Our creative mindset toward class action litigation recently paid off for one of our clients that we were representing in a Florida state court action.
Our client, a California-based tech company in the medical records space, was—like the other members of its industry—sued in Florida state court over its copy-charge practices, which the plaintiffs contended violated Florida regulatory caps on the amount a medical records custodian could charge for copying. The other Industry defendants generally lost or settled. We proposed a different path.
Rather than run up fees and expenses litigating class certification, we reached a stipulation with the other side: we would agree to class certification (without prejudice to seek decertification); in exchange, we would not be required to post a bond to have a stay pending appeal if we lost the case. That decision saved the client considerable money, but we were not done. After the class was certified, we were able to avoid any formal discovery by reaching a second stipulation—this one as to the material facts in the case. With that second stipulation in hand, both sides moved for summary judgment. We won. After that, we were able to resolve the remainder of the case without any appeal.
Short circuiting the class action process paid off for our medical records client. They were able to resolve the action much more quickly and more cost effectively than they otherwise would have if they had hired a defense firm that employed the standard defense playbook.