation 6

7 CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE I certify that on the day of March, 2003, a true and correct copy of the foregoing instrument was mailed, via U.S. Mail, postage pre-paid to the following: Harry G. Scoufos, III Law Offices of Harry Scoufos, P.C. P.O. Box 787 Sallisaw, OK James Minge James Minge & Associates 2600 Energy Centre 1100 Poydras Street New Orleans, LA Patrick W. Pendley P.O. Drawer 71 Plaquemine, LA Anthony Majestro Masters & Taylor 181 Summers St. Charleston, WV Darleen Jacobs Law Offices of Darleen Jacobs 823 St. Louis St. New Orleans, LA Joseph J. McKernan McKernan Law Firm 8710 Jefferson Highway Baton Rouge, LA Stephen E. Van Gaasbeck Attorney at Law 1227 S.W. Military Drive San Antonio, TX Clyde A. Muchmore, Esq. Harvey D. Ellis, Jr., Esq. Courtney K. Warmington, Esq. Crowe & Dunlevy 1800 Mid-America Tower 20 N. Broadway Oklahoma City, OK Peter W. Herzog, III, Esq. Bryan Cave, LLP One Metropolitan Square, Suite N. Broadway St. Louis, MO Thomas G. Wolfe, Esq. Lyndon W. Whitmire, Esq. Phillips, McFall, McCaffrey, McVay & Murrah One Leadership Square, 12 th Floor 211 N. Robinson Oklahoma City, OK Robert E. Reeves Reeves Law Office 167 W. Main St., Suite 1310 Lexington, KY WLF A pplication_.doc Terry W. Tippens 7