State Farm Secures Denial of Class Certification

Skadden secured the denial of class certification, with prejudice, on behalf of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. in an antitrust class action alleging State Farm and other insurers of conspiring to supply inferior auto repair parts. On July 19, Judge James Ware of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California granted the defendants' motion to exclude the testimony of the plaintiffs' expert because his proposed methodology was not sufficiently reliable to be admissible under Daubert, thereby leaving the plaintiffs with no admissible methodology to pursue a class certification.