Mussat v. IQVIA, Inc. - 953 F.3d 441 (7th Cir. 2020)

Rule:

Due process principles do not prohibit a plaintiff from seeking to represent a nationwide class in federal court, even if the federal court does not have general jurisdiction over the defendant. For cases relying on specific jurisdiction over the defendant, minimum contacts, purposeful availment, and relation to the claim are assessed only with respect to the named plaintiffs. Even if the links between the defendant and an out-of-state unnamed class member are confined to that person's home state, that does not destroy personal jurisdiction. Once certified, the class as a whole is the litigating entity, and its affiliation with a forum depends only on the named plaintiffs.

Facts:

Florence Mussat, an Illinois physician doing business through a professional services corporation, received two unsolicited faxes from IQVIA, a Delaware corporation with its headquarters in Pennsylvania. These faxes failed to include the opt-out notice required by federal statute. Mussat's corporation brought a putative class action in the Northern District of Illinois under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227, on behalf of itself and all persons in the country who had received similar junk faxes from IQVIA in the four previous years. IQVIA moved to strike the class definition, arguing that the district court did not have personal jurisdiction over the non-Illinois members of the proposed nationwide class. The district court granted the motion to strike, reasoning that under the Supreme Court's decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, 137 S. Ct. 1773, 198 L. Ed. 2d 395 (2017), not just the named plaintiff, but also the unnamed members of the class, each had to show minimum contacts between the defendant and the forum state. Because IQVIA was not subject to general jurisdiction in Illinois, the district court turned to specific jurisdiction. Applying those rules, the district court found that it had no jurisdiction over the claims of parties who, unlike Mussat, were harmed outside of Illinois. Mussat filed a petition to appeal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(f). 

Issue:

Did the district court properly grant the defendant’s motion to strike, on the basis of lack of specific jurisdiction over the unnamed members of the class? 

Answer:

No.

Conclusion:

The Court first held that the named class member properly appealed under Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(f) from the district court's order granting defendant's Fed. R. Civ. P. 12 motion to strike plaintiff's class definition, insofar as plaintiff proposed to assert Telephone Consumer Protection Act claims on behalf of people with no contacts to Illinois, because the order was functionally equivalent to an order denying class certification. The Court then held that the district court erred in granting the motion to strike because the principles announced by the U.S. Supreme Court in Bistol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court did not apply to the case of a nationwide class action filed in federal court under a federal statute; in a Rule 23 class action, the named representatives had to be able to demonstrate either general or specific personal jurisdiction, but the unnamed class members were not required to do so.