{"id":10447,"date":"2017-03-22T15:29:51","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T19:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/?p=10447"},"modified":"2018-12-24T23:16:50","modified_gmt":"2018-12-25T04:16:50","slug":"ames-semi-final-round-march-22-2017-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/ames-semi-final-round-march-22-2017-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Ames Semi-Final Round – March 22, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to CR-CL’s Ames Live Blog!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tune in below starting tonight, March 22 at\u00a06:15 PM EST.\u00a0<\/strong>The case summary below is courtesy of the BSA.\u00a0Teams’ briefs and more information are available\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Case Summary:\u00a0<\/strong>For many years, Ames Meat has marketed Meaties, a snack product beloved in the State of Ames, as an \u201call meat treat.\u201d\u00a0 As it turned out, that was not entirely true\u2013Meaties were held together by non-meat binding agents.\u00a0 Plaintiff Willa Lowe, a frequent Meaties purchaser, brought a putative class action in the United States District Court for the District of Ames asserting a claim under the Ames Deceptive Trade Practices Act (ADTPA).\u00a0 The ADTPA, however, contains a class-action restriction.\u00a0 The statute provides that no consumer may bring an action under the ADPTA on behalf of a class; only the Ames Attorney General may bring suit under the ADTPA in a representative capacity.<\/p>\n

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After the close of class discovery and initial motions practice, the District Court denied Lowe\u2019s motion for class certification on two grounds.\u00a0 First, the Court held that the ADTPA\u2019s class-action restriction applied in federal court, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 notwithstanding, because the restriction was in effect substantive, and under a federal statute called the Rules Enabling Act, federal rules of civil procedure may not be applied in a way that abridges substantive state-law rights.\u00a0 The District Court relied on Justice Stevens\u2019s analysis from his concurrence in the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in\u00a0Shady Grove<\/i>, in which the Court split 4-1-4 as to whether a similar\u2013albeit non-identical\u2013class-action restriction applied in federal court.\u00a0 The District Court concluded that Justice Stevens\u2019s concurrence was controlling because it provided the \u201cnarrowest\u201d rationale for the Court\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

Second, the District Court held in the alternative that Lowe\u2019s proposed class of Meaties purchasers failed Rule 23\u2019s implied \u201cascertainability\u201d requirement, which mandates that it be \u201cadministratively feasible\u201d for the court to determine whether a would-be class member is actually a member.\u00a0 The District Court concluded that ascertainability requires the plaintiff to come forward at the class-certification stage with a reliable means of verifying class members\u2019 claims to class membership.\u00a0 According to the District Court, absent class members could not prove their membership through sworn affidavits attesting that they bought Meaties during the class period, and determining class membership could not be delayed until after certification.<\/p>\n

The Ames Circuit granted interlocutory review on these two issues:<\/p>\n

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    1. Whether the ADTPA\u2019s class-action restriction applies in federal court.<\/li>\n
    2. Whether ascertainability requires the plaintiff to demonstrate an objectively verifiable means of identifying absent class members at the class-certification stage.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
      \n

      The Liveblog:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Welcome to CR-CL’s Ames Live Blog! Tune in below starting tonight, March 22 at\u00a06:15 PM EST.\u00a0The case summary below is 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