Property owners filed class action against railroads and city/parish, alleging that inadequate box culverts installed and maintained by railroad, combined with inadequate drainage facilities, caused flooding. Following Ford v. Murphy Oil, the Louisiana Supreme Court rejected class certification. “In requiring common causation in a mass tort cases, we point out that this does not mean that the amount or extent of damages must be common to all class members. The mere fact that varying degrees of damages may result from the same factual transaction and same legal relationship or that class members must individually prove their right to recover does not preclude class certification. However, in order to meet the common cause requirement, each member of the class must be able to prove individual causation based on the same set of operative facts and law that would be used by any other class member to prove causation. For example, the cause of flooding must be the same for each member of the class, and if there is more than one cause of flooding, each of these causes must be the same for each class member.” Brooks v. Union Pacific, 2008-2035 (La. 5/22/2009), 13 So.3d 546.
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