In Resh v. China Agritech, No. 15-5543, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 9029 (9th Cir. May 24, 2017), a Ninth Circuit panel held that a pending putative class action in which class certification is ultimately denied tolls the statute of limitations as to claims that previously absent class members later seek to assert as class claims. The ruling expands a tolling doctrine the U.S. Supreme Court has so far only applied to absent class members’ individual claims. See American Pipe & Construction Co v. Utah, 414 U.S. 538 (1974). It also clarifies Ninth Circuit precedent, which, to the extent it had previously applied American Pipe tolling to absent class members’ class claims, arguably did so only when the earlier class certification denial rested on the named plaintiff’s inadequacy, not on the invalidity of the alleged class itself. Resh applies American Pipe to class claims without qualification. Hence, it opens the door in the Ninth Circuit to new phenomenon: successive class actions based on the same underlying event.
Continue Reading If At First You Don’t Succeed: The Ninth Circuit Invites Successive Class Actions By Extending American Pipe Tolling To Absent Class Members’ Own Class Claims