Guy E. Adams, et al. v. Charlie Frank Robertson and Liberty National Life Insurance Company (520 U.S. 83)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 3, 1997 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 520 U.S. 83 · 117 S. Ct. 1028
- Decided
- March 3, 1997
- Term
- October Term 1996
- Vote
- 9–0
- Issue area
- Judicial Power
- Disposition
- Petition denied or appeal dismissed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Per Curiam. We granted a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court of Alabama to decide whether the Alabama courts’ approval of the class action and the settlement agreement in this case, without affording all class members the right to exclude themselves from the class or the agreement, violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Alabama Supreme Court did not address this federal issue, and it is now apparent that petitioners have failed to establish that they properly presented the issue to that court. We therefore dismiss the writ as improvidently granted. I — < In 1992, respondent Charlie Frank Robertson filed a class-action suit in an Alabama trial court, alleging that Liberty National Life Insurance Company had fraudulently encouraged its customers to exchange existing health insurance policies for new policies that, according to Robertson, provided less coverage for cancer treatment. The trial court appointed Robertson as class representative and certified the class pursuant to provisions of the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure that do not give class members the right to exclude themselves from a class. See 676 So. 2d 1265, 1268, 1270 (Ala. 1995); App. 90. The trial court then approved a settlement agreement that precluded class members from individually suing Liberty National for fraud based on its insurance policy exchange program. See 676 So.…
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