Steve Doyle v. Chrysler Group, LLC , 663 F. App'x 576 ( 2016 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS OCT 24 2016
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
STEVE DOYLE, on behalf of himself and No. 15-55107
all others similarly situated,
D.C. No.
Plaintiff-Appellee, 8:13-cv-00620-JVS-AN
v.
MEMORANDUM*
CHRYSLER GROUP, LLC,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
James V. Selna, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted October 7, 2016
Pasadena, California
Before: TROTT, OWENS, and FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judges.
Steve Doyle sued Chrysler Group1 alleging violations of the California
Consumers Legal Remedies Act, Cal. Civ. Code § 1750, et seq., and the California
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
1
Chrysler Group LLC is now known as FCA US LLC.
Unfair Business Practices Act, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200, et seq., for its
failure to disclose a purported defect in its window regulator replacements. In
August 2009, Doyle purchased for $100 one such replacement regulator for the
front driver’s side of his vehicle. The replacement regulator in Doyle’s vehicle has
never failed, but he alleges that the same model of replacement regulator as well as
other allegedly similar models of replacement regulators have failed in many other
vehicles.
Doyle successfully sought class certification of “‘[a]ll persons and entities in
the State [of California] . . . who own(ed) or lease(d) a model year 2002 through
2007 Jeep Liberty Vehicle and who purchased a Replacement Regulator from, or
otherwise had a Replacement Regulator installed by, Chrysler or its network of
authorized dealers at any time on or after June 10, 2009’ but before December 9,
2010 (for MY 2006-2007) or January 11, 2011 (for MY 2002-2005).” Doyle v.
Chrysler Grp. LLC, No. SACV 13-00620, 2014 WL 7690155, at *4 (C.D. Cal.
Oct. 9, 2014) (alterations in original) (quoting Plaintiff’s Motion to Certify Class).
Chrysler timely filed an interlocutory appeal of the class certification ruling. We
have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(e) and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
23(f). We reverse and remand.
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I.
As an initial matter, we note that, contrary to Chrysler’s arguments, Doyle has
standing to bring this action. Plaintiffs have standing when they spend money
“that, absent defendants’ actions, they would not have spent.” Maya v. Centex
Corp., 658 F.3d 1060, 1069 (9th Cir. 2011). According to Doyle, had the defect
been disclosed, he either would not have purchased the replacement regulator or he
would have paid less for it because Chrysler would not have been able to charge as
much for the product. Doyle thus suffered economic loss when he purchased a
replacement regulator with an undisclosed safety defect.
II.
To obtain class certification, a party must fulfill the requirements of Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a)—numerosity, commonality, typicality, and
adequacy—and one of the requirements of Rule 23(b). The district court certified
the class at issue under Rule 23(b)(3), which allows certification if “questions of
law or fact common to class members predominate over any questions affecting
only individual members,” and if “a class action is superior to other available
methods for fairly and efficiently adjudicating the controversy.”
We conclude that the district court abused its discretion in certifying the class.
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A.
In Comcast Corp. v. Behrend, the Supreme Court explained that to satisfy the
Rule 23(b)(3) predominance requirement, damages must be “capable of
measurement on a classwide basis.” 133 S. Ct. 1426, 1433 (2013). In interpreting
Comcast, we have stated, “[A] methodology for calculation of damages that [can]
not produce a class-wide result [i]s not sufficient to support certification.” Jimenez
v. Allstate Ins. Co., 765 F.3d 1161, 1167 (9th Cir. 2014) (citing Comcast, 133 S. Ct.
at 1434–35), cert denied, 135 S. Ct. 2835 (2015). The proposed damages model
must measure only the damages that are attributable to the theory of liability.
Leyva v. Medline Indus. Inc., 716 F.3d 510, 514 (9th Cir. 2013). Although Doyle
is correct that our court has emphasized that “the need for individualized findings
as to the amount of damages does not defeat class certification,” Vaquero v. Ashley
Furniture Indus., Inc., 824 F.3d 1150, 1155 (9th Cir. 2016) (citing Leyva, 716 F.3d
at 514; Jimenez, 765 F.3d at 1167), it has applied this understanding in cases where
there existed a common methodology for calculating damages. See, e.g., Leyva,
716 F.3d at 514 (“Medline’s computerized payroll and time-keeping database
would enable the court to accurately calculate damages and related penalties for
each claim.”); Pulaski & Middleman, LLC v. Google, Inc., 802 F.3d 979, 989 (9th
Cir. 2015) (“Pulaski’s principal method for calculating restitution employs
Google’s Smart Pricing ratio, which . . . set[s] advertisers’ bids to the levels a
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rational advertiser would have bid if it had access to all of Google’s data . . . .”). In
those cases, “damages could feasibly and efficiently be calculated once the
common liability questions are adjudicated.” Leyva, 716 F.3d at 514.
To the extent Doyle is pursuing a partial reimbursement approach to calculating
damages, that approach fails to satisfy Comcast because Doyle has not offered a
model for determining what percentage of the purchase price the reimbursement
should be. There is thus no way to determine whether the proposed damages
model measures damages that are solely attributable to the theory of liability.
Likewise, without details about this partial reimbursement approach, it is unclear
whether “damages could feasibly and efficiently be calculated once the common
liability questions are adjudicated.” Id.
Because Doyle has not demonstrated that partial reimbursement damages can
be measured on a classwide basis, the predominance requirement is not satisfied.
B.
Furthermore, the typicality and adequacy requirements are unsatisfied. Here,
the class includes both individuals who “purchased a Replacement Regulator” and
individuals who “otherwise had a Replacement Regulator installed.” That some
class members, like Doyle, paid for their replacement regulators while others did
not means Doyle’s claim is not typical of the entire class.
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Moreover, as evidenced by the type of damages he seeks, Doyle fails to
adequately represent the interests of members who did not purchase replacement
regulators. Doyle seeks either full or partial reimbursement for the purchase of the
replacement regulator. But a reimbursement-based damages model will not
account for class members who “otherwise had a Replacement Regulator
installed,” because such individuals did not pay for their regulators and therefore
have no expenses that could be reimbursed. A reimbursement theory of damages
will benefit only class members who had out-of-pocket expenses in connection
with the installation of the replacement regulator. Class members who “otherwise
had a Replacement Regulator installed” would be better off with a lawsuit seeking
to force future repairs or payment of the cost of future repairs.
III.
For the foregoing reasons, we REVERSE. This case is REMANDED for
further proceedings.
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