A proposed settlement class can meet commonality and typicality only when every class member's claim rests on the same core facts and legal theory as the named plaintiffs' claims — shared questions alone are not enough. Objections to attorney fees do not excuse a court from checking those two requirements independently, and a fee fight often exposes the same structural gap that defeats certification. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a) requires any proposed class, including one formed solely to settle a case, to satisfy numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy of representation before a judge may certify it, and the party seeking certification carries the burden on each element, according to Rule 23(a) as published by Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute. A class that clears a fairness hearing and a fee review can still fail this test later if the wrong plaintiffs were used to represent it.
Official resources:
- Read the official notice from Cornell — Use this primary source to verify the official announcement.
- Read the official notice from Cornell — Use this primary source to verify the official announcement.
Table of Contents
- What Commonality Actually Requires
- Why Typicality Can Fail Even When Commonality Looks Fine
- A Class Can Pass District Court Review and Still Unravel
- How Attorney Fee Objections Fit Into This Picture
- What a Class Member Can Check Before Deciding to Object
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Commonality Actually Requires
Commonality asks whether class members share a legal or factual question whose answer resolves the case for everyone at once. The U.S. Supreme Court set the modern standard in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, holding that a class must raise a contention capable of classwide resolution that produces one common answer — not simply a list of overlapping questions, according to the Court's syllabus in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
v. Dukes. The Court rejected claims that lacked what it called "glue" connecting class members' injuries to one another. Two people can have superficially similar complaints — the same defendant, the same type of harm — and still fail commonality if nothing legally ties their claims to a single answer. That distinction matters most in settlements, where defendants often prefer broad class definitions and plaintiffs' counsel may not scrutinize whether every included member actually shares the same legal hook.
Why Typicality Can Fail Even When Commonality Looks Fine
Typicality asks a narrower question: are the named plaintiffs' own claims representative of the class they're standing in for? Courts frequently treat commonality and typicality as merging inquiries because both test whether the class representatives' claims and legal theory line up closely enough with absent members to litigate or settle the case as one unit, according to the Second Circuit's opinion in Glover v. Connecticut General Life Insurance Co.. A typicality defect can defeat certification on its own, without anyone separately challenging commonality. That is exactly what happened in Glover. On August 11, 2026, the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed a district court's certification of a $147.5 million nationwide settlement class after objectors appealed, ruling that the named plaintiffs' claims were not typical of the class, according to the Second Circuit's opinion. The named plaintiffs held insurance policies issued directly by Lincoln National or Connecticut General. Objecting class members held policies from other insurer affiliates and could not show privity of contract — a direct contractual relationship — with either defendant. Applying its 2016 Mazzei v. Money Store precedent, the court found that gap fatal to typicality, according to the same opinion.
A Class Can Pass District Court Review and Still Unravel
Glover shows that surviving a fairness hearing is not the end of the story. U.S. District Judge Michael Shea granted final approval of the settlement in June 2025 over objections filed by objectors' counsel Susman Godfrey, which means the class cleared the district court's fairness and fee review before the typicality problem undid it on appeal, according to Bloomberg Law's reporting on the reversal.
For a class member weighing whether to object now or wait, this matters. Final approval is not a guarantee the settlement will hold. If the class definition swept in people whose contractual relationship to the defendant differs from the named plaintiffs', that structural flaw can survive a fairness hearing and only surface once objectors press it on appeal. A reader deciding whether an objection is worth filing should look specifically at whether their own contract, policy, or transaction runs directly to the defendant named in the suit, or to some other affiliated entity — that distinction is what sank the Glover settlement.
How Attorney Fee Objections Fit Into This Picture
Rule 23(h) requires that any motion for attorney's fees in a certified class action be noticed to class members, and it specifically gives "a class member, or a party from whom payment is sought" the right to object to that fee motion before the court rules on it, according to Rule 23(h). That objection right is separate from, and does not substitute for, an objection to the class definition itself. Timing matters here.
The Eleventh Circuit, sitting en banc in Johnson v. NPAS Solutions, LLC, held that class counsel's fee motion must be filed and served before the deadline for class members to object to it — meaning an attorney-fee objection has to follow the fee request, not come before class members have seen its basis, according to the Eleventh Circuit's en banc opinion. A class member who only challenges the fee amount, without separately raising whether the class itself was properly defined, leaves the underlying commonality and typicality questions untouched — those require their own objection, raised on their own terms, as Glover's objectors did.
What a Class Member Can Check Before Deciding to Object
Anyone evaluating a settlement notice can look for the same structural markers that mattered in Glover: A class member who spots a privity gap like the one in Glover has grounds to object on certification itself, not only on the fee award, since the proponent of certification bears the burden of proving typicality under Rule 23(a).
- Who holds the contract or policy named in the suit — is it the named plaintiff's exact counterparty, or an affiliated company?
- Whether the class definition includes people whose relationship to the defendant differs from the named plaintiffs', even if their alleged harm looks similar.
- Whether the fee motion has actually been filed and served — an objection deadline that precedes the fee motion itself is a procedural problem under Johnson v. NPAS Solutions.
- Whether final approval already occurred — as in Glover, that does not foreclose a later appeal on typicality grounds.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a settlement class be reversed after final approval?
Yes. In Glover v. Connecticut General Life Insurance Co., the Second Circuit reversed certification in August 2026 after the district court had already granted final approval in June 2025, according to Bloomberg Law.
Does objecting to attorney fees also challenge the class definition?
No. Rule 23(h) fee objections are a separate right from challenging commonality or typicality, according to Rule 23(h); a class member who wants both must raise the class-definition issue on its own.
What specifically made the named plaintiffs atypical in Glover?
They held policies issued directly by Lincoln National or Connecticut General, while objecting members held policies from other affiliates and lacked privity with either defendant, according to the Second Circuit's opinion.