PITTSBURGH — A federal judge has refused a request to send a class action complaint regarding hair rollers back to state court.
Bruce Winkworth and Marcia Botelho filed a class action in the Court of Common Pleas of Jefferson County alleging Spectrum Brands sold Remington Hot Rollers with a “defective and dangerous condition.” Spectrum removed the complaint to federal court. U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Dodge, of the Western District of Pennsylvania, issued an opinion Oct. 21 on the plaintiffs’ motion to remand their lawsuit.
Dodge said the issue is the jurisdictional requirements of the Class Action Fairness Act. The original complaint does not state the amount in controversy, but Spectrum said the amount exceeds the threshold of $5 million that grants jurisdiction to the federal court.
The complaint calls for creation of two classes, a nationwide injunctive and declaratory relief class and a damages class for Pennsylvanians only, and seeks on behalf of both “compensatory, direct, incidental and consequential damages, including full refunds or replacement of the Hot Rollers with a nondefective product at least the quality and grade marketed and promised, as well as the shipment at Spectrum’s expense for breach of express warranties,” Dodge wrote.
Spectrum arrived at its estimate by taking the prospective size of the nationwide class and looking at the cost of refunds or product replacements for the $25 rollers. That equates to 200,081 buyers, but the number of rollers sold in the putative four-year class period exceeds 400,000.
The plaintiffs insisted they are not seeking that many refunds, only for Pennsylvania class members who have breach of express warranty claims. Dodge called that position “untenable” both because it improperly binds proposed class members before certification and contradicts with their complaint’s request that a court declare all rollers sold within the four years “are covered under Spectrum’s express and implied warranties,” a declaration that necessarily entitles all customers to a refund or replacement.
“It is entirely appropriate for Spectrum to rely upon national sales data over the relevant time period to prove to a reasonable certainty that jurisdiction exists,” Dodge wrote.