Steve Berman will appear before the United States Supreme Court on Monday, Oct. 7 to argue the important issue of whether class actions belong in state or federal courts. Berman will argue against Ford Motor Company and Citibank that state courts are the proper place for certain class action lawsuits.

The case, McCauley v Ford Motor Company, arises out of Ford's offer of rebates for each dollar spent on a Ford credit card that was co-branded by Citibank. Ford revoked the card, leaving cardholders with a fraction of the rebates they had planned to accumulate. Cardholders then filed class actions in various state courts asserted that Ford had breached its contract and engaged in deceptive marketing practices. Big auto always wants its cases in federal court where they believe a more conservative, generally pro-business judiciary will protect them. Thus, Ford removed various cases into federal court and the Honorable William L. Dwyer dismissed them for lack of jurisdiction. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Judge Dwyer and the U.S. Supreme Court has taken the case to decide how the "amount of controversy" is measured for the purposes of determining federal court jurisdiction.

If Ford Motor Company prevails, hundreds of class action lawsuits may now wind up in federal court even if they are based solely on state law.