Duane Morris Class Action Review - 2023 - Report - Page 35
Trend # 9 – Corporate Defendants Aggressively Asserted Defenses
Based On Personal Jurisdiction
In 2022, corporate defendants aggressively asserted defenses based on personal
jurisdiction to fracture collective actions in particular. In Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v.
Superior Court of California, San Francisco County, 137 S. Ct. 1773 (2017), the U.S.
Supreme Court held that each plaintiff in a mass action must demonstrate a basis for
the court to exercise personal jurisdiction over the defendant for purposes of
adjudicating his or her claims, even if those claims are similar to the claims of other
plaintiffs.
Federal circuits, however, have disagreed on the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling
in the collective action and class action context. Such a decision has the potential to
curtail the forums in which the plaintiffs’ bar may file class and collective actions against
a corporate defendant and, in particular, could limit the forums where a plaintiff could
bring a nationwide action to those where a court may exercise general personal
jurisdiction over the defendant (i.e., typically only the state where the company is
organized and the state where it maintains its principle place of business).
Given the potential of the defense to fracture nationwide suits, multiple defendants
raised personal jurisdiction in 2022, and the number of federal circuits holding that
Bristol-Myers applies to collective actions grew to three (the Third, Sixth, and Eighth
Circuits), with one circuit holding otherwise (the First Circuit).
In Fischer, et al. v. Federal Express Corp., 42 F.4th 366 (3d Cir. 2022), the Third Circuit
joined the Sixth and Eighth Circuits in concluding that Bristol-Myers requires a court to
find personal jurisdiction over the claims of opt-in plaintiffs in an FLSA collective action.
The plaintiff, a Pennsylvania resident, brought suit against FedEx in the U.S. District
Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania alleging that FedEx misclassified her and
other security specialists as exempt from the overtime requirements of the FLSA. Two
non-resident FedEx employees, who worked for FedEx in their home states, filed
notices of consent to join the action. The district court held that it lacked specific
personal jurisdiction over FedEx with respect to their claims, and they filed a petition for
interlocutory appeal. The Third Circuit granted the petition to resolve whether, in an
FLSA collective action, where the district court lacks general personal jurisdiction over
the defendant, all opt-in plaintiffs must demonstrate that the district court may exercise
specific personal jurisdiction over the defendant to resolve their claims.
The Third Circuit recognized that the Sixth and Eighth Circuits had answered in the
affirmative, holding that the claims of FLSA opt-in plaintiffs must arise out of or relate to
the defendant’s minimum contacts with the forum state, Id. at 370 (citing Canaday, et al.
v. Anthem Cos., 9 F.4th 392 (6th Cir. 2021), and Vallone, et al. v. CJS Solutions Group,
LLC, 9 F.4th 861 (8th Cir. 2021)), whereas the First Circuit had answered in the
negative, holding that only the named plaintiffs must show that their claims arise out of
or relate to the defendant’s minimum contacts with the forum state. Id. (citing Waters, et
al. v. Day & Zimmermann NPS, Inc., 23 F.4th 84 (1st Cir. 2022)).
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Duane Morris Class Action Review – 2023