Local 703 v. Regions Financial Corporation

Case Updates

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit denied the request by Regions Financial Corporation to rehear its denial of a petition for permission to appeal under Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(f) an order certifying a class of securities purchasers.

In its brief, the Chamber asked the Eleventh Circuit to grant immediate review under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 23(f) of an Alabama district court’s order certifying a securities class action. The defendant in the proposed class action introduced a price impact study showing that the alleged misrepresentations had no statistically significant impact on price, and the plaintiffs offered no rebuttal evidence. The district court nonetheless certified the class action reasoning that the defendant’s stock price fell after corrective disclosures and that questions of causation should be left for the jury.

The Chamber’s brief argued that this decision ignored the Supreme Court’s holding in Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 2398 (2014): that defendants may rebut the presumption that an alleged fraud caused market-wide injury at the certification stage.

Anna M. Manasco, Scott Burnett Smith, and Jonathan C. “Rudy” Hill of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP represented the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in this case.