An insured brought action against his property insurer arising out of Hurricane Katrina, and argued that prescription was interrupted by a federal mass joinder complaint in which the insured was a named plaintiff. The question, as framed by the Court, was: “Does a plaintiff who is a putative class member, but who elects to file a separate suit prior to a resolution of the class certification issue, effectively ‘opt out’ of the class action and forfeit the benefit of the suspension of prescription resulting from the filing of the class action?”  Answering the question No, the Court reasoned that Article 596 “rests on the premise that members of a putative class are treated as parties to the action and, thus, for prescription purposes as having instituted their own actions, for as long as they remain members of the class.  Therefore, according to the plain language of La. C.C.P. art. 596, a petition brought on behalf of a class suspends prescription as to all members of the class as described or defined therein. This suspension continues until thirty days after one of three events occurs: (1) a person elects to be excluded from the class by submitting an election form; (2) a person is excluded from the class by the redefinition or restriction of the class (and notice thereof is issued); or (3) the action is dismissed, the demand for class relief is stricken, or class certification is revoked or refused (and notice thereof issued) (i.e., suspension continues unless or until an individual ceases to be a member of the class, and an individual ceases to be a member of the class when one of three events occurs). These three events are the exclusive statutory triggers for recommencing the accrual of liberative prescription on the claims of those persons described or defined in the class action petition.  Louisiana has chosen to tie exclusion from a class (and the recommencing of prescription under Article 596(A)(1)) to the submission of an election form. Had the legislature intended for the filing of an individual lawsuit to constitute one of the methods for ‘opting out of’ or electing exclusion from a class, the legislature could have added appropriate language to that effect to the relevant articles. It did not; thus, the filing of an individual lawsuit is not, pursuant to the Code of Civil Procedure articles, a means of requesting exclusion from a class and/or of recommencing the prescriptive clock.”  Duckworth v. Louisiana Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co., 11-2835 (La. 11/2/12), 2012 WL 5374248.