Sidibe v. Sutter Health
- Laurel Beeler
- 3:12-cv-04854
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 5
In Sidibe v. Sutter Health, Judge Beeler denied plaintiffs’ request for supplemental notice to class members in four omitted California counties.
The plaintiffs, Sutter Health, and people and entities in Mariposa, Monterey, San Benito, and Tulare counties who sought inclusion through a supplemental class notice.
What happened
Sidibe v. Sutter Health concerns plaintiffs’ request to send a supplemental class notice to people and entities in Mariposa, Monterey, San Benito, and Tulare counties. Plaintiffs said those counties were accidentally left out of the notice and proposed email, mail, and publication notices.
Sutter opposed the request, arguing that the counties were not included in the class definition in any complaint. The court also considered a rule that prevents class members from waiting for a favorable summary-judgment ruling before deciding whether to join a damages class action.
The court denied the request because the four counties were not part of the class definition and because the one-way intervention rule applied. Judge Beeler entered the order on August 28, 2021.
The detailed version
- Sidibe v. Sutter Health · No. 3:12-cv-04854
- Laurel Beeler
- Aug. 28, 2021
Background
The plaintiffs asked the court to issue a supplemental class notice to class members in Mariposa, Monterey, San Benito, and Tulare counties. They said those counties had been omitted from the existing notice and proposed updating the class website and sending corrected notices by email, direct mail, and publication, with a 30-day period for class members to opt out.
Sutter opposed the request. It argued that the four counties were not included in the class definition in the operative complaint or in the four earlier complaints. Sutter also argued that the one-way intervention rule barred a supplemental notice after the court had issued its summary-judgment order.
Class Definition
The first three complaints defined the proposed class by listing specified California counties. None listed Mariposa, Monterey, San Benito, or Tulare. The Third Amended Complaint instead referred to six health-care markets and identified the counties within each market; it also did not list the four counties.
The operative Fourth Amended Complaint defined the class by reference to nine geographic rating areas. It described those areas by listing their counties. The complaint stated that Rating Area 9 included Santa Cruz County and that Rating Area 10 included Merced, San Joaquin, and Stanislaus counties. The parties agreed that Monterey and San Benito are in Rating Area 9, and that Mariposa and Tulare are in Rating Area 10, but the complaint did not specify those four counties as part of either area.
The court had certified a class covering entities in Rating Areas 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10, and individuals who lived or worked in one of those areas and paid premiums for certain fully insured health policies from September 28, 2008, to the present. The court said the class definition nevertheless referred to specified counties. Because the four counties were not specified for any rating area, people and entities in those counties were not part of the class.
One-Way Intervention Rule
The court also applied the one-way intervention rule. That rule prevents members of a damages class from waiting until after a summary-judgment ruling and then deciding whether to join the class based on whether the ruling is favorable or unfavorable. The court had issued its summary-judgment order after the opt-out period to avoid this issue, and it said the rule applies to partial summary-judgment orders like the order in this case.
The court considered whether the circumstances justified an exception but concluded that they did not. It compared the case to another case in which omitted class members were not added after summary judgment. The court concluded that the equities did not require departing from the one-way intervention rule.
Disposition
The court denied the plaintiffs’ request for a supplemental notice. The order states that this disposition resolved ECF No. 1162.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.