After James Healy sued Milliman, a company that sells reports containing consumer’s medical histories to third-party insurers, alleging that the reports were inaccurate and violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the district court certified a class of consumers who were the subjects of inaccurate reports. Milliman moved for partial summary judgment on the grounds that Healy could not demonstrate standing for all of the members of the class. Healy argued he did not need to do so, but the district court disagreed, and found the lack of direct evidence of injury to the unnamed class members required summary judgment under TransUnion.
On appeal, the Ninth Circuit today in Healy v. Milliman,vacated and remanded. Agreeing with Milliman and the district court, the court of appeals held that, in a class action for damages, unnamed class members need to demonstrate evidence of standing after class certification but before individual damages are awarded. The court found that the district court misapplied the summary judgment standard, though, by requiring direct evidence of injury; plaintiffs can sufficiently meet their burden at summary judgment by using either direct or circumstantial evidence, and the plaintiffs did not need to show that a jury “necessarily” would find their evidence sufficient — only that a rational jury could do so. It thus remanded to the district court to re-apply the standard.
