Department of Fish & Game v. Superior Court
41 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. Law Inst.) 20257, 197 Cal. App. 4th 1323, 129 Cal. Rptr. 3d 719 (2011)
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Rule of Law:
For a class action to be certified, common questions of law or fact must predominate over individual questions, a determination that requires rigorous evaluation of expert methodologies to ensure they can establish class-wide liability and damages for a diverse group of claimants, rather than merely demonstrating aggregate harm.
Facts:
- Northern pike were first discovered in Lake Davis in 1994.
- In 1997, the Department of Fish and Game (DFG) undertook to eradicate northern pike from Lake Davis and its tributaries by applying a poison, but this effort was unsuccessful.
- The California Legislature subsequently appropriated $9,176,000 to compensate residents for economic harm resulting from the 1997 poisoning.
- Between 1999 and 2006, DFG's efforts to control and contain the northern pike in Lake Davis proved ineffective.
- In September 2007, DFG again poisoned Lake Davis and its tributaries as a second eradication effort.
- Attendant to the 2007 poisoning, DFG widely publicized the plan, closed all roads accessing Lake Davis, and placed large, misleading Department of Transportation signs on Highway 70 advising the public of the lake's closure, which led the general public to believe the entire area, including the City of Portola, was closed.
- DFG left these road signs up for more than a week after the roads to Lake Davis had reopened, and the surrounding forest remained closed from September 2007 through January 2008, with the lake not certified for drinking water until May 2008.
- Ira A. Adams, Anthon and Sylvia Olsen, Frank L., Patricia A. and Judy Ann Genescritti, the Genescritti Family Trust, Sleepy Hollow RV Park, LLC, and the City of Portola, who are real property or business owners or operators in the Lake Davis area, claim to have been harmed by the 2007 poisoning, alleging a decline in tourism adversely affected business income, property values, and tax receipts.
Procedural Posture:
- Real parties in interest-plaintiffs (including Ira A. Adams, Anthon and Sylvia Olsen, Frank L., Patricia A. and Judy Ann Genescritti, the Genescritti Family Trust, Sleepy Hollow RV Park, LLC, and the City of Portola) filed claims with the California Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board for damages caused by the 2007 poisoning.
- The Claims Board rejected these claims.
- The real parties in interest-plaintiffs then commenced an action on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated in the Superior Court of Plumas County (trial court/court of first instance) against the Department of Fish and Game (DFG), John McCamman, Ed Pert, and Randy Kelley.
- Real parties in interest-plaintiffs moved the trial court for certification of three subclasses: Class A (business owners/operators), Class B (real property owners), and Class C (all other injured parties, including the City of Portola).
- The Superior Court of Plumas County (trial court) granted the motion for class certification, concluding that common issues predominated among the proposed classes.
- On September 24, 2010, the Department of Fish and Game (DFG), John McCamman, Ed Pert, and Randy Kelley (petitioners-defendants) filed a petition for writ of mandate in the Court of Appeal of the State of California, Third Appellate District, seeking to reverse the trial court’s class certification order.
- On October 15, the Court of Appeal issued an alternative writ of mandate.
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Issue:
Did the trial court abuse its discretion by certifying a class action when the proposed class members' claims for nuisance, negligence, inverse condemnation, and business interference, arising from a single public event, require highly individualized proof of both liability and damages, and the plaintiffs' expert evidence for commonality failed to connect aggregate data to specific individual claims?
Opinions:
Majority - Hull, J.
No, the trial court abused its discretion by certifying a class action because the plaintiffs failed to establish that common issues of law or fact would predominate over individual issues required to prove liability and damages for their diverse claims. The court found that the trial court applied incorrect legal criteria and made erroneous legal assumptions, particularly in its assessment of expert evidence. The appellate court determined that the trial court improperly evaluated the evidence by first considering the plaintiffs' showing in isolation and then the defendants' evidence as mere rebuttal, rather than examining all evidence together in light of the plaintiffs' theory of recovery. Plaintiffs' expert methodologies, which focused on aggregate economic decline and average diminution in property values across the Lake Davis area, were insufficient to establish class-wide liability and causation for a diverse group of individual property owners and businesses, ranging from lakeside cabin rentals to drug testing facilities and municipal tax revenues. For claims like nuisance and negligence, the existence of a duty and the specifics of interference with enjoyment or foreseeability of harm would require individualized analysis based on the unique characteristics and locations of each plaintiff and their property or business. Similarly, inverse condemnation claims necessitate 'ad hoc, factual inquiries' to determine if a taking occurred for each specific parcel, rather than relying on a general decline in property values. The court emphasized that a class action is appropriate only where substantial benefits accrue to both litigants and the courts, and here, the highly individualized nature of liability and damages would severely prejudice the defendants' ability to present a tailored defense. Furthermore, proposed subclasses, such as Class C, lacked a sufficient community of interest, effectively being a class of one with disparate claims.
Analysis:
This case clarifies that California courts must rigorously assess the 'predominance' requirement for class certification, especially in complex tort cases involving diverse impacts stemming from a single event. It emphasizes that expert testimony supporting commonality must withstand critical scrutiny regarding its applicability to individual liability and damages, rather than merely presenting a general theory of aggregate harm. The decision reinforces the principle that highly individualized issues of duty, causation, and damages can preclude class certification when they threaten a defendant's ability to present a tailored defense, thereby providing a significant hurdle for plaintiffs seeking to certify broad classes in mass tort or environmental damage cases where impacts vary greatly among members.
