State Farm Wins Bid to Decertify Totaled Car Value Class Action

State Farm Automobile Insurance Co. convinced the Sixth Circuit to undo a class certification for owners of 90,000 used vehicles in a lawsuit challenging how the insurer calculated the “actual cash value” of totaled cars.

The district court found it could make a simple estimate of each class member’s damage. But that would incorrectly read a provision of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and eliminate State Farm’s “substantive right” to provide evidence that it paid fair market values to individual class members, according to a 10-7 en banc ruling Friday from the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth ...