## Facts

- Airline passengers sued multiple major U.S. airlines and a fare/tariff publishing entity, alleging a conspiracy to fix domestic ticket prices on routes to and from hub airports.
- Plaintiffs sought treble damages under § 4 of the Clayton Act and declaratory/injunctive relief based on alleged Sherman Act § 1 violations.
- The cases were centralized as multidistrict litigation in the Northern District of Georgia.
- Plaintiffs moved to certify a nationwide purchaser class of roughly 12.5 million ticket buyers for a damages class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3).
- Plaintiffs alleged the conspiracy inflated fares by creating a supra-competitive “base” fare that influenced negotiated fares across affected routes.
- Defendants opposed certification, arguing the class was unmanageable and that Rule 23(c)(2) notice could not be provided to such a large, partially unidentifiable group.
- At the court’s request, plaintiffs submitted a class administration plan proposing professional claims administrators and large-scale computerized/scanned processing of transaction and claim data.

## Issues

1. Whether Rule 23(b)(3) predominance and superiority were satisfied where alleged hub-fare price fixing, impact, and damages were to be shown largely through common evidence.
2. Whether manageability concerns and Rule 23(c)(2) notice requirements defeated certification given the extraordinary class size and limits on identifying individual purchasers.

## Decision

- The court granted the motion for class certification and certified a nationwide Rule 23(b)(3) class of domestic airline ticket purchasers.
- The court found common questions about the existence, scope, legality, and marketwide price effects of the alleged conspiracy predominated over individual issues.
- The court held the class action device was superior because individual suits by millions of purchasers would be impractical and economically irrational.
- The court rejected the argument that class size alone made the case unmanageable, relying on plaintiffs’ proposed technology-supported administration plan.
- The court concluded Rule 23(c)(2) required the best practicable notice: individual notice where members could be identified through reasonable effort, supplemented by publication and other methods for the remainder.

## Legal Principles

- Rule 23(b)(3) predominance is satisfied when liability, common impact, and damages in a horizontal price-fixing case can be established through generalized proof common to the class.
- Superiority favors class treatment where individual claims are small relative to litigation costs and aggregate harm is widespread, making individual litigation unrealistic.
- Manageability under Rule 23(b)(3) is a pragmatic inquiry; very large consumer classes may be certified if credible methods exist to administer claims and damages.
- Rule 23(c)(2) requires the best notice practicable under the circumstances, including individual notice to all members identifiable through reasonable effort, with alternative notice methods permissible where identification is not feasible.
- Rule 23(a) requirements are met where millions of purchasers make joinder impracticable and named plaintiffs’ purchases and legal theories align with the proposed class, supported by adequate representation.

## Conclusion

The court certified a nationwide damages class in an airline hub fare-fixing MDL, holding that common proof of conspiracy, marketwide price effects, and aggregate damages predominated, class treatment was superior to millions of individual actions, and notice and administration were workable through reasonable identification efforts and a technology-assisted claims plan.


In re Domestic Air Transp. Antitrust Litig., 137 F.R.D. 677 (N.D. Ga. 1991)