The district court did not abuse its discretion in holding the plaintiff to the local rule requiring a class certification motion to be filed within 90 days of filing the complaint, particularly, as it then gave the plaintiff another 30 days to develop evidence and the right to file a supplemental brief. Plaintiff couldn't show he was kept from discovery… Read More
Class Actions, CAFA, Relationship to Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act Jurisdictional Requirements, 2, 7 CAFA does not impliedly repeal the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act's limitations on federal court jurisdiction. For a federal court to have jurisdiction of a class action claim under the MMWA, there must be at least 100 named plaintiffs. 15 USC 2310(d)(3). An MMWA class action claim brought by fewer… Read More
Following the en banc decision in In re Hyundai & Kia Fuel Econ. Litig. (Espinoza v. Ahearn) (9th Cir. 2019) 926 F.3d 539, this decision holds that the district court did not abuse its discretion in avoiding a detailed analysis of varying applicable state laws in certifying a setlttement-only class in this case. That was particularly true as one of… Read More
The amount in controversy under CAFA is the defendant's possible liability, not likely or probable liability. When the complaint prays for an unspecified amount of punitive damages, a removing defendant can meet its burden of showing its possible liability for an amount of punitive damages by presenting evidence of the compensatory to punitive damage ratio(s) awarded in other cases alleging… Read More
Following Baumann v. Chase Investment Serv. Corp. (9th Cir. 2014) 747 F.3d 1117, this decision holds that a PAGA suit is not a "class action" that can be removed under CAFA because a PAGA suit lacks the characteristics of a class action under FRCivP 23. That conclusion not weakened by more recent decisions, but is instead by the Cal. Supreme… Read More
The trial court has a duty to carefully scrutinize declarations for coercion or abuse that a defendant obtained from its employees (and putative class members) to oppose the plaintiff's class certification motion. If the court finds evidence that the declarations had been obtained through coercion or abuse, it has broad discretion to either strike some or all of the declarations… Read More
Trial court properly declined to certify a class in putative wage and hour class action brought by property inspectors because even though common questions predominated, the plaintiffs' proposed trial plan of proving liability by means of an expert's testimony based on a double-blind survey he conducted of a random sample of class members was unmanageable, inadequate, and unfair. Read More
Remand to state court based on the local controversy exception to jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act was proper in this putative class action against the Golden Gate Transportation District, the Bay Area Toll Authority and Conduent, the private entity that collects bridge tolls under contract with the other two defendants, for violating California's privacy laws by sharing personal… Read More
Putative class representatives were not entitled to intervene in a parallel class action to object to settlement as they could preserve their rights by opting out or by objecting to the settlement and moving to vacate judgment approving the settlement. Read More
Defendant’s motion to dismiss class action for plaintiff’s failure to bring to trial within five years should have been granted; trial court miscalculated the relevant time period when it failed to include a 43-day period during which the court stayed the filing of pleadings and the service of discovery requests while the parties met and conferred on a case management plan. Read More
The Right to Repair Act precludes class actions premised on a violation of the Act’s standards for new residential construction. Read More
In calculating value of class action coupon settlement for purposes of awarding attorney fees, only the value of the coupon credits actually used by class members should have been counted; the district court erred by performing its fee calculation based on the full value of all the credits available to class members. Read More
Plaintiff employees’ law firm was not entitled to attorney fees it sought separately and independently of court approval of class action settlement. Read More
In calculating value of class action coupon settlement for purposes of awarding attorney fees, only the value of the coupon credits actually used by class members should have been counted; the district court erred by performing its fee calculation based on the full value of all the credits available to class members. Read More
Plaintiff employees’ law firm was not entitled to attorney fees it sought separately and independently of court approval of class action settlement. Read More
A uniform policy alone does not establish the predominance of common issues if it is not a means of establishing class-wide liability; so, here, the employer could defeat class certification with evidence that many of its crews did not follow its uniform break policy. Read More
District court properly granted employer’s motion to decertify an opt-in FLSA class on the ground that it fails to satisfy the "similarly situated" requirement, since the employer showed that the class claims were based on a vague "culture" of not reporting overtime supported only by vaguely reported experiences of individual employees, and nothing sufficient to suggest a uniform practice or… Read More
In determining whether the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act (SLUSA) preempts a state court class action alleging fraud in connection with securities transactions, a district court should not dismiss the action without first allowing the plaintiff leave to amend—as it might do so to eliminate class claims and by that or other means avoid SLUSA preemption. Read More
A stipulation that “at least 67%” of class members had last known California addresses was insufficient to show greater than 2/3rds of class members were California citizens, but plaintiff should be allowed discovery to prove that fact which is necessary to invoke CAFA’s local controversy exception. Read More
In a class action under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, statutory damages are limited to the lesser of $500,000 or 1% of the defendant's net worth, and the net worth calculation is the plaintiff’s burden to prove just as all the other elements are. Read More
