POM Wonderful's Decertification Decision Will Be Hard To Swallow For The Plaintiffs' Class

On March 25, 2014, Judge Dean Pregerson, of the U.S. District Court, Central District of California, decertified a nationwide class of consumers in a class action brought against POM Wonderful LLC over allegedly false and misleading health claims related to its pomegranate juice. Judge Pregerson's decertification order is significant because it makes class certification more difficult for plaintiffs, requiring that: 1) Plaintiffs comport with the rigorous analysis of class-wide damages set forth in the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision of Comcast Corp. v. Behrend, 133. S. Ct 1426 (2013); and 2) Plaintiffs demonstrate that the putative class is ascertainable, which has been the recent focus of many courts, many of whom have denied class certification on that basis. See, e.g., Carrera v. Bayer Corp., 727 F. 3d 300 (3d Cir. 2013).