United Food & Commercial Workers Unions v. Warner Chilcott Ltd. (In Re Asacol Antitrust Litig.)
Opinion
Drug manufacturer Warner Chilcott Limited pulled one of its products-Asacol-from the market just months before the drug's patent protection expired. Warner simultaneously introduced a similar but not exactly identical substitute drug called Delzicol, the patent protection for which ran years longer. This coordinated withdrawal and entry of the two drugs allegedly precluded generic manufacturers from introducing a generic version of Asacol, which would have provided a lower-cost alternative to Warner's drugs Delzicol and Asacol HD, a version of Asacol that was also still under patent protection. Crying foul, the named plaintiffs in this case filed a class action alleging a violation of the consumer protection and antitrust laws *45 of twenty-five states and the District of Columbia. On plaintiffs' motion, the district court certified a class of all Asacol purchasers who subsequently purchased Delzicol or Asacol HD in one of those twenty-six jurisdictions. In so doing, the court found that approximately ten percent of the class had not suffered any injury attributable to defendants' allegedly anticompetitive behavior. Nevertheless, the district court determined that those uninjured class members could be removed in a proceeding conducted by a claims administrator. We find this approach to certifying a class at odds with both Supreme Court precedent and the law of our circuit. We therefore reverse.
I.
Asacol is a pharmaceutical drug that treats mild to moderate ulcerative colitis, a chronic inflammatory bowel disorder. Developed and first manufactured by Procter and Gamble Pharmaceuticals, Asacol debuted on the market in 1992 and received the protection of two patents. Those patents expired on July 30, 2013. In 2008, Procter and Gamble brought a new variation of Asacol to market, dubbed Asacol HD, which treated moderate, but not mild, ulcerative colitis. This new drug differed from Asacol in two key ways: it included twice the dosage, and it replaced Asacol's single-layer coating with a dual-layer coating. Asacol HD's patent protection extended years beyond that of Asacol. In 2009, Warner Chilcott purchased Procter and Gamble's pharmaceutical portfolio, which included both Asacol and Asacol HD.
On March 18, 2013, only a few months shy of the end of Asacol's patent protection, Warner stopped selling and marketing Asacol. On the same day, Warner introduced a new drug: Delzicol. Delzicol, like Asacol, treats ulcerative colitis. The two drugs contain the same active ingredient and dosage, and sold for the same price. Unlike Asacol, Delzicol comes in a capsule that does not contain dibutyl phthalate ("DBP"). DBP is a plasticizer, the safety of which appears to have been the subject of a dialogue between the FDA and Asacol's manufacturers.
On June 22, 2015, several plaintiffs (collectively "plaintiffs," "named plaintiffs," or "class representatives") filed suit on their own behalf and on behalf of a putative class. These plaintiffs are all union-sponsored benefit plans that paid for the purchases of Asacol HD and Delzicol. In their operative complaint, plaintiffs allege that Warner harbored an anticompetitive motivation for its conduct. According to the complaint, Warner's aim in pulling Asacol from the market and introducing Delzicol was to preclude the possibility of market entry of generic drugs, which would have cut into Warner's profits. State law provides the mechanism for this preclusion. Under most state substitution laws, pharmacists can fill a prescription by substituting a generic drug for the prescribed brand drug, but only if the brand drug is listed as a "reference" drug for the generic. This automatic substitution, plaintiffs say, provides the "only viable cost-efficient means" for new generics to "compet[e] with brand drugs." But even a small alteration to the brand drug, such as substituting a tablet form for a capsule form, can prevent a generic equivalent from using the discontinued form as a reference drug. Thus, by pulling Asacol, Warner effectively prevented generic drugs that would have used Asacol as a reference drug from entering the market after the expiration of Asacol's patents.
1
And the introduction of a
*46
similar, but not wholly equivalent, drug-Delzicol-with the potential for longer-lasting patent protection, allowed Warner to substantially retain its market share. Thus, plaintiffs contend, Warner forced consumers into a "hard switch" and maintained its monopoly power unencumbered by competition from generic entry. Plaintiffs' theory of liability rests on a Second Circuit decision that condemns similar such conduct.
See
New York ex rel. Schneiderman
v.
Actavis PLC
,
The named plaintiffs and the putative class members purchased Warner's products not from Warner directly, but from third party intermediaries. That means that they cannot sue Warner for damages under the federal antitrust law.
Illinois Brick Co.
v.
Illinois
,
Plaintiffs moved for class certification on behalf of a class of all similarly situated indirect purchasers, including any individual consumers who purchased the relevant Warner products from drug retailers in the twenty-six jurisdictions. Plaintiffs designed the class to include only those persons or entities that both purchased Asacol prior to July 31, 2013-the approximate date on which Asacol's patent protection expired-and also purchased either Asacol HD or Delzicol after July 31, 2013. Both sides introduced expert evidence regarding the propriety of class certification.
The district court granted plaintiffs' motion for class certification. Rejecting Warner's argument to the contrary, the district court concluded that the named plaintiffs had standing to prosecute claims on behalf of class members under various state laws even if the named plaintiffs themselves had not made purchases in all those states. Any difference between the claims of the named plaintiffs and those of unnamed class members was a matter for consideration under Rule 23, and not a matter of Article III standing, the court ruled.
Moving to the Rule 23 analysis, the district court first found that plaintiffs' proposed class satisfied the four elements of Rule 23(a): numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a). The district court also concluded that the proposed class passed muster under Rule 23(b)(3) because common questions predominated over individual questions and a class action presented a superior method for resolving plaintiffs' claims.
In making those determinations, the district court grappled with a problem that has been the source of much debate among the circuits: the presence of uninjured class members. The district court presumed that approximately ten percent of class members had not been injured by
*47
Warner's allegedly anticompetitive conduct because, even had a lower-priced generic alternative been available, these consumers would not have switched to it.
3
The court based this conclusion on the reports of both sides' experts. Those experts used the experiences of similar pharmaceutical products as benchmarks from which to infer likely market dynamics had a lower-priced generic form of Asacol been introduced. Defendants' expert, Dr. Bruce Strombom, pointed to a benchmark product in which the prevalence of consumers who stuck with the higher-priced brand decreased to 10.6% within approximately three years after generic entry. Dr. Rena Conti, plaintiffs' expert, looked to different benchmark products, from which she concluded that the market share of generic Asacol would have grown to approximately 88.8% within a year of generic entry, and would then have risen to about 91.4% thirty-one months after generic entry. From these two reports, the district court presumed that "by the end of the relevant period, somewhere around 10% of the class members would have opted for Asacol HD or Delzicol even in the presence of generic Asacol."
In re Asacol Antitrust Litig.
,
The district court nevertheless concluded that the number of these uninjured class members was "de minimis." The district court also accepted plaintiffs' contention that they could remove these uninjured persons from the class with the assistance of a so-called claims administrator. Our opinion in
Nexium
, plaintiffs argue, permitted such a process.
See
In re Nexium Antitrust Litig.
,
The district court's order certifying the class raises issues on which circuits are split and that are likely to arise in other cases in this circuit before an appeal from a final judgment would-if ever-ripen in this case. A panel of this court therefore found "special circumstances" justifying the grant of leave to pursue an interlocutory appeal under Rule 23(f).
See
Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(f) ;
Waste Mgmt. Holdings, Inc.
v.
Mowbray
,
II.
We review de novo the existence of Article III standing required to invoke the jurisdiction of a federal court.
See
Anderson ex rel. Dowd
v.
City of Boston
,
*48 Warner challenges, instead, the named plaintiffs' standing to bring claims on behalf of class members whose claims arise under the laws of the twenty-two states within which no named plaintiff has either resided or purchased the relevant Warner products during the class period. These states, apparently, apply their relevant law only to claims that arise out of purchases made within the state or by state residents. Therefore, says Warner, because no named plaintiff can successfully bring a claim under the laws of any of those twenty-two states, they necessarily lack standing to bring such claims as representatives of persons who might sue successfully in those states.
One might think that we could reject this argument merely by observing that whether a plaintiff may represent persons who themselves have standing to bring the claims alleged is a question to be addressed under Rule 23, rather than a question of standing. After all, that is how one would presumably proceed in seemingly analogous situations outside of Rule 23. For example, in deciding whether a fiduciary, a parent, a personal representative, or a partner may prosecute a claim on behalf of another person, courts generally focus not on whether the putative representative independently satisfies Article III standing, but rather on whether that party qualifies under the applicable law as a representative of the one who does have standing.
See, e.g.
,
Sam M. ex rel. Elliott
v.
Carcieri
,
Precedent, though, forecloses such a simple and quick answer.
See
Warth
v.
Seldin
,
In keeping with this precedent, we have trained our Article III focus in class actions on "the incentives of the named plaintiffs to adequately litigate issues of
*49
importance to them."
Plumbers' Union Local No. 12 Pension Fund
v.
Nomura Asset Acceptance Corp.
,
Nothing in this precedent, though, suggests that the claims of the named plaintiffs must in all respects be identical to the claims of each class member.
See
Gratz
,
Importantly, the claims of the named plaintiffs parallel those of the putative class members in the sense that, assuming a proper class is certified, success on the claim under one state's law will more or less dictate success under another state's law. Even while arguing that there may be a few subtle differences in the attitudes of some state courts toward such claims, Warner concedes that the "parties do agree that Plaintiffs' liability theories as to monopolization are limited to a construction of state antitrust laws that parallel the federal Sherman Act." Under those parallel laws, all plaintiffs who were forced to pay a higher price in the absence of generic competition have a substantial and shared interest in proving that the higher price was the result of unlawful monopolizing conduct that is redressable by an award of damages. And the fact that judgments for some class members will nevertheless enter under the laws of states other than the states under which any of the class representatives' judgments will enter, where those laws are materially the same, has no relevant bearing on the personal stake of the named plaintiffs in litigating the case to secure such judgments.
See
Morrison
v.
YTB Int'l, Inc.
,
It is true that, in order to prevail on their claims, the named plaintiffs need not prove where a class member resides, or where the class member made a purchase. But that same thing could be said of the named plaintiffs' need to prove that any class member made a purchase anywhere,
*50
even in the states under which the named plaintiffs' claims arise. As we have previously observed, "[i]n a properly certified class action, the named plaintiffs regularly litigate ... claims of other class members based on transactions in which the named plaintiffs played no part."
Plumbers' Union
,
Warner does argue that the applicable laws in a few states actually do have added substantive elements that the named plaintiffs will have no interest in proving: First, the laws of three states require proving some effect on intrastate commerce,
see
In re Flonase Antitrust Litig.
,
Warner, though, makes no showing that an effect on intrastate commerce will even be a disputed issue. Trebling, in turn, seems irrelevant to our inquiry unless it is not automatically applied to the common surcharge that the named plaintiffs have ample self-interest in proving. So that leaves Warner's unopposed contentions that New York law may require proof of deception, and that trebling in Massachusetts apparently requires proof of willfulness. As to the latter, plaintiffs base their relatively novel common monopolization claim on a theory that expressly requires proof of a "specific intent to monopolize," as "distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident."
Actavis
,
That leaves only Warner's contention that, under
Finding Article III standing otherwise satisfied in this case is in accord with the decisions of our sister circuits that have considered similar issues.
See
Langan
v.
Johnson & Johnson Consumer Cos.
,
III.
Satisfied that we have subject matter jurisdiction, we consider next the district court's finding that plaintiffs' proposed class meets the requirement of Rule 23(b)(3) that "questions of law or fact common to class members predominate over any questions affecting only individual members." Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(3). We review that decision for abuse of discretion.
In re New Motor Vehicles Canadian Exp. Antitrust Litig.
,
In considering the propriety of class certification in this case, we again deal with an issue that strikes at the heart of the competing considerations raised by some class actions: the proper treatment of uninjured class members at the class certification stage. Proof of injury, also called "injury-in-fact," is a required element of a plaintiff's case in an action such as this one.
New Motor Vehicles
,
On appeal, both parties argue that the district court's estimate that approximately ten percent of the class was uninjured is wrong: Plaintiffs say it is too high and Warner says it is too low. The district court record suggests that many of these specific challenges were not preserved.
See
Clauson
v.
Smith
,
To answer this question, the parties agree that we must direct our attention to the requirement of Rule 23(b)(3) that common issues must predominate over individual issues in order to certify a class.
See
Amgen, Inc.
v.
Connecticut Ret. Plans & Tr. Funds
,
In assessing efficiency and fairness, we have recognized that a class may be certified notwithstanding the need to adjudicate individual issues so long as the proposed adjudication will be both "administratively feasible" and "protective of defendants' Seventh Amendment and due process rights."
Nexium
,
The district court in this case sought to track
Nexium
, finding that "prior to judgment, it will be possible to establish a mechanism for distinguishing the injured from the uninjured class members."
In re Asacol Antitrust Litig.
,
One can only guess what data and documentation may be deemed necessary, what the formula will be, and how the claims administrator will decide who suffered no injury. Nevertheless, the district court was convinced that Nexium blesses such a scheme. We disagree.
Nexium
held that "
unrebutted
testimony" contained in affidavits would suffice as a mechanism for identifying who was injured and who was not injured.
Id.
at 21 (emphasis added).
If
unrebutted, such testimony in an affidavit could be used prior to trial to obtain summary judgment, thereby efficiently and fairly removing the issue of injury-in-fact from the case for trial.
See
Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(1)(A), (c)(4) ;
see also, e.g.
,
Kuperman
v.
Wrenn
,
Here, though, the record is clear that plaintiffs do not propose to rely on unrebutted testimony to eliminate the question of injury-in-fact before trial. And, unlike in
Nexium
, defendants have expressly stated their intention to challenge any affidavits that might be gathered. Nor do plaintiffs point to any basis in the record for deeming
*53
all such challenges to be so implausible as to warrant a finding that we can consider the issue to be uncontested. Warner has explained that some class members stopped taking (and will therefore have no record of purchasing) Asacol anywhere between 2009 and 2012, and some class members when asked will admit a preference for DBP-free medication such as Delzicol. Additionally, some class members would not have switched to a generic because they had no co-pay, and therefore were not price sensitive. So whatever one thinks of
Nexium
's sua sponte positing in the face of the defendants' silence that unrebutted affidavits might be both available and sufficient,
see
Nexium
,
Our inability to fairly presume that these plaintiffs can rely on unrebutted testimony in affidavits to prove injury-in-fact is fatal to plaintiffs' motion to certify this case. Testimony that is genuinely challenged, certainly on an element of a party's affirmative case, cannot secure a favorable summary judgment ruling disposing of the issue. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). And the affidavits would be inadmissible hearsay at trial, leaving a fatal gap in the evidence for all but the few class members who testify in person. Nor have the plaintiffs provided any basis from which we could conclude that the number of affidavits to which the defendants will be able to mount a genuine challenge is so small that it will be administratively feasible to require those challenged affiants to testify at trial.
We also reject any invitation to rewrite
Nexium
as sanctioning the use of inadmissible hearsay to prove injury to each class member at or after trial. The fact that plaintiffs seek class certification provides no occasion for jettisoning the rules of evidence and procedure, the Seventh Amendment, or the dictate of the Rules Enabling Act,
Relatedly, this is not a case in which a very small absolute number of class members might be picked off in a manageable, individualized process at or before trial. Rather, this is a case in which any class member may be uninjured, and there are apparently thousands who in fact suffered no injury. The need to identify those individuals will predominate and render an
*54
adjudication unmanageable absent evidence such as the unrebutted affidavits assumed in
Nexium
, or some other mechanism that can manageably remove uninjured persons from the class in a manner that protects the parties' rights.
See
Nexium
,
Plaintiffs' fallback argument, urged most prominently on appeal, is that, at trial, they will prove "class-wide impact" with the testimony of their expert, Dr. Conti, and with defendants' own documents and admissions. But plaintiffs point to no documents or admissions that would support a finding that all class members suffered injury. So this argument on appeal comes down to their claim that they will prove class-wide impact at trial with the testimony of their expert, Dr. Conti.
To support this alternative approach, plaintiffs point to the approval in
Tyson Foods
of the plaintiffs' use of an expert report that calculated each individual employee's average time spent "donning and doffing" protective equipment for the purpose of establishing the employees' total hours worked in an overtime compensation case under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
To begin with, using the average time it takes a person to don and doff clothes to estimate how long it takes a given individual to do so (as in Tyson Foods ) is quite different than saying, for example, that a given person wore certain clothes merely because most but not all others did so. If statistically valid, an average multiplied by the total number of individuals likely equals the actual total time spent by all. But Dr. Conti's estimate that a generic drug would achieve roughly ninety percent market penetration, if used to prove that each individual would have likely purchased the generic drug and was thus injured by defendants' conduct, leads to the demonstrably wrong conclusion that one hundred percent of individuals were injured. And that is a contention that Dr. Conti's opinion itself rejects.
In
Tyson Foods
, the Court pointed out that under the controlling substantive law, the proffered representative evidence would be admissible and sufficient to prove injury in any individual class member's individual trial.
See
Tyson Foods
,
Plaintiffs argue that we should nevertheless approve of their proposed approach because it protects Warner from any practical harm that might otherwise be caused by removing questions of individual injury-in-fact from the jury. Warner would only be found liable and forced to pay damages if the jury found that Warner's actions unlawfully raised the price paid by consumers by a specified amount, and if the jury also determined the percentage of sales for which that price surcharge would not have been paid but for the illegal conduct. The total aggregate damages award would therefore in theory net out all purchases by brand loyal consumers as a group. The fact that some of that money might then be paid to uninjured people should be of no concern to Warner, say plaintiffs.
This argument confuses different types of aggregate damages scenarios.
See
4 William B. Rubenstein,
Newberg on Class Actions
§ 12:2 (5th ed. 2012). In some cases, the total damage caused by the defendant is independent of the number and identity of people harmed. Newberg gives as an example a trustee's theft of money from a pension fund.
Accepting plaintiffs' proposed procedure for class litigation would also put us on a slippery slope, at risk of an escalating disregard of the difference between representative civil litigation and statistical observations
*56
of tendencies and distributions. Once one accepts plaintiffs' "no harm, no foul" position there would be no logical reason to prevent a named plaintiff from bringing suit on behalf of a large class of people, forty-nine percent or even ninety-nine percent of whom were not injured, so long as aggregate damages on behalf of "the class" were reduced proportionately. Such a result would fly in the face of the core principle that class actions are the aggregation of individual claims, and do not create a class entity or re-apportion substantive claims.
See
1 William B. Rubenstein,
Newberg on Class Actions
§ 1:1 (5th ed. 2012) (stating that Rule 23 is "fundamentally a
procedural
device" that allows a representative to "litigate on behalf of many absent class members" but cannot "abridge, modify, or enlarge any substantive right" (emphasis in original) );
see also
Tyson Foods
,
We recognize that there remains the problem of how to deal with conduct that inflicts small amounts of damage on large numbers of people. Certainly Rule 23 serves as an important tool to address many such situations.
See
Mace
v.
Van Ru Credit Corp.
,
In reaching our conclusion, we acknowledge the divergence evident in the manner in which our sister circuits have addressed the treatment of uninjured putative class members. Framing the issue of uninjured class members through the lens of Article III, the Second Circuit opined that "no class may be certified that contains members lacking Article III standing," and required that the class "be defined in such a way that anyone within it would have standing."
Denney
v.
Deutsche Bank AG
,
In
Halvorson
v.
Auto-Owners Insurance Co.
,
More clearly viewing the issue of uninjured class members through the prism of Rule 23(b)(3) predominance, the D.C. Circuit vacated the certification of a class because the plaintiffs had failed to "show that they can prove, through common evidence, that
all
class members were in fact injured by the alleged conspiracy."
See
In re Rail Freight Fuel Surcharge Antitrust Litig.-MDL No. 1869
,
The Fifth Circuit has similarly held that "where fact of damage cannot be established for every class member through proof common to the class, the need to establish antitrust liability for individual class members defeats Rule 23(b)(3) predominance."
Bell Atl. Corp.
v.
AT&T Corp.
,
The Seventh Circuit does appear to have signaled a willingness to allow a district court to certify a damages class containing not "a great many" uninjured members without requiring that there be a mechanism for eventually culling out the uninjured.
Messner
v.
Northshore Univ. HealthSystem
,
In any event, in no case cited above, nor in any case to which plaintiffs have directed our attention, has a federal court affirmed a damages judgment in a class action against a defendant who was precluded from raising genuine challenges at trial to the assertion of liability by individual members of a class that was known to have members who could not be presumed to be injured. Nor has either party drawn to our attention any federal court allowing, under Rule 23, a trial in which thousands *58 of class members testify. We see no reason to think that this case should be the first such case.
IV.
The rule we reiterate today, consistent with our prior holding in
Nexium
, strikes a balance that is faithful to the requirements of Article III and Rule 23, while remaining cognizant of the practical realities of class actions. We have not previously required every class member to demonstrate standing when a class is certified, nor do we do so today.
See
Nexium
,
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the decision of the district court granting class certification, and remand for further proceedings in accord with this opinion.
The issues that courts must address in deciding whether to certify a proposed class action in a case like this are potentially vexing. The class is large. It contains a non-trivial number of uninjured class members. The nature of the injury is not easily proved through common evidence. And the prospect of individualized recovery is unlikely, even though the aggregate wrong may be great, given the costs of litigation and the relatively minimal amount of loss each plaintiff incurred. Should, then, such a class be certified?
On the one hand, Rule 23 was clearly written to facilitate large consumer class actions.
See, e.g.
,
Amchem Prod., Inc.
v.
Windsor
,
Not surprisingly, appellate courts throughout the country have struggled to develop a uniform mode of analyzing such cases. In fact, our own precedent reflects a similar struggle, given our holding rejecting certification of a consumer antitrust class in
New Motor
,
Of course, because Nexium is our last word on the subject, we are bound, as a panel, to follow it if it controls. But, here, I agree with the majority that it does not, even though, in my view, one could be forgiven for concluding-as the District Court did-that Nexium does require certification of the class proposed here.
In
Nexium
, we upheld the certification of a class where, like here, the anticipated means by which plaintiffs would cull uninjured class members would include the use of individual affidavits attesting to the affiant's injury.
See
Nonetheless, I join our opinion reversing the order certifying this class. As our opinion explains, the culling process on which the plaintiffs rely-and which the District Court found to be sufficient-is not one that Nexium blessed or that we may bless, at least on this record. I do, however, want to say more about my reasons for reaching that conclusion. In particular, I wish to highlight two grounds for distinguishing this case from Nexium .
First, in
Nexium
, it was perfectly clear that the defendants would be able to challenge-prior to a liability finding-the sufficiency of testimony to prove injury (whether that testimony was offered at trial or pre-trial by affidavit) by any class member that she would have purchased a generic version of the drug had one been available. For that reason, we were confident that "a mechanism would exist for establishing injury at the liability stage of this case, compliant with the requirements of the Seventh Amendment and due process."
Here, in contrast, it is hard for me to see how the plaintiffs' proposed claims processing mechanism for culling uninjured class members could be deployed before there were any claims to process. In fact, by the plaintiffs' own account, that culling mechanism will be deployed only "post-judgment." Thus, the reason that we gave in Nexium for concluding that there was no Seventh Amendment problem with the culling mechanism that we identified there does not appear to be one that we may rely on here.
Second, insofar as the plaintiffs here, as in
Nexium
, do propose to submit affidavits concerning class members' hypothetical purchasing preferences prior to completion of the liability phase, there is still another ground for distinguishing this case from that one. In
Nexium
, unlike here, the defendants presented a categorical challenge. They contended that the presence, at the certification stage, of any uninjured class members itself defeated predominance because the plaintiffs had no possible means to prove injury at all. The defendants based that contention on the hypothetical nature of the inquiry into injury presented
*60
in that case, given that the inquiry turned on what was necessarily speculation about a plaintiff's hypothetical purchasing preference.
See
Nexium
rejected that categorical challenge. It did so by explaining that, in an individual action, a plaintiff could prove the injury claimed through "testimony by the consumer that, given the choice, he or she would have purchased the generic."
To be sure,
Nexium
did not stop there.
Nexium
also acknowledged that proof of injury in the form of personal testimony may "require[ ] determination of the individual circumstances of class members" and thus may cause individual rather than common issues to predominate.
Unfortunately, Nexium 's holding that the predominance requirement does not impose a categorical bar against plaintiffs relying on individualized means of proving injury only gets us so far here. And that is because I do not read Nexium to have addressed the distinct issue of when, even where the number of uninjured class members is de minimis, plaintiffs' reliance on individualized means of proving injury is so great that it can no longer comport with the predominance requirement. Yet, that is the question that we must confront here, because the defendants make precisely that contention in this case.
In considering that question, I would not rule out the possibility that plaintiffs who seek to prove injury in such a case by relying on affidavits might be able to satisfy the predominance requirement just as the plaintiffs were found to have satisfied it in
Halliburton Co.
v.
Erica P. John Fund, Inc.
,
In the event that plaintiffs made those showings, I could see how, in light of
Nexium
, a court might be able to conclude that the plaintiffs, at the certification stage, could succeed in showing that resolution of the injury issue would not require an impermissibly large number of individualized determinations.
See
As our opinion explains, the plaintiffs do not argue that the defendants would be incapable of mounting effective challenges to any, let alone to most, of the plaintiffs' affidavits at summary judgment. Nor may we conclude that the plaintiffs would only need to rely on individualized proof of injury for a small identifiable subset of the class, such that their reliance on individual adjudications could be deemed both efficient and fair.
The plaintiffs have not shown that the number of potentially uninjured class members could be winnowed down through common means of proof, even when that evidence is considered in combination with evidence gleaned from health plan purchasing records. And we may not assume that only the plaintiffs within the small subset of the class conceded to be uninjured will need to offer an affidavit to prove what hypothetical choice they would have made if given the option to purchase a generic. Class members do not come pre-identified as brand loyal or price sensitive, after all, and one does not ordinarily set out to find a needle in a haystack by examining only ten percent of the straw.
I thus see no basis for affirming the certification order on this record, because the plaintiffs have not yet shown that common rather than individual issues would predominate if this class were certified. Accordingly, I join our opinion in full.
A number of our recent opinions provide comprehensive overviews of the regulatory framework that governs the introduction of generic drugs.
See
In re Nexium (Esomeprazole) Antitrust Litig.
,
Like the district court and the parties, we will use "states" informally in the remainder of this opinion to refer to both states and the District of Columbia.
Plaintiffs make no explicit claim that the price of Delzicol and Asacol HD would have been lower had generic versions of Asacol been available.
In
Denney
, the Second Circuit found that each member of the class had suffered an injury-in-fact, and thus held that the class satisfied Article III standing.
Because our circuit precedent clearly requires that there exist "some means of determining that each member of the class was in fact injured,"
New Motor Vehicles
,
Reference
- Full Case Name
- In RE: ASACOL ANTITRUST LITIGATION. United Food & Commercial Workers Unions and Employers Midwest Health Benefits Fund, on Behalf of Itself and All Others Similarly Situated; Mark Adorney, Plaintiffs, Teamsters Union 25 Health Services & Insurance Plan, on Behalf of Themselves and All Others Similarly Situated; NECA-IBEW Welfare Trust Fund, on Behalf of Themselves and All Others Similarly Situated; Wisconsin Masons' Health Care Fund, on Behalf of Itself and All Others Similarly Situated; Minnesota Laborers Health and Welfare Fund, on Behalf of Itself and All Others Similarly Situated; AFSCME Health and Welfare Fund; Pennsylvania Employees Benefit Trust Fund; Ahold U.S.A., Inc.; Rochester Drug Co-Operative, Inc. ; Value Drug Company; Meijer, Inc.; Meijer Distribution, Inc., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Warner Chilcott Limited; Allergan, Inc., F/K/A Actavis, PLC; Allergan USA, Inc.; Allergan Sales, LLC; Allergan, PLC, Formerly Known as Actavis, PLC, Defendants, Appellants, Zydus Pharmaceuticals USA Inc.; Cadila Healthcare Limited; Warner Chilcott (US), LLC ; Warner Chilcott Sales (US), LLC; Warner Chilcott Company, LLC, Defendants.
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