A class action lawsuit has been filed against plaintiff, Christopher Bandas, in an effort to seize on an unlawful federal judge’s order freezing class action settlements until a potential settlement between the band and defendant. Seizing on an unlawful judge’s order freezing class actions in such litigation is a serious undertaking. Class actions, like this one in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, require careful coordination among the attorneys involved. The litigation in this case demonstrates that this coordination among attorneys and parties involved can produce results worthy of the costs expended in pursuing the litigation. Accordingly, I write to express my disagreement with the District Judge’s reasoning in this case, as well as to opine that this case should not be vacated yet, despite the motion to vacate granted to Mr. Bandas on August 9th, 2021.
Accordingly, there was an order freezing settlements in this case on one issue: whether or not the plaintiffs could move forward with the underlying complaint. As we previously noted, the plaintiffs had filed a complaint seeking a class-action settlement against Pella Windows, a manufacturing company, for what the manufacturer called “wear and tear” on some of its Window PCs. The complaint also claimed that the defendants failed to provide any warranty or guarantee on the product, causing the plaintiffs to replace the computers frequently without any written guarantee from the defendants. While the complaint does not specify the nature of the allegedly defective products, it does rest upon the contention that the products’ defects caused a substantial amount of damage to the plaintiffs. It is beyond doubt that the complaint further names Pella Windows, but that the products were sold to the purchasers in question.
On appeal, the parties involved in this litigation had a somewhat different story to tell. The defendants initially filed an answer denying all claims for breach of warranty, and then the plaintiffs moved to amend their complaint in an effort to restate their claim to include breach of contract as well. When the amended complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, the defendants urged the court to preclude the plaintiffs from asserting breach of contract as a basis for their lawsuit. The court declined the defendants’ request and allowed the suit to proceed.
The Court of Appeal for the Third Circuit affirmed the denial of the class action lawsuit. It noted that, even if Pella’s warranty policy was deemed inadequate by the district court, the plaintiffs had a likelihood of prevailing in their underlying class action lawsuit. This rationale is not limited to the instant case, however. In fact, it applies with great deference to every situation where a manufacturer creates a product to which the federal regulations give recourse. (The regulations are found in the Implementing Competitive part of the Lanham Act of 1994.)
The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit repeatedly explained that when a manufacturer creates a product that is “within the scope” of the Lanham Act, it is not required to undertake an express warranty or a discharge with respect to defects. Therefore, it is immaterial whether the Pella windows class action lawsuit was brought against Sears, Roebuck & Co. or any other named manufacturers; the class-action lawsuit must be brought against the manufacturer. The three judges of the three-judgment court therefore repeatedly concluded that the instant case did not meet the requirements of the Lanham Act. They expressed this opinion in separate opinions that were joined by only one judge. The court did not agree with their conclusions, however, and vacated their portions of the case without affording the plaintiff any chance to amend their complaint.
The result was that Pella was able to withstand two major challenges to its liability in this class action lawsuit. First, the trial court did not require Pella to prove that it had a reasonable relationship with the original purchaser of the products that it manufactures. Second, the trial court did not require Pella to establish a three-year warranty on its products. Because Pella knew that it could not reasonably expect to receive any relief from the Lanham Act in this case, it is not unexpected that it will file a motion to dismiss the complaint against it as inappropriate under the circumstances. If it does so, this could open the door to further lawsuits against other retailers that do not have a three-year or adequate commercial buildings warranty coverage on their products.