Pennsylvania Code
Title 231 - RULES OF CIVIL PROCEDURE
Part I - GENERAL
Chapter 1700 - CLASS ACTIONS
Appendix A - ANALYSIS OF THE RULES
Rule 1701 - Definitions. Conformity

Subdivision (a) defines "Class Action" to include any action brought by or against parties as representatives of a class until the court refuses to certify it as such or revokes a prior certification.

This definition follows language in Bell v. Beneficial Consumer Discount Company, 465 Pa. 225, 348 A.2d 734 (1975), that "when an action is instituted by a named individual on behalf of himself and a class, the members of the class are more properly characterized as parties to the action. A subsequent order of a trial court allowing an action to proceed as a class action is not a joinder of the parties not yet in the action. The class is in the action until properly excluded."

This definition becomes important in determining the effect of the commencement of a class action as tolling the statute of limitations as to the members of the class other than the named representatives. It carries into effect the decision of the United States Supreme Court in American Pipe and Construction Company v. State of Utah, 414 U. S. 538, 38 L. Ed.2d 713, 94 S. Ct. 756 (1974), in which the Court held that the commencement of an action as a class action suspends the applicable statute of limitations during the interim period from commencement until refusal to certify as to all putative members of the class who would have been parties if the action had been certified as such.

Subdivision (b), Rule 1701, conforms the practice and procedure except as otherwise specifically provided to the form of action in which relief is sought, which could ordinarily be assumpsit, trespass, equity or declaratory judgment. The exceptions are primarily concerned with the pleadings as provided by later rules.

The rules do not deal specifically with jurisdiction over non-resident members of the class. This issue becomes of importance in view of recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court respecting Federal jurisdiction in many types of class actions based on diversity, which must now be brought in state courts.

In Snyder v. Harris, 394 U. S. 332, 89 S. Ct. 1053, 22 L. Ed.2d 319 (1969), and Zahn v. International Paper Co., 414 U. S. 291, 38 L. Ed.2d 511, 94 S. Ct. 505 (1973), the Court held that, in diversity cases and in other cases where statutes impose a jurisdictional amount, claims of individual class members below the minimum cannot be aggregated to meet the jurisdictional requirement. Each member's claim must separately qualify.

In Klemow v. Time, Incorporated, 466 Pa. 189, 352 A.2d 12 (1976), certiorari denied, 429 U. S. 828, 97 S. Ct. 86, 50 L. Ed.2d 91 (1976), an action nominally brought on behalf of all subscribers to Time magazine, the court in footnote 15 stated that "because the jurisdiction of the courts of the Commonwealth is territorially limited, the class may consist only of Pennsylvania residents. The class may also include nonresidents who submit themselves to the jurisdiction of the state courts."

This holding would require nonresidents in this type of "national" consumer class action to intervene or to appear through an opt-in procedure which is provided for by Rule 1711(b)(2).

Klemow does not definitely decide the status of nonresidents where the subject matter of the action is a res or fund within Pennsylvania or is an attack on corporate action of a Pennsylvania corporation involving only bondholders or creditors in other jurisdictions. Nor did it involve a situation where Pennsylvania has the most significant relationship to all aspects of the transaction, so that Pennsylvania might assume jurisdiction over non-resident members of the class in a manner parallel to long-arm jurisdiction over non-resident defendants.

Jurisdiction over non-residents is clearly substantive and not procedural and for this reason is not dealt with in the rules.