The California Court of Appeal for the Fourth Appellate District recently added to the growing jurisprudence interpreting the scope and effect of In re Tobacco II Cases (2009) 46 Cal.4th 298 in its decision last month in Sevidal v. Target Corp. (Case No. D056206, Oct. 29, 2010) __ Cal.App.4th __.  Following a trend of other California appellate courts, including the Second Appellate District in Pfizer v. Superior Court (2010) 182 Cal.App.4th 622, Target stands for the proposition that Tobacco II applies only to standing, and does not change the requirements for class certification under California’s Unfair Competition Law (“UCL”). The Target court upheld the lower court’s decision denying class certification, holding that Tobacco II‘s limitation of traditional reliance and causation standing requirements to the named plaintiff in certain cases brought under the UCL does not eliminate the need for absent class members to establish that they were affected by the allegedly unfair practice in order to meet class certification requirements.
Continue Reading California Court of Appeal Continues the Trend of Limiting Tobacco II