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

its pre-loss condition and, if not, whether the policyholder suffered any economic loss as a
result of the alleged deception.
Numerous courts have concluded that the inability to make a classwide determination
of proximate causation precludes class certification. See, e.g., Key, 176 Ill.App.3d at 98
(“Where individual determinations of proximate cause would be required which predominate
over common questions of law and fact, a class action will not be certified.”); Charles
Hester Enters., 137 Ill.App.3d at 100-01 (affirming denial of class certification of ICFA
claim regarding purchase of excess liability insurance where “each separate purchase would
have to be inquired into in order to establish the motives and particulars concerning policy
limits desired and actually purchased”). The same analysis applies here: because there is no
way to tell who was in fact deceived or the extent to which the deception caused any injury
without considering the individual facts and circumstances of each transaction, whatever
common questions of fact might be raised by the ICFA claim do not predominate over
individual questions.
The circuit court attempted to avoid the difficulties inherent in trying the ICFA claim
on a classwide basis by ignoring the entire question of proximate causation and basing
damages on State Farm’s supposed savings, rather than on any economic losses suffered by
individual class members. As demonstrated in Part III(B)(5) below, disgorgement of
“savings” is not a proper measure of damages under ICFA. Moreover, the circuit court’s
shortcut eliminated one of the most important elements of an ICFA claim by allowing
plaintiffs to recover hundreds of millions of dollars without having to prove that any class
member — let alone each of the class members on whose behalf the judgment was entered
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