Five Takeaways From The Supreme Court’s "AU Optronics" Decision

Court's decision provides key takeaways for class action defendants, including how the decision limits the use of CAFA's mass action provision to suits that actually name 100 or more persons as plaintiffs.

On January 14, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Mississippi ex rel. Hood v. AU Optronics Corp.,¹ holding that a parens patriae action filed by the state of Mississippi on behalf of its citizens was not a "mass action" as defined by the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) and thus could not be removed to federal court on that basis. The Court interpreted the definition of "mass action" as requiring 100 or more parties to be actually named as plaintiffs. The Court also rejected arguments that the state's citizens should have been counted as the real unnamed parties in interest for purposes of the 100-person threshold. Instead, Mississippi's parens patriae lawsuit included only one plaintiff, the state.