FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
JAN 11 2016
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
SARAH PEREZ, et al., No. 13-16450
Plaintiffs - Appellants, D.C. No. 5:06-cv-01962-LHK
v.
MEMORANDUM*
STATE FARM MUTUAL
AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE
COMPANY, an Illinois corporation; et al.,
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
Lucy H. Koh, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted October 19, 2015
San Francisco, California
Before: PAEZ, MURGUIA, and HURWITZ, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiffs-Appellants (“Plaintiffs”), on behalf of themselves and similarly
situated California residents, appeal the district court’s (1) denial of class
certification, (2) grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants-Appellees
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
(“Defendants”), and (3) denial of leave to file a Sixth Amended Complaint. We
affirm.
1. The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Plaintiffs’ motion
for class certification. The Fifth Amended Complaint centered around the
allegation that, although Defendants promised their customers high quality,
original equipment manufacturer (“OEM”) parts, in fact they conspired to provide
low-quality, non-OEM parts. Further, Plaintiffs defined the classes to include
customers who purchased policies where these inferior parts were sometimes used.
Plaintiffs, however, failed to produce any evidence of inferior parts. Plaintiffs’
sole expert on parts quality, Allen Wood, stated in his declaration that categories of
inferior parts could be identified at trial by an expert other than himself. The
district court therefore granted Defendants’ Daubert motion to exclude Wood’s
testimony, and Plaintiffs have not appealed that decision.
2. Given the complete lack of evidence on parts quality, the district court did
not abuse its discretion in concluding that it could not conduct a “rigorous
analysis” of commonality. See Ellis v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 657 F.3d 970, 980
(9th Cir. 2011) (“When considering class certification under Rule 23, district
courts . . . must perform ‘a rigorous analysis [to ensure] that the prerequisites of
Rule 23(a) have been satisfied.’” (quoting Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 131 S.
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Ct. 2541, 2551 (2011))). Although the Rule 23(a) requirements, including
commonality, “have been construed permissively, . . . it is insufficient to merely
allege any common question.” Id. at 981 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Instead, Plaintiffs “must pose a question ‘that will produce a common answer to
the crucial question why was I disfavored.’” Id. (quoting Wal-Mart, 131 S. Ct. at
2552). That is because “[w]hat matters to class certification is not the raising of
common ‘questions’ . . . but, rather the capacity of a classwide proceeding to
generate common answers apt to drive the resolution of the litigation.” Id.
(quoting Wal-Mart, 131 S. Ct. at 2551). Here, Plaintiffs provided no evidence at
all on the “crucial question” of parts quality. Id. And “[i]f there is no evidence
that the entire class” purchased policies where inferior parts were used, there is no
“common question that will connect many individual [insurance] decisions to their
claim for class relief.” Id. Thus, the district court’s conclusion that Plaintiffs
failed to meet their burden to show commonality was not an abuse of discretion.
3. Plaintiffs also argue that the district court was required by Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 52 to make separate findings and conclusions of law on each of the
Rule 23(a) requirements. Rule 52(a)(3) provides, however, that a “court is not
required to state findings or conclusions when ruling on a motion under Rule 12 or
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56 or . . . any other motion” unless “these rules provide otherwise.” There is no
such requirement in Rule 23.
4. The district court did not err when it granted summary judgment to
Defendants on the putative class representatives’ individual claims. The same lack
of evidence on parts quality that doomed the motion for class certification likewise
required judgment against the individual class representatives as a matter of law.
5. Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Plaintiffs’
motion for leave to file a Sixth Amended Complaint. The proposed Sixth
Amended Complaint, with its pure price-fixing allegations, represented a
substantial change from the Fifth Amended Complaint, which described a
conspiracy focused on the use of unsafe, inferior parts. The district court
reasonably concluded that requiring Defendants to defend against Plaintiffs’ new
theory would result in unfair prejudice.
AFFIRMED.
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