No. 5-99-0830 IN THE APPELLATE COURT OF ... - Appellate.net

to the requirement established by this Court in Slimack, this was not a case where
“successful adjudication of the purported class representatives’ individual claims will
establish a right of recovery in other class members.” 227 Ill.App.3d at 292-93.
To properly prove the claims of individual class members, plaintiffs would first have
had to present separate proof with respect to each of the 33,000 different kinds of non-OEM
repair parts that were actually installed on State Farm policyholders’ vehicles. Then, they
would have had to show that any defects identified in the repair jobs were the result of
inherent defects in the parts, rather than a lack of skill on the part of any of the thousands of
different bodyshops that performed the repairs in question. 21/
The daunting prospect of having to try the merits of each class member’s claim
individually has caused other courts to deny motions to certify much smaller classes
challenging the specification of non-OEM repair parts. In Rios v. Allstate Ins. Co., No. 94
CH 11396 (Cook County Cir. Ct. Jan. 27, 1998), the Circuit Court of Cook County expressly
rejected the reasoning employed by the circuit court in this case and refused to certify a class
of Allstate policyholders from only two states (Illinois and Indiana) who sought damages as
years); Floyd v. General Motors Corp., 960 P.2d 763, 766 (Kan. App. 1998) (evidence that
GM recalled certain 1992 models to determine whether particular bolt was missing from
steering mechanism was inadmissible to prove steering defect in 1988 model). See also R.
4906 (admission of plaintiffs’ witness Ryles that problems with a non-OEM part made by
one manufacturer would not justify the conclusion that other non-OEM parts made by a
different manufacturer were defective).
21/
See In re Ford Motor Co. Vehicle Paint Litig., 182 F.R.D. 214, 220 (E.D. La. 1998)
(holding certification inappropriate because, among other things, a variety of individual
factors apart from the allegedly defective paint process could have affected how paint
performed, and the parties would have been required to litigate the issue of causation on a
case-by-case basis).
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