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Intricacies of the Class Action Fairness Act
Most medical malpractice attorneys deal primarily with individual clients and local medical providers and institutions. Sometimes, however, a case has broader reach, crossing state lines and encompassing claims by several plaintiffs. If the case is a class action lawsuit, a whole different set of rules and procedures come into play.
This year, after passage of the new Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), Pub. L. No. 109-2, 119 Stat. 4 (2005), questions arose throughout the legal community as to which cases would be covered by the act and which would not. This threshold question had immediate implications for litigants because CAFA, which went into effect Feb. 18, 2005, relaxed the rules surrounding federal jurisdiction in diversity cases. Instead of requiring complete diversity, CAFA allows federal court jurisdiction over a class action if any member of a class of plaintiffs is a citizen of a state different from any defendant, so long as a $5 million amount-in-controversy requirement is met. 28 U.S.C.S. ' 1332(d)(2)(A). The terms of CAFA are not retroactive.
As was to be expected, the looming deadline for avoiding the effects of CAFA caused a rush to the courthouse in the weeks and days leading up to President Bush's signing of the law, with the usual confusion ensuing afterward when one side felt CAFA should apply while the other thought it most definitely should not. A recent decision interpreting the rationale for applying CAFA in borderline cases — Brown v. Kerkhoff, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24346 (S.D. Iowa 10/19/05) — covers several of the questions that have come up in this debate.
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