Class Action Fairness Act Not Applicable to Amended Suits

Medical device maker Guidant Corp. says it will appeal a federal judge's finding that a state court pacemaker defect suit, amended to include class certification motions after the enactment of the Class Action Fairness Act, cannot be forced into federal court under the new law.

Guidant and co-defendant Cardiac Pacemakers Inc. had told U.S. District Judge J. Leon Holmes that the suit filed in Arkansas Circuit Court by Jere A. Weekley in July 2004 belongs in federal court because Weekley amended the suit to include a class-action certification motion July 8, four months after CAFA took effect.

Weekley claimed that two of Guidant's Flextend pacemaker leads were defective and perforated her heart, forcing her to undergo corrective surgery. She alleges a Guidant representative present during the removal of the old leads took them without her consent in an effort by the defendants to "hold down unfavorable publicity [and] deter lawsuits."

She amended her complaint to include other patients who had defective Guidant cardiac device components seized without consent or knowledge by Guidant personnel who were present during their removal.

The Class Action Fairness Act provides that the minimum amount for federal court jurisdiction, $75,000 for individual cases, is automatically satisfied if the "aggregate stakes in a class action exceed $5 million."

Guidant and Cardiac Pacemakers argue that CAFA should apply to force Weekley's suit into the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. They say the class-certification motion completely changed the nature of the suit from an individual case involving one pacemaker recipient into a nationwide proceeding encompassing all Guidant patients who may have had faulty devices confiscated.

The defendants say the initial complaint could not have possibly put them on notice that all of their cardiac devices would be at issue and that Weekley's state law claims would be expanded into a new civil action implicating the laws of all 50 states.

Judge Holmes disagreed, holding that the applicable section of CAFA "is about as clear and simple as a statute can be" and indicates that the act "shall apply to any civil action commenced on or after the date of enactment of this act."

In a Sept. 23 opinion the judge said Congress had the option of making CAFA applicable to suits amended to include class-action motions following the enactment date, but plainly declined.

"It is not within the province of this court to read into the statute a provision that Congress chose not to include," he held.

The judge added: "The action that defendants removed is the same civil action that Weekley commenced by filing a complaint in the Circuit Court of Jackson County on July 26, 2004. The parties are the same. The causes of action are the same."