Anthony M. Frazier v. Castle Ford, Ltd., f/k/a ... - Maryland Courts

precluded certification of this action as a class action with Mr. Frazier as the representative
plaintiff.
Creveling
This Court previously discussed, but did not decide, this issue in Creveling, supra.
Although the Court affirmed a denial of class certification in that case for other reasons, 10 it
noted that mootness is a “more flexible” concept in the context of class action litigation. 376
Md. at 83-87 n.3. The Court outlined, in a lengthy footnote, the disparate approaches that
courts in other jurisdictions had taken when a defendant, at various stages of the case,
attempts to moot a class action by tendering individual damages to the plaintiff who seeks
to represent the class. Id. It described four different holdings reflected in the case law: (1)
the entire action should be dismissed if the individual plaintiff’s claims are satisfied before
class certification; 11 (2) the entire action should be dismissed if individual relief is tendered
to the named plaintiff before the filing of a motion for class certification; 12 (3) the mootness
of a named plaintiff’s claim does not automatically moot the class action 13 – i.e., the entire
action should not necessarily be dismissed; and (4) satisfaction of the named plaintiff’s claim
10 The Court affirmed the trial court’s determination that there was a lack of
commonality among the claims of the individual members of the putative class – a key factor
under Maryland Rule 2-231 in whether a class should be certified.
11 E.g., Cruz v. Farquharson, 252 F.3d 530, 533 (1 st Cir. 2001); DeCoteau v. Nodak
Mut. Ins. Co., 636 N.W.2d 432, 437 (N.D. 2001)
12 E.g., Yu v. IBM, 732 N.E.2d 1173, 1178-79 (Ill. App. 2000).
13 E.g., Encarnacion v. Barnhart, 180 F.Supp.2d 492, 498 (S.D.N.Y. 2002); Liles v.
Am. Corrective Counseling Servs., 201 F.R.D. 452, 455 (S.D. Iowa 2001).
11