The U.S. Supreme Court granted a petition for a writ of certiorari to review the Ninth Circuit ruling in Gomez v. Campbell-Ewald Co. The Court granted certiorari to answer the following three questions. Does an offer of complete relief render a named plaintiff’s individual claim moot? Does a class claim become moot if a plaintiff receives an offer of complete relief before any class is certified? Does derivative sovereign immunity for government contractors apply only to claims arising from property damage caused by public works projects?
In Gomez,the U.S. Navy hired defendant to conduct a multi-media recruitment campaign that involved sending recruitment text messages to 150,000 adults. Plaintiff, a recipient of one of the text messages, filed a putative class action alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”). Before class certification, defendant offered to settle the matter by paying plaintiff more than the statutory maximum under the TCPA, but plaintiff declined the offer.
The district court denied defendant’s subsequent motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, disagreeing with defendant’s argument that its settlement offer of complete relief rendered plaintiff’s individual and class claims moot under Article III of the U.S. Constitution. Defendant then moved for summary judgment on the grounds that it was entitled to derivative sovereign immunity because it implemented the text message recruitment campaign at the direction of the U.S. Navy. The district court granted this motion, holding that defendant was entitled to derivative sovereign immunity. Plaintiff appealed.
The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded, holding, among other things, that defendant’s full relief settlement offer did not moot plaintiff’s individual or class claims, and that defendant was not entitled to derivative sovereign immunity.
The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a circuit split regarding whether an offer of complete relief moots a plaintiff’s individual and/or class claims. The Court also will consider whether the Ninth Circuit’s application of derivative sovereign immunity. The Ninth Circuit’s holding that derivative sovereign immunity is confined to “public works projects” appears to be a departure from Supreme Court precedent and other circuits.
This article was co-authored by Christine Nowland, a summer law clerk in the Firm’s San Francisco office.
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