D.D.C.: Strip search class rejected for no limit to lack of RS

Plaintiff’s proposed arrestee strip search class definition is denied for not limiting it to those strip searched without reasonable suspicion. Lewis v. District of Columbia, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 160706 (D. D.C. Sept. 3, 2020):

As currently drafted, the plaintiffs’ class definition for the proposed Illegal Strip Search Class includes all individuals who were subjected to a strip search, regardless of whether the strip search was conducted pursuant to the alleged blanket strip search policy, see Pls.’ Mot. at 4, and unlike the classes that were certified in the cases upon which the plaintiffs rely in support of their argument that common questions predominate, see Johnson v. District of Columbia, 248 F.R.D. 46 (D.D.C. 2008); Barnes v. District of Columbia, 242 F.R.D. 113 (D.D.C. 2007); Bynum v. District of Columbia, 217 F.R.D. 43 (D.D.C. 2003), the plaintiffs have failed to limit the proposed Illegal Strip Search Class to individuals who were subjected to a strip search without any individualized finding of reasonable suspicion that he or she was concealing a weapon or other contraband, cf. Johnson, 248 F.R.D. at 50 n.3 (defining class as including women who were “subjected to a blanket strip … search without any individualized finding of reasonable suspicion or probable cause that she was concealing drugs, weapons or other contraband”); Barnes, 242 F.R.D. at 121 (defining class as including individuals who were “subject[ed] to a strip search … without any individualized finding of reasonable suspicion or probable cause that [he or she] was concealing contraband or weapons”); Bynum, 217 F.R.D. at 46 (defining class as including individuals who were “subjected to a strip search … without any individualized finding of reasonable suspicion or probable cause that he [or she] was concealing contraband or weapons”). Therefore, the proposed Illegal Strip Search Class includes individuals who were subjected to a strip search that was conducted pursuant to an individualized finding of reasonable suspicion that he or she was concealing a weapon or other contraband. And, as the District correctly notes, “the Court cannot … resolve in ‘one stroke’ the question of whether the strip[ ]search of each putative class member violated the Fourth Amendment,” Def.’s Opp’n at 15 (quoting Amador v. Baca, 299 F.R.D. 618, 624 (C.D. Cal. 2014)), and instead must conduct individualized liability determinations on a case-by-case basis to ascertain whether each putative class member was subjected to a strip search pursuant to an alleged blanket strip search policy or pursuant to a reasonable suspicion that the individual in question was concealing a weapon or other contraband. And, the need for such individualized determinations defeat the predominance requirement of Rule 23(b)(3), see Daskalea v. Wash. Humane Soc., 275 F.R.D. 346, 369 (D.D.C. 2011) (denying class certification under Rule 23(b)(3) after finding that “liability determinations will necessarily be individualized”), and thus, the Court must also deny the plaintiffs’ motion to certify the Illegal Strip Search Class.

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