No Certification for a Proposed Product Liability Class Full of Uninjured Members

A United States District Court recently denied class certification to a group of potential plaintiffs over alleged defects in the third generation Toyota Prius and the 2010 Lexus HS250h vehicles. On January 9, 2013, Judge Cormac Carney denied plaintiffs' Motion for Class Certification due to the fact a substantial majority of the class members had never suffered an actual injury that was allegedly caused by a defect in the braking system. (In re Toyota Motor Corp. Hybrid Brake Mrtg., Sales Practices & Prods. Liab. Litig., No. SAML 10-2172-CJC (C.D. Cal. Jan. 9, 2013).

Judge Carney is presiding over a multidistrict litigation against Toyota wherein the prospective class alleged that the defect in the Prius and Lexus Anti-Lock Brake System ("ABS") caused increased stopping time and distance when a driver hit the brakes. In 2010, Toyota voluntarily recalled the vehicles and offered to install a software update to remedy the braking defect. Toyota claimed that the software update cured the defect while Plaintiffs claimed that the defect remained even after the update.

To achieve class certification in federal cases, the proposed class must show under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ("FRCP") Rule 23, among other things, that "questions of law or fact common to class members predominate over any questions affecting only individual members."

The Court found that although there were serious questions as to whether plaintiffs could satisfy the other requirements for class certification such as commonality, typicality, and adequacy, the predominance requirement under FRCP Rule 23 was the most problematic issue for the proposed class because a "substantial majority" of the class members had "never suffered an actual injury that was caused by a manifest defect in the ABS." In making this finding, the Court found that Toyota had established through the evidence that it had recalled the vehicles in question in response to customer concerns and that the updated software had resolved the brake issue. Plaintiffs failed to present any evidence or even hire an expert to contradict Toyota's evidence.

While the Court found that small percentage of the proposed class may have suffered an actual injury because the ABS issue may have occurred before the product recall, determining the possible factors of the harm "would require highly individualized, fact-intensive inquiries" not suitable for a class action. The Court concluded that a class action would not be a "superior, fair, and efficient method for resolving the parties' controversy" where only a few suffered injuries and differing amounts of damages.