Smith v. Sprint Communications Co.

TERENCE T. EVANS, Circuit Judge.

In this case, we are asked to review a nationwide class certification, accompanied by an injunction against all competing class actions. The plaintiff class is made up of landowners whose property is subject to railroad rights of way, along which defendant telecommunications companies have installed fiber-optic cables without the landowners’ permission. See generally Jeffery M. Heftman, Railroad Right-of-Way Easements, Utility Apportionments, and Shifting Technological Realities, 2002 U. Ill. L.Rev. 1401. We reversed.certification of a virtually identical class…