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

insurance regulators and consumer advocates would hardly support legislation allowing
insurance companies to specify those parts.
In any event, even if the court had been free to accept plaintiffs’ representations
about what they intended to prove, it was error to certify the class in the face of State Farm’s
repeated protestations that it had a right to defend each class member’s claim based on the
quality of the parts that were actually installed on the vehicles in question. While plaintiffs
made a choice to present generalized proof, State Farm had a right under both the Illinois
and United States Constitutions to present a full-scale defense to each individual class
member’s claim. See Lindsey v. Normet, 405 U.S. 56, 66 (1972) (“Due process requires that
there be an opportunity to present every available defense”). To deny a defendant the right
to “present a full defense on the issues would violate due process.” Western Elec. Co. v.
Stern, 544 F.2d 1196, 1199 (3d Cir. 1976). The court in Stern concluded that, even if
plaintiffs could “make out a prima facie case” of a Title VII violation “without introducing
evidence on individual cases,” “defendants must be allowed to present any relevant rebuttal
evidence they choose, including evidence that there was no discrimination against one or
more members of the class.” Id. (emphasis added). So too, in this case, even if plaintiffs
could have found a way to present their prima facie breach of contract case on a classwide
basis, State Farm was entitled to defend itself by presenting evidence about individual
repairs to prove that it did not breach its contracts with particular members of the class.
Because that kind of detailed, individual proof cannot feasibly be presented in the context
of a class action, it was an abuse of discretion — and a deprivation of State Farm’s state and
federal due process rights — to certify the class.
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