Sears, Roebuck and Co. v. Butler

Case Updates

The U.S. Chamber asked the U.S. Supreme Court to grant the cert. petition to review this Seventh Circuit case and a similar case out of the Sixth Circuit, Whirlpool Corp. v. Glazer (II), to clarify whether these circuits properly ordered the proposed product liability class actions to be certified. In this case, plaintiffs filed a class action alleging breach of warranty claims on behalf of buyers of front-loading washing machines sold by the petitioner in six states. Although the Seventh Circuit initially ordered the classes certified under Rule 23, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated that decision and remanded the case to the Seventh Circuit in light of the Court's decision in Comcast Corp. v. Behrend. The Chamber's brief argues that on remand, the Seventh Circuit misapplied the Supreme Court's class action jurisprudence, sweeping aside individual questions that make these claims unfit for class certification.