Brinker International, Inc. v. Eric Steinmetz, Individually and on Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated, et al.

This case is a putative class action arising out of a consumer credit card security incident in which the class members’ purported injuries, if they exist at all, vary materially in kind and amount and are thus inherently individualized. Transparently attempting to circumvent the predominance requirement of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3), and threatening to undermine the very core of class action law, the district court and court of appeals approved a plan to ignore these individualized issues of injury and damages by awarding the same “standard dollar amount”—allegedly representing “average” damage amounts for multiple categories of alleged injuries— to every class member “whether or not” that class member even suffered the corresponding injury. App. 16a, 37a (emphasis added). The question presented is whether, under the Rules Enabling Act, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, and this Court’s precedents, a class can be certified by ignoring individualized issues of damages and injury and instead proposing to award every class member the same “average” amount for alleged injuries even if they did not suffer those injuries at all. (i)