Class certification; Whether plaintiff had standing; FedRCivP 23(b)(3)’s “predominance prong”; The district court’s failure to conduct an Erie analysis regarding five states & to consider plaintiff’s cited case precedent; Generation Changers Church (GCC)

In this class action dispute, the court held that plaintiff-GCC had standing and that the district court abused its discretion by not conducting an Erie analysis with respect to five of the states involved when addressing Rule 23(b)(3)’s predominance prong. GCC alleged that defendant-Church Mutual failed to pay the “actual cash value” (ACV) of its losses when covering its tornado damages. It “also asserted that Church Mutual’s practice of subtracting depreciation for non-material costs when calculating the ACV violates the laws of” multiple states. Thus, it “sought class certification of similarly situated policyholders in these states who had also filed claims with Church Mutual and received improperly reduced” payments. The district court ruled that GCC had standing and certified a class as “to class members from four states but not the remaining six.” The court noted that there is a “‘question whether the relevance of [] variation’ between a named plaintiff’s claims and the putative class’s claims ‘is a matter of Article III standing at all or whether it goes to the propriety of class certification pursuant to’” Rule 23(a). There are two approaches “to address this question: the ‘standing approach’ and the ‘class certification approach.’” The court concluded that neither approach barred “GCC from pursuing its claims,” so it did not decide which one is appropriate. It then turned to the district court’s partial denial of class certification. The district court “declined to certify a class that included claims arising under the laws of Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri, Mississippi, Texas, and Vermont.” The court held that this was error, except for Vermont. The district court was required to conduct an Erie analysis for each state and erred by not considering the “intermediate state appellate court decisions, decisions of federal courts discerning state law, and non-binding regulatory guidance” GCC presented, refusing to analyze any authority but state supreme court decisions or statutes. The court held that “GCC presented both binding and persuasive authorities interpreting the laws of Kentucky, Ohio, Mississippi, Texas, and Missouri. The district court” abused its discretion by not conducting an Erie analysis as to each state. On remand, it should conduct this analysis as to these states “and predict how each state’s highest court would address the ACV issue to determine whether class certification for putative class members from these states would be appropriate.” But the court found no abuse of discretion as to the Vermont putative class members. Vacated in part and remanded.