In Price v. Martin, et al., No. 2011-C-0853 (La. 12/06/11), the Supreme Court of Louisiana granted certiorari to determine whether the lower courts had correctly applied the standards for analyzing class action certification set forth in La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 591. In February 2003, five individuals residing and owning property in Alexandria, Louisiana, in the vicinity of a wood-treating facility, brought a putative class action against wood treatment companies alleging that environmentally unsound practices related to a creosote-treated railroad tie operation caused a considerable amount of hazardous and toxic chemicals to be released into the environment, including the air, soil, and water of the communities in which the plaintiffs resided, contaminating the soil, sediments, groundwater, and buildings. The plaintiffs claimed that the defendants' activities constituted a nuisance under La. Civ. Code arts. 667, et seq., and that the defendants were negligent under La. Civ. Code arts. 2315 and 2317. The district court granted the plaintiffs' motion for class certification, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. In applying the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2541 (2011) to Louisiana class actions under La. C.C.P. art. 591, the Louisiana Supreme Court emphasized that a party seeking class certification "must be prepared to prove that there are in fact sufficiently numerous parties, common questions of law or fact, etc." In reversing the lower courts' decisions, the Louisiana Supreme Court held that neither the issue of breach of duty nor the issue of causation were capable of resolution on a class-wide-basis on common evidence as necessary to prove commonality and that class action was not superior to other available methods for a fair and efficient adjudication of the case, as required by the predominance element. Ultimately, the case was remanded for further proceedings.
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