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ARTICLE · 21 JANUARY 2016

Supreme Court Holds That An Unaccepted Offer Of Judgment Doesn't Moot A Class Action

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The district court denied this motion, but later granted summary judgment for Campbell-Ewald on the ground that Campbell-Ewald, as a naval contractor, enjoyed sovereign immunity. Gomez appealed, and the Ninth Circuit held that both Gomez's claim and the putative class claims remained live. The court of appeals also vacated the district court's sovereign immunity ruling.

United StatesLitigation, Mediation & Arbitration

Keywords: Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, Fed. R. Civ. P. 68, Genesis Healthcare Corp. v. Symczyk, mootness, Supreme Court, Telephone Consumer Protection Act

Article III of the Constitution limits the jurisdiction of federal courts to "cases" and "controversies." As the Supreme Court recently explained in Genesis HealthCare Corp. v. Symczyk, a lawsuit does not present an Article III case or controversy and "must be dismissed as moot" when "an intervening circumstance deprives the plaintiff of a 'personal stake in the outcome of the lawsuit,' at any point during the litigation." Today, in Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez (pdf), the Supreme Court held that a defendant's unaccepted offer to satisfy the claims of a named plaintiff in a putative class-action lawsuit is not sufficient to render the suit moot.

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