“REMANDED for entry of order remanding . . .”

After the Supreme Court’s reversal of the Fifth Circuit in Mississippi v. AU Optronics, which held that the case was not a “mass action” under CAFA, AU Optronics argued that federal courts still had jurisdiction over the matter as a “class action.”  The Fifth Circuit disagreed, finding that it had addressed and rejected that argument in its prior panel opinion.  Mississippi v. AU Optronics, No. 12-60704 (March 19, 2014, unpublished).  Its treatment of the issue was not dicta because it was “an explication of the governing rules of law” that received the Court’s “full and careful consideration.” Because that analysis “was a proper holding, the law-of-the-case doctrine forbids its reconsideration.”  Alternatively, the point was waived when AU Optronics did not appeal it to the Supreme Court.  (While the distinction between holding and dicta is fundamental to the common law, much less appellate practice, a formal definition such as this is rare.  A detailed analysis appears in Loud Rules, an article in the Pepperdine Law Review by this blog’s author and Professor Wendy Couture of the University of Idaho Law School.)