Kentucky District Court's denial of class certification in mortgage lending case provides numerous lessons for class action defendants
In late December, On The Radar launched the "Sixth Circuit Dukes v. Wal-Mart Scoreboard" to examine the impact of the Wal-Mart decision on class certification decisions within the Sixth Circuit. In our first post, here, we explained that perhaps the most important contribution of the Wal-Mart decision is that it models the "rigorous analysis" required under Rule 23, and provides the analytical metrics to distinguish between mere common questions, and common questions that will yield common answers--which is the sine qua non of commonality.
The recent decision in In re Countrywide Financial Mortgage Lending Practices Litigation, 2011 WL 4862174 (W.D. Ky. Oct. 13, 2011) is another example of a district court applying the lessons of Wal-Mart to deny class certification. In In re Countrywide, the district court denied certification of a class of African American and Hispanic consumers because "the idea that thousands of loan officers in hundreds of separate locations around the country would exercise their discretion in a similar discriminatory manner defies belief."
In re Countrywide provides a number of important lessons for those defending class actions. To read the full article, click here.
