231 Pa. Code app A R. 1701 Definitions. Conformity

• Library: Pennsylvania Code (Rules and Regulations)
• Edition: 2023
• Citation: 231 Pa. Code app A R. 1701
• Year: 2023

Subdivision (a) defines "Class Action" to include any action brought by or against parties as representatives of a class until the court refuses to certify it as such or revokes a prior certification.

This definition follows language in Bell v. Beneficial Consumer Discount Company, 465 Pa. 225, 348 A.2d 734 (1975), that "when an action is instituted by a named individual on behalf of himself and a class, the members of the class are more properly characterized as parties to the action. A subsequent order of a trial court allowing an action to proceed as a class action is not a joinder of the parties not yet in the action. The class is in the action until properly excluded."

This definition becomes important in determining the effect of the commencement of a class action as tolling the statute of limitations as to the members of the class other than the named representatives. It carries into effect the decision of the United States Supreme Court in American Pipe and Construction Company v. State of Utah, 414 U. S. 538, 38 L. Ed.2d 713, 94 S. Ct. 756 (1974), in which the Court held that the commencement of an action as a class action suspends the applicable statute of limitations during the interim period from commencement until refusal to certify as to all putative members of the class who would have been parties if the action had been certified as such.

Subdivision (b), Rule 1701, conforms the practice and procedure except as otherwise specifically provided to the form of action in which relief is sought, which could ordinarily be assumpsit, trespass, equity or declaratory judgment. The exceptions are primarily concerned with the pleadings as provided by later rules.

The rules do not deal specifically with jurisdiction over non-resident members of the class. This issue becomes of importance in view of recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court respecting Federal jurisdiction in many types of class actions based on diversity, which must now be brought in state courts.

In Snyder v. Harris, 394 U. S. 332, 89 S. Ct. 1053, 22 L. Ed.2d 319 (1969), and Zahn v. International Paper Co., 414 U. S. 291, 38 L. Ed.2d 511, 94 S. Ct. 505 (1973), the Court held that, in diversity cases and in other cases where statutes impose a jurisdictional amount, claims of individual class members below the...