Brian Wolfman
It appears that the Ninth Circuit has a rule requiring it to issue at least one decision about the Class Action Fairness Act every week. I recently blogged here and here on new Ninth Circuit CAFA decisions, the latter of which (Progressive West v. Preciado) addressed when a post-CAFA amendment to a pre-CAFA state-court complaint “relates back” to that complaint. In its most recent decision, McAtee v. Capital One, No. 07-55065 (9th Cir. Mar. 16, 2007), the Ninth Circuit expounded on Preciado and held that any amendment to an original class action complaint filed in California state court, whether to add new causes of action, to add or replace plaintiffs, or to add or replace defendants, does not change the commencement date of the action for CAFA purposes, which is the date the original complaint was filed. That holding arguably goes beyond the ordinary scope of the relation-back doctrine. Cf. Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(c)(2) and (3). The Ninth Circuit’s relation-back holding was based on California procedural law, which the Ninth Circuit said it was required to apply under Erie. Cf. Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(c)(1).
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