Class Action Against U-Haul Moved Out of Court

Judge Diamond of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has “putthe brakes” on a consumer class action against U-Haul based on a breach ofcontract theory. The named plaintiff,Edward Ritti, was told on the morning of his scheduled move that U-Haul was unableto provide him with the truck he had reserved on the phone a few daysearlier. When Ritti discovered that hewas not alone in this experience, he filed a consumer class action againstU-Haul. The proposed class was toconsist of “all persons in the United States who reserved rental trucks ortrailers from U-Haul for specific dates, received written confirmations oftheir agreements with U-Haul, did not receive trucks or trailers from U-Haul onthe specific dates promised, and who were damaged thereby.”

The court recently denied class certification, however, holdingthat Ritti’s claim is not typical of the class because it is premised on thespecific details of Ritti’s own interactions with U-Haul representatives. The court wrote:

There is no single rental agreement here. Rather, like Ritti himself, each class memberwill base his claim on a unique contract comprising terms offered and acceptedwhen the Class member met with, spoke to, or electronically communicated withU-Haul. Moreover, the circumstancesrelating to each purported breach necessarily differ and so trigger differentdefenses. In these circumstances, I am compelled to conclude that plaintiff isnot typical of the purported class and that common issues of law and fact donot predominate.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that the company’s writtenconfirmations are “standard, boilerplate, computer-generated forms”and that they “contain the essential terms of the parties’agreements.” Therefore, they insisted that there was “no need to inquireinto any oral conversations that customers may have had with U-Haul.” However, the court agreed with U-Haul,holding that, because Ritti had testified about his telephone and emailcommunications with U-Haul to make his reservation, Ritt’s contract was uniqueto him and he could not satisfy the typicality requirements of FRCP 23(a).

The focus nearly always seems to be on the hurdles to certification of the “masstort” class action. Given that thesewere boilerplate contracts, it seems that certification of the “mass breach ofcontract action” likewise faces insuperable odds.

Here is a good summary of the opinion from law.com; here isa link to the opinion.

[Meredith R. Miller]