How broad must a class be in a class action suit? Just broad
enough to satisfy the requirements of Rule 23, according to an Alabama federal judge.
The district court recently refused an attempt by two debt
collectors to compel the expansion of a class in a lawsuit against
them over a collection letter privacy notice, holding that the law
does not require certification of the broadest possible class of
plaintiffs.
In Lewis v. ARS Nat'l Servs. Inc.,
the plaintiff sued a debt collector that had acquired defaulted
debts from JC Penney and the collection agency to which the
collector had assigned the debt for collection. The complaint
alleged that the collection letters contained a privacy notice that
violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). The class
as defined was fairly narrow, consisting only of Alabama residents
to whom the defendants sent the challenged privacy notice during a
one-year period in an attempt to collect a consumer debt originally
owed
