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Law360 (June 17, 2020, 7:16 PM EDT ) Consumers urged the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to consolidate in Illinois more than 30 putative class actions alleging that foreign and domestic airlines have refused to refund passengers for flights canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
There are currently 38 lawsuits making those claims pending in 16 different district courts, but "the salient factual core is the same in each case," those consumers told the panel on Tuesday. Consolidation makes sense given the "overwhelming similarity" and the overlapping classes, and having one judge preside over all cases centered around pandemic-related airfare refunds would conserve judicial resources, said the movants, who are 12 plaintiffs in the various lawsuits at issue.
"Centralization will provide a uniform and orderly resolution to this industry-wide practice that has disadvantaged people across the United States in a time of great need," the plaintiffs said. "It will avoid wasting the resources of the parties and of courts across the country, and ensure consistency of important pre-trial rulings, including on class certification."
Given the geographic dispersal of the actions and how many airline passengers across the country have been affected, any forum where cases are currently pending over the refunds could be appropriate, they said. But they suggested the Northern District of Illinois, where the first-filed of any of the lawsuits is among those pending before the U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin, who is not currently assigned an MDL.
Other candidate forums suggested include the Southern District of Florida, home to the cases against Spirit Airlines, against which more suits have been filed than any other defendant, according to the motion; or the Northern District of Georgia, where Delta, the world's largest airline by revenue, is headquartered.
Each of the pending lawsuits alleges breach of contract, and differences between the airlines' contracts of carriage are likely irrelevant, the consumers said, citing a notice from the U.S. Department of Transportation issued in April reminding airlines that passengers should be refunded for scheduled flights that have been canceled or significantly delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"This is because DOT and other federal guidance and regulation mandates the issuance of such refunds such that any contractual provision that would purport to require a contrary outcome is likely void as contrary to law and/or public policy," they said.
Although there will be unique questions of fact from airline to airline, the core allegations are the same, they said.
The 38 putative class actions include cases against 12 foreign and nine domestic carriers of all sizes, and "numerous additional cases will undoubtedly continue to be filed in the coming weeks," the consumers said.
The lawsuits all allege that the airlines have refused to honor the refund obligations laid out in their contracts with ticket buyers and in federal guidance, instead offering customers an "unwanted raincheck," according to the motion.
"As a result, passengers nationwide have been deprived of refunds to which they are entitled for flights that they did not take, in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in living memory," the consumers told the panel.
Representatives of the parties could not be immediately reached for comment on Wednesday.
The movants are represented by Nicholas A. Coulson of Liddle & Dubin PC.
The airlines are represented by firms that include Holland & Knight LLP, Kelly Hart & Hallman LLP, Greenberg Traurig PA, DLA Piper US LLP, King & Spalding LLP, Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, Bennett Bricklin & Salzburg LLC, Stinson LLP, Frank Weinberg & Black PL, Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP, Riley Safer Holmes & Cancila LLP, Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss, Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP and Condon & Forsyth LLP.
The proposed MDL is In re: COVID-19 Airfare Refund Litigation, MDL No. 114.
--Editing by Jay Jackson Jr.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
