A recent Sixth Circuit case addressed an issue that tends to arise frequently in various types of class actions, such as property insurance and environmental cases: whether property valuation issues are appropriate for class treatment. The answer here was “no,” and the opinion could be useful to defendants in other contexts.

Tarrify Properties, Inc. v. Cuyahoga County, — F.4th –, 2022 WL 2128816 (6th Cir. June 14, 2022) involved a constitutional challenge to a tax foreclosure procedure in Ohio that allowed a county to place foreclosed properties into a “land bank” without allowing the property owner to receive any excess equity. The plaintiff filed a putative class action challenging this foreclosure procedure under takings clauses in the federal and state constitutions. The district court denied class certification, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed.

The proposed class was defined as owners of relevant tax-foreclosed properties who had excess equity at the time of the foreclosure. That was likely the only viable way to define the proposed class because if there was no excess equity, the property owner would have no claim. But this posed what the Sixth Circuit concluded was an insurmountable problem for ascertainability (identifying the class members) and predominance. Class members could not be identified without determining the fair market value of their property at the relevant time, and experts on both sides agreed that this would depend on many factors. And if the defendants’ expert was correct, the named plaintiff had no excess equity, presenting an adequacy of representation problem as well.

The plaintiff argued that this problem could be overcome by relying on the properties’ assessment values, or on the basis that the county was bound by the value it had used for foreclosure purposes under collateral estoppel or judicial estoppel. The Sixth Circuit rejected these arguments, explaining that, although the assessment values were a “default valuation,” they were not “unrebuttable” or a “conclusive answer.” The assessments were up to six years old, and in any event could be challenged in the litigation. As to estoppel, the county board had not made findings on the fair market value of properties in its foreclosure order.

The plaintiff also suggested that the valuation issues could be resolved by a special master, subclasses or through a new “mass appraisal” for litigation purposes. The Sixth Circuit rejected those options as well because they would still require “mini-trials over each property’s value.”

This decision seems helpful to defendants faced with class actions in other contexts where the claims involve property values, such as property insurance cases, and cases alleging that an environmental nuisance such as an odor or dust from a facility has impacted property values in the area.

Photo of Wystan Ackerman Wystan Ackerman

I am a partner at the law firm of Robinson+Cole in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.  My contact information is on the contact page of my blog.  I really enjoy receiving questions, comments, suggestions and even criticism from readers.  So please e-mail me if you…

I am a partner at the law firm of Robinson+Cole in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.  My contact information is on the contact page of my blog.  I really enjoy receiving questions, comments, suggestions and even criticism from readers.  So please e-mail me if you have something to say.  For those looking for my detailed law firm bio, click here.  If you want a more light-hearted and hopefully more interesting summary, read on:

People often ask about my unusual first name, Wystan.  It’s pronounced WISS-ten.  It’s not Winston.  There is no “n” in the middle.  It comes from my father’s favorite poet, W.H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden.  I’ve grown to like the fact that because my name is unusual people tend to remember it better, even if they don’t pronounce it right (and there is no need for anyone to use my last name because I’m always the only Wystan).

I grew up in Deep River, Connecticut, a small town on the west side of the Connecticut River in the south central part of the state.  I’ve always had strong interests in history, politics and baseball.  My heroes growing up were Abraham Lincoln and Wade Boggs (at that time the third baseman for the Boston Red Sox).  I think it was my early fascination with Lincoln that drove me to practice law.  I went to high school at The Williams School in New London, Connecticut, where I edited the school newspaper, played baseball, and was primarily responsible for the installation of a flag pole near the school entrance (it seemed like every other school had one but until my class raised the money and bought one at my urging, Williams had no flag pole).  As a high school senior, my interest in history and politics led me to score high enough on a test of those subjects to be chosen as one of Connecticut’s two delegates to the U.S. Senate Youth Program, which further solidified my interest in law and government.  One of my mentors at Williams was of the view that there were far too many lawyers and I should find something more useful to do, but if I really had to be a lawyer there was always room for one more.  I eventually decided to be that “one more.”  I went on to Bowdoin College, where I wrote for the Bowdoin Orient and majored in government, but took a lot of math classes because I found college math interesting and challenging.  I then went to Columbia Law School, where I was lucky enough to be selected as one of the minions who spent their time fastidiously cite-checking and Blue booking hundred-plus-page articles in the Columbia Law Review.  I also interned in the chambers of then-Judge Sonia Sotomayor when she was a relatively new judge on the Second Circuit, my only connection to someone who now has one-ninth of the last word on what constitutes the law of our land.  I graduated from Columbia in 2001, then worked at Skadden Arps in Boston before returning to Connecticut and joining Robinson+Cole, one of the largest Connecticut-based law firms.  At the end of 2008, I was elected a partner at Robinson+Cole.

I’ve worked on class actions since the start of my career at Skadden.  Being in the insurance capital of Hartford, we have a national insurance litigation practice and I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work on some prominent class actions arising from the 2004 hurricanes in Florida and later Hurricane Katrina, including cases involving the applicability of the flood exclusion, statutes known as valued policy laws, and various other issues.  My interest and experience in class actions gradually led me to focus on that area.

In Connecticut courts I’ve defended various kinds of class actions that go beyond insurance, including cases involving products liability, securities, financial services and consumer contracts.

My insurance class action practice usually takes me outside of Connecticut.  I’ve had the pleasure of working on cases in various federal and state courts and collaborating with great lawyers across the country.  While class actions are an increasingly large part of my practice, I don’t do exclusively class action work.  The rest of my practice involves litigating insurance coverage cases, often at the appellate level.  That also frequently takes me outside of Connecticut.  A highlight of my career thus far was working on Standard Fire Ins. Co. v. Knowles, the U.S. Supreme Court’s first Class Action Fairness Act case.  I was Counsel of Record for Standard Fire on the cert petition, and had the pleasure of working with Ted Boutrous on the merits briefing and oral argument.

I started this blog because writing is one of my favorite things to do and I enjoy following developments in class action law, writing about them and engaging in discussion with others who have an in interest in this area.  It’s a welcome break from day-to-day practice, keeps me current, broadens my network and results in some new business.

When I’m not at my desk or flying around the country trying to save insurance companies from the plaintiffs’ bar, or attending a conference on class actions or insurance litigation (for more on those, see the Seminars/Programs page of this blog), I often can be found playing or reading with my young daughter, helping my wife with her real estate and mortgage businesses, reading a book about history or politics, or watching the Boston Red Sox (I managed to find bleacher seats for Game 2 of the 2004 World Series when Curt Schilling pitched with the bloody sock).  When the weather is good I also love to take the ferry to Block Island, Rhode Island and ride a bike or walk the trails there. If you go, I highly recommend the Clay Head Trail.