Smith v. Bayer, The buck does not stop here!

The Supreme Court on June 16th published a ruling with possible ramifications for plaintiffs seeking to certify a class in federal and state courts. Unlike in individual litigation, a class action requires the plaintiffs to demonstrate to the court a number of facts, including that there are other individuals who are similarly situated to the plaintiff and who were wronged in the same way as the plaintiff. During the litigation process, after the complaint is filed by the original plaintiff, the plaintiff will submit a motion to certify a class, thereby making his or her individual lawsuit into a class action.
This class action process can work on two levels: federal and state. There is a good amount of overlap between federal law and state law, and many times a plaintiff, or a class of plaintiffs, will have remedies under both. In Smith v. Bayer, the Supreme Court ruled that when a class certification is denied at the federal level, that does not necessarily spell the end of a class action lawsuit. Rather, a different potential plaintiff, even though similar to the first, may still bring a lawsuit under state law, and move to certify that class in state court, without interference from the federal court judge.
In Smith v. Bayer, the plaintiff brought a suit in federal district court in Minnesota, and was denied class certification. A different individual, wronged by Bayer in a similar way, brought a lawsuit in West Virginia state court and sought to certify a similar class there. Bayer went back to federal district court and was granted an order that prevented the state court from taking the case, ruling that this issue was already decided in federal court.
The Supreme Court recently held in Bayer that the Minnesota federal court erred and reasoned that it if a motion to certify a class has been denied in federal court, the court is saying that the potential plaintiffs differ too greatly from one another to be part of the same class. The same court cannot, then, prevent all other potential plaintiffs from seeking class certification at the state level, since denying them class certification indicates that the plaintiffs are sufficiently different, and therefore each deserves his or her day in court.
A crucial issue in this case is the difference in procedure for certifying classes between state and federal court. Let’s change the facts of Bayer such that the second, different plaintiff wanted to bring the class certification motion in federal court, the same venue that the first plaintiff brought the original class certification motion. The judge would likely look at the facts, and say that these facts are substantially the same as the first plaintiff’s attempt, and since all federal courts are bound to apply the same rules of procedure for certification motions, the second plaintiff would likely be out of luck. But the second Bayer plaintiff was not back in federal court- he brought his action in West Virginia state court, and each state has its own rules of civil procedure. Even though a state may have rules that are identical or nearly-identical to the federal rules, those state rules may be applied differently than their federal counterparts, and therefore federal courts will not preclude state courts from deciding procedural issues (such as class certification) using state procedures.
What are the practical implications for plaintiffs seeking class certification? After this Supreme Court ruling, federal courts will likely not be permitted to prevent a plaintiff from seeking class certification at the state level after a different, but similarly-situated plaintiff, was denied such certification in federal court. All this means for plaintiffs is that the federal court cannot stop the state court from hearing the case or deciding the class certification motion, but the state court may still decide that the federal court decided correctly, and deny the motion. Importantly, however, the state court retains the autonomy to make this decision.