ROBERT LARSCHAN, APPELLANT,
v.
PRINCIPAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, A CORPORATION, APPELLEE
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The court held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying class certification based on the identified differences between the named plaintiff's claim and those of the proposed class members.
[1] A trial court does not abuse its discretion in denying class certification when the named plaintiff's claims and concerns differ significantly from those of the proposed…
[2] Differences in the specific benefits at issue and the acceptance or rejection of a replacement policy can support a finding that a named plaintiff's claims are not typica…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceA beneficiary of a health insurance policy sued the insurer, alleging wrongful termination of enrollment and automatic enrollment in a replacement pla…
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KLEIN, J.
Larschan, a beneficiary of a health insurance policy issued by Principal, filed this suit as a class action, alleging that Principal wrongfully terminated its customers’ enrollment in a plan, informing them that they would automatically be enrolled in a replacement plan which had lower benefits. The class members Lar-schan is attempting to represent are employees whose employers had originally purchased the same type of policy as Lar-schan, and whose health care plans were replaced by Principal with the plan with inferior benefits. Larschan appeals the trial court’s order denying his motion for class certification. We affirm.
Larschan’s complaint about the replacement policy is that it has lower physical therapy benefits. His wife, who is ill with two very serious diseases, requires much more physical therapy than the replacement policy allows.
The trial court found that Larschan’s claim differed from those who would have been members of the class for the following reasons.
First, Lar-schan’s complaint centered around the lowered physical therapy benefits under the replacement policy, which was not a benefit about which the members of the class would necessarily have been concerned.
Second, Larschan had not accepted the replacement policy, while the members of the class were members of plans under replacement policies accepted by their employers.
Third, the replacement policies carried a lower premium which may have been more attractive to the members of the class than having the benefit of having more physical therapy.
Fourth, because the members of the class were currently enrolled in employee benefit plans, their claims could be preempted by ERISA, while Larschan’s claim, for simply wrongfully terminating his original policy, would not.
Although we are not deciding whether the employees’ claims would be preempted by ERISA, we have concluded that the court’s other reasons for denying class action status were consistent with Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.220 and did not constitute an abuse of discretion. Affirmed.
POLEN and HAZOURI, JJ., concur.
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Carnival Corp. v. Gagliano, 907 So. 2d 647 (Fla. 3d DCA 2005)…W.D.Wash.1998), cited with approval in Samuelov v. Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc., 870 So. 2d 853, 855 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003). We reverse the class certification on the grounds of lack of commonality and typicality. See Larschan v. Principal Life Ins. Co., 908 So. 2d 510, 2005 WL 1458641 (Fla. 4th DCA Case no. 4D03-4824, opinion filed, June 22, 2005); Liggett Group Inc. v. Engle, 853 So. 2d 434 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003), review granted, 873 So. 2d 1222 (Fla.2004); Norwegian Cruise Lines v. Rose, 784 So. 2d 1248 (Fla. 3d DC…