Can a federal judge certify a group action that includes plaintiffs not injured?
The opening brief of Labcorp is direct and powerful. It first posits that federal courts cannot grant relief to plaintiffs without a cognizable harm. It then presents the facts in this case: Labcorp installed automated check-in kiosks at its facilities, and most customers love them. The kiosks are not accessible to the blind. Hence this class action, claiming that the kiosks disadvantage the blind, leading to liability under various legal theories.
Labcorp then describes a class that includes all blind people who had been exposed to the kiosks – whether they knew of the kiosks or wanted to use them. If they didn’t even know about the kiosks or had no interest in using them, then they were not injured by their presence. A class that includes all blind people would include a large number of uninjured individuals. Labcorp explains that this could lead to a large and inappropriate settlement if the class is certified. The outrage begins. Two major obstacles prevent Labcorp from getting the result it wants. The first problem, which is all too common in this term, involves the possibility that the case doesn’t really present the question. It is clear that at one time the district court certified a group that excluded all blind people who did not try to or wanted to use the kiosk. This was a limited class of people who could be considered to have suffered an injury. Labcorp only complained about the class definition because Labcorp objected to a more limited definition. Labcorp’s strategy then – which was different from the strategy now – made the narrow class seem objectionable. The problem for the justices is that Labcorp already had appealed before the class definition was narrowed, so it is not at all clear that anything in the opinion of the court of appeals relates to the class definition that Labcorp now challenges so forcefully.
The second difficulty is a “slippery slope” problem. Labcorp’s rhetoric supports an absolute rule that no class can include a single person without a cognizable harm, but in practice it admits to including some uninjured people. It argues that there are too many uninjured people. This kind of imprecise argument is much more difficult for the justices than a hard-and-fast rule of exclusion. This case will seem like “much ado” to those justices. But I think the bulk of the arguments will be devoted to questions about what was and wasn’t before the court of appellations and what was and wasn’t properly before the courts. At some point, though, you really have to start wondering why the law clerks are not doing a better job of having these problems fully aired before the justices devote an argument slot to a case that plainly is not a good vehicle for answering the question presented.
Posted in Featured, Merits Cases
Cases: Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings v. Davis
Recommended Citation:
Ronald Mann
Can a federal judge certify a group action that includes plaintiffs not injured?
SCOTUSblog
(Apr. 28, 2025, 5:14 PM),
