Dukes v. Wal-Mart, 603 F.3d. 571 (9th Cir.) (en banc), cert granted, 131 S. Ct. 795 (Dec. 6, 2010) (No. 10-277), has attracted considerable attention and fomented much anxiety within the plaintiffs’ bar, principally because its pending review by the United States Supreme Court holds the prospect of dissolving the familiar and strict divide between class certification analysis and merits analysis. While that is a legitimately troubling prospect that will be separately addressed in the Impact Litigation Journal, one part of the Ninth Circuit’s Dukes decision not likely to be upset is its embrace of sophisticated statistical and survey methodologies, with intimations that surveys can and should be used not only to determine damages (a relatively uncontroversial use) but also as to core liability determinations.

Although respected resources such as the Manual for Complex Litigation and occasional decisions out of the Second Circuit and the district courts within it (most notably Judge Jack B. Weinstein) have embraced survey methods, the law has tended to lag behind the social sciences in its comfort with sampling and survey methods. There is substantial irony in the fact that stacks of declarations, typically attorney-written and nearly identical, have become staples of admissible evidence both in support of and in opposition to class certification, while the same cases that credit declarations are often skeptical of rigorous survey evidence. Dukes, however, is the most comprehensive and forward-looking statement about the use of survey evidence from any California court, state or federal.

Dukes stands as a foundation for the increased use of sampling and surveys in class actions, in particular to determine class-wide liability. First, the Dukes panel confirmed the intrinsic utility of survey methods in determining the predominance of common questions of law and fact. See Dukes at 598 (“In short, and as we will now explain, at the certification stage, it is difficult for us to envision a more rigorous analysis than the one the district court conducted.”). Further, with unusual candor, Dukes notes that if survey methods are capable of framing the common questions of law and fact, so, too, are survey methods capable of answering those questions—i.e., making the “merits,” or liability, determination:

For practical purposes, assuming a plaintiff possesses anecdotal evidence, the plaintiff’s statistical evidence does not overlap with the merits, it largely is the merits (citation omitted). This means that disputes over whose statistics are more persuasive are often not disputes about whether the plaintiffs raise common issues or questions, but are really arguments going to proof of the merits.

Dukes v. Wal-Mart at 591.

Already an influential case, the ultimate Dukes legacy is in the Supreme Court’s hands. However, the frank discussion of using surveys to establish class-wide liability is underway. The use of sampling and surveys to make factual determinations as to large populations is an established scientific method, and it appears that courts may now be ready to embrace it fully.

Litigators from outside California’s Central District are often astonished to learn of the Central District Local Rule requiring that all motions for class certification be filed within 90 days of the case’s commencement. See C.D. L.R. 23-3 (available here). This astonishment is grounded in the fact that, in virtually all circumstances, it is impossible to file class certification papers within just 90 days.

The typical pre- and early-litigation chronology leaves a plaintiff with no discovery at the end of the 90-day period. Yet far from being a toothless, ignored local rule, the Central District’s 90-Day Rule is enforced, often without mercy, resulting in the dismissal of perfectly meritorious class actions because they could not comply with an impracticable deadline.

To obtain the discovery necessary to support class certification, there must first be a Scheduling Order in place— which itself regularly takes longer than 90 days. Moreover, once discovery is propounded and in the (quite likely) event that the defendant facing class-wide liability did not provide perfectly responsive and comprehensive discovery responses, a motion to compel is necessitated. However, once the parties have met and conferred (within 10 days of the movant’s request to do so), drafted a joint stipulation (7 days), drafted a response (another 7 days) and noticed the motion to compel (21 more days, if there is perfect congruence with the judge’s law and motion schedule), half of the 90-day period is already consumed, assuming that a Scheduling Order had been issued on day one of the case. Thus, even under this best-case scenario, it is effectively impossible to properly support a class certification motion with evidence within the prescribed 90-day window.

What about extensions? Defendants can, of course, agree to stipulate to an extension—or not. In any event, it is ultimately up to the particular judge to decide whether or not to enter a stipulation excusing compliance with the 90-Day Rule, and the preferences of Central District judges varies widely.

A better solution: Eliminate the 90-Day Rule. The Southern District of New York recently abandoned a similarly unrealistic deadline when members of the bar spoke up and educated the Rules Committee as to the problem. Here in the Central District, there is now an opportunity to take action on this issue. Eric B. Kingsley (of Kingsley & Kingsley, APC) is currently circulating an “open letter” to the Central District Rules Committee detailing the 90-Day Rule’s failings and the need for change. Mr. Kingsley is asking that members of the Central District bar undersign and endorse the letter. This is the proverbial “no-brainer”; every practitioner should support the reform of the 90-Day Rule, even defendants’ counsel that sometimes benefit from it. The 90-Day Rule is antiquated and unfair, and it is time for all concerned to take steps to eliminate it.