## Facts

- Numerous asbestos personal-injury actions were pending in the Eastern District of Texas against multiple asbestos product manufacturers and suppliers.
- The district court certified a plaintiff class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3) consisting of persons with asbestos-related personal-injury actions pending in that district as of a specified date.
- The certification and case-management plan contemplated a phased process:
  - a class-wide trial on common issues, including defendants’ knowledge of asbestos hazards (“state of the art”), certain defenses, and conduct relevant to punitive damages;
  - later individual trials for specific causation and compensatory damages for unnamed class members; and
  - a subsequent punitive-damages phase informed by the class jury’s findings about defendants’ overall conduct.
- Thirteen defendant manufacturers/suppliers took an interlocutory appeal challenging the certification and proposed trial structure.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court abused its discretion in finding Rule 23(a) prerequisites (numerosity, commonality, typicality, adequacy) and certifying the class under Rule 23(b)(3) based on predominance and superiority.
2. Whether Texas law permits the proposed multi-phased structure, including separating common punitive-damages-related determinations from individual liability, causation, and compensatory damages.
3. Whether the certification and phased punitive-damages procedure is unconstitutional on its face, including under due process principles.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit affirmed the class certification order.
- The court held the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding Rule 23(a) and Rule 23(b)(3) were satisfied.
- The court held Texas law did not bar the proposed bifurcation/multi-phased approach, including a class-wide treatment of issues tied to defendants’ conduct relevant to punitive damages.
- The court rejected facial constitutional objections as premature or speculative, holding the structure was not inherently violative of due process, while leaving room for later as-applied challenges.

## Legal Principles

- Rule 23(b)(3) certification may be appropriate in mass-tort litigation when identified common issues (such as defendants’ general knowledge and conduct) predominate for the certified phase, even if individual causation and damages require later proceedings.
- Predominance does not require that common questions resolve the entire case; certification may target discrete common issues whose repeated proof would otherwise burden courts and parties.
- Superiority may be satisfied where aggregation reduces duplicative evidence and inconsistent outcomes and provides a more efficient method than individualized trials for resolving common issues.
- Under Texas practice, punitive-damages-related inquiries focusing on a defendant’s conduct may be tried separately from individualized causation and compensatory-damages determinations.
- Facial due process challenges to innovative phased trial plans generally fail absent a showing that the structure necessarily prevents defendants from presenting individualized defenses; procedural safeguards and later as-applied review remain available.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit upheld a Rule 23(b)(3) asbestos class and a phased trial plan that tried common “state of the art” and conduct issues (including punitive-damages-related questions) on a class-wide basis, while reserving specific causation and compensatory damages for individual proceedings, finding the approach permissible under Rule 23, consistent with Texas law, and not unconstitutional on its face.


Jenkins v. Raymark Indus., Inc., 782 F.2d 468 (5th Cir. 1986)