The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Thursday vacated the class certification of Black Lives Matter protesters in their 2020 complaint against the city of Los Angeles for alleged use of excessive force.

The appeals court sent the case back to the trial court for a fresh look at class certification, offering the Black Lives Matter Los Angeles chapter another shot at suing as a collective group. Judge Kenneth K. Lee, writing for the court, said the lower court failed to “rigorously analyze” whether the protesters had adequately demonstrated that their claims were similar enough to justify a class action.

Judge Lee noted that the lower court did not adequately explain how the certified damages classes could address all the claims at once given that the individual plaintiffs’ allegations involved distinct, fact-specific experiences. While the lower court said there was a class-wide question about whether the police used unreasonable force on the protestors, Judge Lee said that question was not “amenable to class treatment because the answer in this case depends on what force was used, what a particular class member was doing, what other protestors may have been doing, what the officers objectively observed, and a host of other factors.”

Judge Lee further pointed out that the injunctive relief class potentially includes thousands of protesters, ranging from those who weren’t arrested to others charged with felonies. The ruling remands the case to the lower court to decide if any issues can be resolved with classwide evidence and to clarify which specific questions, if any, the plaintiffs can address together.

In 2022, the US District Court for the Central District of California certified four classes in the Black Lives Matter lawsuit: one for alleged police violence, another for unlawful arrests, a third for disputing infraction charges and a fourth seeking to stop police practices such as failing to warn demonstrators before arrests. The city appealed these certifications to the Ninth Circuit.

Black Lives Matter Los Angeles’ 2020 complaint alleged that Los Angeles police used excessive force against protesters, including unlawful arrests, firing rubber bullets and beating them with batons during marches organized by Black Lives Matter Los Angeles in response to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.