104 Litigating CA Wage & Hour and Labor Code Class Actions (22nd Edition) Seyfarth Shaw LLP | www.seyfarth.com In other words, while it is appropriate for the trial court to examine the evidence closely to determine if the relevant class certification requirements have been met (e.g., predominance of common issues), the court may not deny class certification on the ground that the class claims ultimately lack substantive merit.643 However, as discussed in more detail below, courts must make necessary factual and legal inquiries regardless of whether they overlap with the merits, in order to ascertain whether the claims alleged are amenable to resolution on a class-wide basis.644 Recent developments in this aspect of the law concerning class action certification procedures have significantly bolstered defendants’ ability to defeat class certification.645 B. Class Certification in Exempt Misclassification Cases It is well established that “class actions will not be permitted where there are diverse factual issues to be resolved, despite the existence of common questions.”646 In the 2003 decision Lockheed Martin Corp. v. Superior Court,647 the California Supreme Court explained the plaintiffs’ burden in moving for class certification: Plaintiffs’ burden on moving for class certification, however, is not merely to show that some common issues exist, but, rather, to place substantial evidence in the record that common issues predominate. As we previously have explained, this means “each member must not be required to individually litigate numerous and substantial questions to determine his [or her] right to recover following the class judgment; and the issues which may be jointly tried, when compared to those requiring separate 643 See Brinker Rest. Corp. v. Superior Court, 53 Cal. 4th 1004, 1025 (2012) (“Presented with a class certification motion, a trial court must examine the plaintiff’s theory of recovery, assess the nature of the legal and factual disputes likely to be presented, and decide whether individual or common issues predominate. To the extent the propriety of certification depends upon disputed threshold legal or factual questions, a court may, and indeed must, resolve them”); Bartold v. Glendale Fed. Bank, 81 Cal. App. 4th 816, 829 (2000) (“when the merits of the claim are enmeshed with class action requirements, the trial court must consider evidence bearing on the factual elements necessary to determine whether to certify the class”); Hendershot v. Ready to Roll Transportation, 228 Cal. App. 4th 1213, 1223 (2014) (finding that the trial court had improperly denied class certification based on the merits of defendant’s affirmative defense that most of the proposed class members had entered into settlement agreements, and that therefore the class did not meet the numerosity requirement). 644 Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. 338, 349-50 (2011) (citing Gen. Telephone Co. of S.W. v. Falcon, 457 U.S. 147 (1982)); see also Ellis v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 657 F.3d 970, 984 (9th Cir. 2011) (holding the district court erred by failing to conduct a “rigorous analysis” of the merits to determine whether the plaintiffs had established commonality under Rule 23); In re Hydrogen Peroxide Antitrust Litig., 552 F.3d 305, 318 (3d Cir. 2008) (class certification requires “thorough examination” of factual and legal allegations; “rigorous analysis may include a preliminary inquiry into the merits” and consideration of “the substantive elements of the plaintiffs’ case in order to envision the form that a trial on those issues would take”); In re Coordinated Pretrial Proceedings in Petroleum Prods. Antitrust Litig., 691 F.2d 1335, 1342 (9th Cir. 1982) (affirming denial of class certification, where “any theory on which [plaintiffs] might rely [to prove the allegations of the complaint] would raise predominantly individual questions”). 645 In Morgan v. Wet Seal, Inc., 210 Cal. App. 4th 1341, 1371 (2012), the Court of Appeal affirmed the denial of class certification with respect to two wage and hour claims: (1) that Wet Seal unlawfully required employees to buy Wet Seal clothing and merchandise, and (2) that Wet Seal failed to reimburse employees for work-related travel. In Morgan, the court determined that assessing whether common issues predominated over individualized issues necessitated an evaluation of the merits of the legal claims. Id. at 1354. The court then evaluated the policies at issue, and determined that because Wet Seal did not have a facially unlawful dress code policy, the employees failed to show that liability could “rest on proof of a company-wide policy” and individualized inquiries would be required. Id. at 1365. Similarly, proving the travel expense reimbursement claim would require individualized inquiries because the policy itself was not facially unlawful. Id. at 1358. 646 Clausing v. San Francisco Unified Sch. Dist., 221 Cal. App. 3d 1224, 1233 (1990). 647 29 Cal. 4th 1096 (2003).
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTkwMTQ4