The Colorado Supreme Court’s highly anticipated rulings in four class actions were announced earlier today. Here are links to the opinions. I’ll have more commentary on the four decisions soon:
No. 09SC668 – Jackson v. Unocal Corp. - Judgment Reversed (class certification upheld) - Addresses the burden of proof on class certification.
No. 09SC1080 – Garcia v. Medved Chevrolet, Inc. - Judgment Affirmed (case to be remanded to trial court to conduct rigorous analysis of class certification) – Addresses the circumstances in which the plaintiff in a fraud class action can establish that reliance, injury, and causation can be tried a class-wide basis.
No. 10SC77 – State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Reyher - Judgment Reversed (denial of class certification upheld) - Addresses the standards for determining whether individual issues predominate and the extent to which the court may consider the merits of a plaintiff’s claims in ruling on class certification.
No. 10SC214 – BP America Prod. Co. v. Patterson - Judgment Affirmed (class certification upheld) - Addresses the circumstances in which the plaintiff can prove fraudulent concealment and ignorance of facts giving rise to a claim on a common, class-wide basis.
Paul Karlsgodt
Raj Chohan
CAB Staff
