LAURA MULLEN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. GLV, INC.; RICK BUTLER; and CHERYL BUTLER, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 20-3021
United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit
ARGUED OCTOBER 25, 2021 — DECIDED JUNE 23, 2022
Before EASTERBROOK, ROVNER, and WOOD, Circuit Judges.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 18 C 1465 — Matthew F. Kennelly, Judge.
This suit’s fade-out after the fashion of the Cheshire Cat raised jurisdictional questions, because all litigants are citizens of Illinois, the claim rests on state law, and the remaining stakes are modest. The sole asserted basis of federal jurisdiction is the Class Action Fairness Act, which applies to class actions with more than 100 class members, stakes exceeding $5 million, and minimal diversity of citizenship.
Section
That they can be enforced without a request by a litigant follows from their classification as abstention doctrines. The Supreme Court has held that abstention “may be raised by the court sua sponte.” Bellotti v. Baird, 428 U.S. 132, 143 n.10 (1976). See also International College of Surgeons v. Chicago, 153 F.3d 356, 360–61 (7th Cir. 1998); Charles Alan Wright et al., 17A Federal Practice and Procedure §4243 at 360 (“The court may decide on its own motion to abstain“), §4245 at 411 (3d ed. 2007).
As it happens, however, the litigation depicted in the appellate briefs is as the district judge shaped it—that is, as a one-state class (with perhaps some people who drove into Illinois for volleyball, but surely more than two-thirds citizens of Illinois). The initial pleading asked the district court to certify a national class, and perhaps half of GLV’s business is conducted outside Illinois. Jurisdiction depends on the state of matters when a suit begins. See, e.g., Johnson v. Wattenbarger, 361 F.3d 991, 993 (7th Cir. 2004). This means that the requirements for jurisdiction under
Rick Butler is among the country’s most successful volleyball coaches. Literature and websites promoting Sports Performance Volleyball Club (the Club) tout his success and assert that other members of the staff are “extremely qualified.” The Club’s teams and graduates have won multiple national championships. Mullen does not contend that any of these statements is false. Instead she observes that the Club’s promotional material is silent about the conclusions of two bodies—the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and USA Volleyball—that in 1981, 1984, and 1987 Butler had sexual intercourse with at least three underage girls he was training. The Department and USA Volleyball both found, in reports issued in 1995, that the sexual relations were immoral and unethical, whether or not they were lawful. Butler maintains that the girls were 18 and the encounters consensual.
Mullen lost on summary judgment, however, because she concedes knowing about the Department’s and USA Volleyball’s findings. These reports were not buried in desk drawers and forgotten. They have been discussed in public repeatedly. There is even a Wikipedia page devoted to the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Butler_sexual_abuse_allegations. The page links to many public airings of the accusations and findings. Mullen herself participated in online discussions of this topic, and she posted messages that boil down to a view that the Club’s high-quality programs make events of years ago less important. (No one has accused Butler of any sexual misconduct since the 1980s, though he has coached thousands of girls and women.) Mullen enrolled one of her daughters in one of the Club’s programs in 2018, after she filed this suit. All of this made Mullen a poor representative of parents who may have enrolled daughters in ignorance, the district judge thought, and ultimately scuttled Mullen’s substantive claims because she could not show injury.
Mullen replies that, although she knew about findings adverse to Butler, she just didn’t believe them—and wasn’t prepared to believe them unless Butler confessed on the Club’s own website. Mullen does not say that she confronted Butler
Mullen’s principal argument on appeal is that, whatever may be true for common-law claims, two statutes dispense with both proof of scienter and any need to show detrimental reliance on material omissions. She is right about the latter proposition. The Supreme Court of Illinois has held that the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act does not require a plaintiff to show reliance but does require the plaintiff to show that a fraud proximately caused injury. Connick v. Suzuki Motor Co., 174 Ill. 2d 482, 501 (1996). The need to show injury is in the statute’s own text, for it limits recovery to loss that is “a result of a violation of [the] Act.”
Like the district judge, we do not take any position on whether the reports are right about what happened in the 1980s, let alone on whether Butler’s behavior was ethical even if the girls had reached the age of 18. Nor do we decide whether a parent who was unaware of the findings adverse to Butler could state a claim under Illinois law. It is enough to observe that no one who professed ignorance stepped in to replace Mullen as a potential class representative. This class was never decertified, but in practice this became an individual suit by Mullen alone. GLV’s other customers were not notified and given an opportunity to opt out, so the judicial decisions cannot affect them. Today’s outcome does not bind any other person whose children attended the Club. On that understanding, the judgment is
AFFIRMED.