Tyler Ayres, et al. v. Indirect Purchaser Plaintiffs, et al.

On remand from an appeal successfully challenging a proposed nationwide settlement, class counsel and his clients stopped representing the class members in the Petitioners’ states. The Petitioners, still members of the certified national class, moved to intervene-of-right as representatives for the members in their states. Although agreeing that those class members needed representation, the district court found it lacked subject matter jurisdiction to allow the intervention because the case was within a multi-district litigation (MDL) proceeding under 28 U.S.C. § 1407. The Petitioners appealed. To ensure their appeal was not rendered moot, they later appealed a final judgment approving a new settlement that excised the claims of the class members in their states against the Respondents. In a single decision, the Ninth Circuit: (i) affirmed the final judgment on the basis that the Petitioners lacked standing to challenge it; and (ii) dismissed the intervention appeal as moot because the court was affirming the final judgment. The decision has deepened a circuit split that the Fourth and Fifth Circuits have expressly acknowledged. The questions presented are:

1. Does a final judgment moot a pending appeal from an order denying intervention-of-right?

2. Does a district court possess subject matter jurisdiction to allow class members to intervene-of-right directly into a case coordinated in an MDL proceeding?