Ninth Circuit Rejects Challenges To Conjoint Analysis In Consumer Class Action

Published date30 December 2021
Subject MatterConsumer Protection, Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Consumer Law, Class Actions
Law FirmJenner & Block
AuthorAlexander Smith

In recent years, conjoint analysis has proliferated as a methodology for calculating class-wide damages in consumer class actions. While conjoint analysis first emerged as a marketing tool for measuring consumers' relative preferences for various product attributes, many plaintiffs (and their experts) have attempted to employ conjoint analysis as a tool for measuring the "price premium" attributable to a labeling statement or the effect that the disclosure of a product defect would have had on the product's price. Defendants, in turn, have taken the position that conjoint analysis is only capable of measuring consumer preferences, cannot account for the array of competitive and supply-side factors that affect the price of a product, and that it is therefore incapable of measuring the price effect attributable to a labeling statement or a disclosure. Consistent with that position, defendants in consumer class actions frequently argue not only that conjoint analysis is unsuited to measuring class-wide damages consistent with Comcast Corp. v. Behrend, 569 U.S. 27 (2013), but also that it is inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993). But a recent Ninth Circuit decision, MacDougall v. American Honda Motor Co., --- F. App'x ---- (9th Cir. 2021) may threaten defendants' ability to challenge conjoint analysis on Daubert grounds.

In MacDougall, the plaintiffs brought a consumer class action against Honda premised on Honda's alleged failure to disclose the presence of a transmission defect in its vehicles. The plaintiffs attempted to quantify the damages attributable to this omission through a conjoint analysis, which purported to "measure the difference in economic value'and thus the damages owed'between Defendants' vehicles with and without the alleged transmission defect giving rise to this action." MacDougall v. Am. Honda Motor Co., No. 17-1079, 2020 WL 5583534, at *4 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 11, 2020). Honda argued that this conjoint analysis was flawed and inadmissible, both "because it only accounts for demand-side and not supply-side considerations" and "because it utilizes an invalid design that obtains mostly irrational results." Id. at *5. The district court agreed with Honda, excluded the expert's conjoint analysis, and entered summary judgment in Honda's favor based on the plaintiffs' failure to offer admissible evidence of class-wide damages. In so holding, the court concluded that...

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