We previously blogged on whether the Supreme Court’s ruling in American Pipe applies to toll the statute of limitations for successive putative class actions. In Resh v. China Agritech, Inc., the Ninth Circuit held that American Pipe tolled the limitations period for putative class actions by absent class members — thus theoretically permitting endless relitigation of certification denials. As we predicted, a defendant in Resh has filed a petition for writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court to resolve the question of: “Whether the American Pipe rule tolls statutes of limitations to permit a previously absent class member to bring a subsequent class action outside the applicable limitations period.” The petition asks the Court to resolve the split between the First, Second, Fifth, and Eleventh Circuits, which find American Pipe inapplicable to successive class actions, and the Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits. Absent Supreme Court review, we predict that district courts in the Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits will be forums of choice for copycat class plaintiffs seeking another bite at the certification apple.
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