The United States Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision on June 5, 2025, dismissed the highly anticipated case of Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings v. Davis as “improvidently granted.” Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, dba Labcorp, v. Luke Davis, et al., No. 22-55873. The decision, or lack thereof, sidesteps a critical question for class action litigation: whether a damages class can be certified under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 when it includes individuals who have not suffered any actual injury.
LabCorp was challenging a Ninth Circuit decision that allowed the certification of a massive class of visually impaired individuals under California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act. Cal. Civ. Code. § 51. The suit alleged LabCorp’s check-in kiosks were inaccessible, triggering statutory damages of $4,000 per violation. With a class size potentially in the hundreds of thousands, the exposure was astronomical—a classic case of “bet the company” litigation.
Background of the Case
LabCorp is a clinical diagnostic laboratory that tests samples collected from patients at its patient service centers. In a suit filed before the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, a group of legally blind and visually impaired individuals sued LabCorp under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Unruh Civil Rights Act, alleging that the company’s self-service check-in kiosks were inaccessible. The District Court certified a damages class consisted of “[a]ll legally blind individuals in California who visited a LabCorp patient service center in California during the applicable limitations period and were denied full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations due to LabCorp’s failure to make its e-check-in kiosks accessible to legally blind individuals.”
LabCorp filed a petition under Rule 23(f)’s interlocutory appellate procedure, contending that the class encompassed uninjured individuals.
While LabCorp’s petition was pending, the District Court clarified the class definition, explaining that the class included “[a]ll legally blind individuals who . . . , due to their disability, were unable to use” LabCorp kiosks.
Subsequently, the Ninth Circuit granted LabCorp’s Rule 23(f) petition. LabCorp’s key argument was that the class was fatally overly broad and swept in countless individuals who may have never intended to use a kiosk in the first place, and thus suffered no actual injury. The Ninth Circuit relying on its opinion in Olean Wholesale Grocery Coop., Inc. v. Bumble Bee Foods LLC, 31 F.4th 651, 665 (9th Cir. 2022), held that a class can be certified even if it includes “more than a de minimis number of uninjured class members.”
Supreme Court Proceedings
The Supreme Court initially granted certiorari to address the question of “[w]hether a federal court may certify a class action pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3) when some members of the proposed class lack any Article III injury.” However, after oral arguments, the Court dismissed the case in a one-line order, without ruling on the merits, stating that the writ of certiorari was “improvidently granted.”
Justice Kavanaugh’s Dissent
Justice Kavanaugh dissented from the dismissal, expressing that the Court should have addressed the merits. He argued (correctly) that certifying a damages class containing uninjured members is inconsistent with Rule 23, which requires that common questions of law or fact predominate in class actions. Notably, Kavanaugh also emphasized the risk from “[c]lasses that are overinflated with uninjured members rais[ing] the stakes for businesses that are the targets of class actions.” He went on to underscore that certifying such classes “can coerce businesses into costly settlements that they sometimes must reluctantly swallow rather than betting the company on the uncertainties of trial.”
“Classes that are overinflated with uninjured members raise the stakes for businesses that are the targets of class actions.”
The Circuit Split
This decision effectively leaves undisturbed the split in authorities that has existed since the Supreme Court’s decision in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413, 431 (2021). In TransUnion, while the Supreme Court held that “[e]very class member must have Article III standing in order to recover individual damages,” it did not decide when a class member’s standing must be established and whether a class can be certified if it contains uninjured class members. Subsequently, while some courts have denied class certification if there are uninjured class members, other courts have found it appropriate to address a class member’s standing after certification.
LabCorp, in its petition for certiorari, addressed the “three camps” of opinions:
- Circuits holds that a class may not be certified where it includes members who have suffered no Article III injury (the Second Circuit, Eighth Circuit, and some courts in the Fifth and Sixth Circuits);
- Circuits that have strictly applied Rule 23(b)(3)’s predominance requirement to reject classes that contain more than a de minimis number of uninjured members (the D.C. Circuit and the First Circuit); and
- Circuits that have held that the presence of uninjured class members should not ordinarily prevent certification (the Ninth Circuit, Seventh Circuit, and Eleventh Circuit).
In light of the majority opinion, this question remains unresolved.