California Federal Court Denies Class Cert in Dispute Alleging Predatory Lending, Deceptive Sales Tactics

On April 23, the U.S. District for the Southern District of California denied a motion for class certification in a dispute alleging predatory lending and deceptive sales tactics against a mortgage lender. Buckley v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., No. 09-0064, 2010 WL 1691451 (S.D. Cal. Apr. 23, 2010). The lawsuit alleges that the lender and its affiliate engaged in a practice of predatory lending and used deceptive sales tactics in connection with their issuance of residential mortgage loans throughout the state of Washington, in violation of Washington’s Consumer Protection Act (WCPA). The borrower moved to certify a class of thousands of similarly-affected Washington homeowners. After finding that the putative class met the threshold requirements of numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy of representation, the court found that the class did not meet the predominance requirement under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 23(b). The court reasoned that individualized factual questions about the lenders’ various representations during the lending process would predominate over the common issues, such that the parties were not best served through a single action. As a result, the court did not certify the class.