Mum's The Word On Fla.'s Muddled Commonality Standard
Law360, New York (November 5, 2014, 12:30 PM EST) -- During a three-week period in 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court and Florida Supreme Court each issued seminal decisions on the commonality requirement for class actions. As known to most practitioners, in Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2541 (2011), the Supreme Court held that under the commonality requirement of Rule 23(a)(2), "'What matters to class certification ... is not the raising of common 'questions' — even in droves — but, rather the capacity of a classwide proceeding to generate common answers.'"[1] By contrast, in Sosa v. Safeway Premium Financial Co., 73 So. 3d 91 (Fla. 2011), the Florida Supreme Court held that the commonality threshold of Florida Rule 1.220(a)(2) "is not high," and that the Florida standard "only requires that ... the subject of the class action presents a question of common or general interest."[2]...
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