The Ninth Circuit recently answered an important open question in the class action context that may provide defendants an additional exit ramp, specifically, whether “following class certification, both named and unnamed class members in a money damages suit must present evidence of standing at summary judgment.” The Court answered “Yes.” All class members must establish standing to get past summary judgment, but they may do so using direct or circumstantial evidence and the “usual summary judgment standards apply.” Healy v. Milliman, Inc., 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 554 (9th Cir. Jan. 9, 2026).
The Healy case reached the Ninth Circuit pursuant to an interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b) after the district court had granted partial summary judgment for the defendant in a class action filed under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. § 1681(e)(b). The facts are reminiscent of those at issue in two other standing cases considered by the Supreme Court in recent years, Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016) and TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413 (2021).
Plaintiff applied for life insurance, and the insurance company obtained a report of Plaintiff’s medical and prescription history from Defendant. The report, however, contained a different person’s social security number and medical records, which wrongly attributed serious medical conditions to Plaintiff, even though he “had a clean bill of health.” In credit reporting parlance, it appeared to be a “mixed file.” Based on the report, the insurer denied Plaintiff’s life insurance application. Plaintiff’s efforts to get Defendant to fix his report were unsuccessful, so he brought a class action lawsuit against it under FCRA.
The trial court certified an “inaccuracy class” of approximately 300,000 people whose reports contained an incorrect social security number and a prescription or medical record that indicated a risk factor that could cause the insurer to deny the application. Defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing, first, that in a lawsuit for money damages, every member of the class needed to prove standing for each member of the class, and second, that it was impossible to determine on a class-wide basis whether a report was actually a “mixed file,” i.e., a report containing mismatched health information. Plaintiff challenged both points. First, he argued that evidence of standing for the unnamed class members was not necessary at the summary judgment stage; rather, only the named plaintiff needed to prove standing. Plaintiff also argued that classwide standing had been established because it was reasonable to infer that medical records associated with a different social security number than an applicant’s contained inaccurate medical information.
The District Court agreed with Defendant that, under Ramirez, Plaintiff was required to prove standing on a class wide basis at the summary judgment stage. The District Court also concluded that Plaintiff needed to produce “some direct evidence of concrete injury on a class-wide basis.” In the District Court’s view, although “mismatched social security numbers in unnamed class members’ reports” might be “indicative of a misattributed or erroneous health record,” they were not “direct evidence of injury.”
The issue addressed by the Ninth Circuit was narrow, but important. Both parties agreed that before a class action is certified, Article III can be satisfied “as long as at least one named plaintiff has standing.” Healy, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 554, *10. (citations omitted). Both parties also agreed that “at the end of the life cycle of a class action” before any money damages are awarded “both named and unnamed class members must demonstrate standing” to recover. Id.
The question addressed in Healy was what happens in the middle of case, after a class is certified, at the summary judgment stage? Must the plaintiff provide evidence of standing for all class members to survive a summary judgment motion, before individual damages can be awarded?
The Ninth Circuit held the answer was “yes” and concluded “that TransUnion also compels unnamed class members to demonstrate evidence of standing here - after class certification but prior to trial at summary judgment.” Id., *16. The Court said its conclusion “follows directly from TransUnion's instruction that plaintiffs must demonstrate standing with the manner and degree of evidence required at the successive stages of the litigation." Id. (cleaned up). Using the Court’s “typical summary judgment standard” the unnamed class members do not have to establish they “in fact have standing” but they would have “at least have to demonstrate that there is a genuine question of material fact as to the standing elements.” Id. (Citation omitted). When doing so, though, the Ninth Circuit diverged from the District Court’s approach and held that “plaintiffs can use either direct evidence or circumstantial evidence. Direct evidence proves a without inference or presumption. Circumstantial evidence tends to show a fact by way of inferences.” Id., *19 (cleaned up). The Ninth Circuit remanded the case back to the district court to consider whether Plaintiff has presented enough circumstantial evidence that a juror could reasonably infer that there was class-wide standing.
The Healy decision provides much-needed clarity on the issue of class action standing at the summary judgment stage and it opens another important avenue for defendants to eliminate class action exposure. Although a class action with tens of thousands of members can be certified with only one person demonstrating they suffered concrete harm, that same case cannot proceed past the summary judgment stage without real evidence that would enable a jury to reasonably infer every class member has standing. District courts throughout the Ninth Circuit can now apply well-established summary judgment evidentiary standards to determine whether plaintiffs have met their classwide standing burdens.
