On August 26, 2021, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas granted final approval of a settlement between the parties in this class action. WLF had filed an amicus brief on February 1, 2021 with the Fifth Circuit in the case, asking the court to decertify an unwieldy class of USAA life insurance policyholders. Over USAA’s objections, the trial court certified a class that included many policyholders who suffered no harm or loss from USAA’s COI calculations. The court also allowed the plaintiffs to establish commonality of classwide damages based solely on expert testimony that would be inadmissible at trial. In its amicus brief urging reversal, WLF advances two arguments. First, by certifying a class that includes many uninjured policyholders, the district court far exceeded its jurisdictional reach under Article III, which requires every plaintiff to have suffered a cognizable injury in fact. Second, by declining to decide the admissibility of expert evidence at the certification stage, the district court contravened circuit precedent and dramatically lowered the bar for class certification.
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