Judge Jack Weinstein is no stranger to class actions; he has decided a number of them over the years. And while no one can deny his inventiveness, he has at times drawn criticism for his predisposition for finding judicial solutions to widespread social problems. Judge Weinstein’s reputation is part of what makes the case of Ramirez v. Dollar Phone Corp so interesting.

The case itself deals with prepaid calling cards — which are most often used by low-income immigrants (because they can use the cards for international calls at relatively low rates).

Plaintiffs’ central allegation was that: "Law enforcement agencies and researchers investigating the industry have discovered widespread discrepancies between the amount of calling time claimed in advertising and marketing materials, and the calling time actually available to card users."

So the plaintiffs sued for violation of various states’ consumer fraud acts, and the defendant moved to dismiss.

It appears from the opinion that–at this point–Judge Weinstein took an unusual step. While the defendants only moved for dismissal, Judge Weinstein converted their motion into a limited summary judgment motion, and then sua sponte denied certification of the class. Once he denied certification, he dismissed the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. (This opinion was issued before the Seventh and Eleventh Circuit ruled that a federal court retains jurisdiction over CAFA cases even after it denies class certification.)

Judge Weinstein held that the patchwork of state laws addressing issue meant that, in this case, individual issues would predominate over common issues. Judge Weinstein tried very hard to limit the case to its specific facts, but he still laid out clear circumstances that would be useful to defense lawyers.

While variations in state laws are ordinarily a predominance problem, Judge Weinstein treated the complications with the proposed class as a superiority problem. Since there is no uniformity among state regulations of calling cards, he reasoned federal government regulation would be superior. What is significant is that, in this particular case, the federal government was not actively regulating the issue in the same way as in some other cases involving findings of no superiority.   Judge Weinstein, recognized this issue, but decided that it was not enough to overcome the problems with the proposed class:

In general it is inappropriate to deny those wronged civilly a fallback court-supervised remedy when the administrative law segment of our justice system has neglected to provide an available superior form of protection. There are, however, instances where the litigation remedy is relatively so inferior as to warrant denying it altogether in the hope that administrative justice will prevail. This is such an instance.

So what can defendants take from this? Sometimes, a "private attorney general" is not enough to overcome a problem facing a vulnerable section of society.  Sometimes, a problem requires government intervention. And sometimes–when the need is clear enough–that argument can convince even the unlikeliest of judges that a class action is not appropriate