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On appeal, the appellate court concluded it was appropriate to certify a nationwide class to pursue the claims for violations of the UCL and the CLRA: “[A] California court may properly apply the same California statutes at issue here to non-California members of a nationwide class where the defendant is a California corporation and some or all of the challenged conduct emanates from California. [Citations.]” (Wershba, supra, 91 Cal.App.4th at p. 243.) “Even though there may be differences in consumer protection laws from state to state, this is not necessarily fatal to a finding that there is a predominance of common issues among a nationwide class. As the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has observed, state consumer protection laws are relatively homogeneous: ‘the idiosyncratic differences between state consumer protection laws are not sufficiently substantive to predominate over the shared claims’ and do not preclude certification of a nationwide settlement class.” (Id. at p. 244.) Although the trial court in the present case was not considering a settlement class, we do not find that dispositive, especially because “California’s consumer protection laws are among the strongest in the country.” (Id. at p. 242.) Here, Buy.com is headquartered in California. The allegedly misleading rebate information on Buy.com’s Web site originated from California. The due diligence Buy.com allegedly failed to perform would have been performed in California. This state has a clear connection to the claims asserted by Kershenbaum. Although there are differences between the consumer protection laws of California and those of other states, those differences generally favor the consumers, and Buy.com cannot explain why another state would object to having California provide greater protection to its citizens against alleged wrongdoing by a California defendant. Under Wershba and Clothesrigger, Inc. v. GTE Corp., even if the California choice-of-law provision in Buy.com’s terms of use agreement did not apply, the trial court erred in finding common issues did not predominate. 14
IV. ARE <strong>THE</strong> CLAIMS VAGUE? The trial court also denied Kershenbaum’s motion for class certification because “it is vague as to what claims Plaintiff asserts against Buy.com: the failure of Buy.com to perform ‘due diligence’ as to Connect 3D’s financial condition, or misleading advertising.” Kershenbaum’s argument on appeal regarding this issue is as follows: “The Trial Court stated that it was unclear whether Appellant sought a class to be certified based on its claim involving ‘due diligence’ or on ‘misleading advertising.’ But that is a false dichotomy. Appellant’s claim is that Buy.com performed inadequate due diligence, and as a result, it advertise[d] that rebates were available when they were not – and that advertising was, in fact, misleading (indeed, it was utterly false, since no one in the putative class was paid their rebates).” The reply brief, for the most part, repeats the opening brief’s argument: “Buy.com contends that Mr. Kershenbaum is vague as to what claims he asserts against Buy.com: due diligence or misleading advertising. . . . But that is a false dichotomy. Buy.com advertised that rebates were available when they were not – and that advertising was, in fact, misleading (indeed, it was utterly false, since no one in the putative class was paid his or her rebate). It was negligent for Buy.com to have made such misrepresentations, because, Mr. Kershenbaum alleges, it virtually took Connect 3D’s word for it that Connect 3D would be good for the rebates. The misrepresentations at issue are the ones every single person in the putative class must have seen and relied upon: that a rebate was available with the Connect 3D products.” (Original italics.) Although Kershenbaum’s pleadings could have been clearer, his allegations were not so vague as to warrant denial of his motion for class certification. Accordingly, we conclude the trial court erred in denying the class certification motion on the ground that it was vague whether Kershenbaum was arguing that Buy.com failed to conduct due 15
Page 1 and 2: Filed 9/30/10 Kershenbaum v. Buy.co
Page 3 and 4: ebate forms, and was approved to re
Page 5 and 6: II. IS THE CLASS ASCERTAINABLE? The
Page 7 and 8: We agree with Kershenbaum that the
Page 9 and 10: To determine whether the trial cour
Page 11 and 12: The California choice-of-law provis
Page 13: Even if Buy.com were correct, and t
Page 17: DISPOSITION The order is reversed.

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