Seyfarth Shaw LLP | www.seyfarth.com Litigating CA Wage & Hour Class and PAGA Actions (23rd Edition) 179 settlements because employers will lack confidence that the settlements they negotiate will ultimately be approved. D. Class Notice Courts have also exercised greater scrutiny of the settlement notice that is sent to the class. The law requires that the class receive notice using the best “practicable” method.888 Courts have been increasingly concerned that recipients of the class notice understand the nature of the claims, can calculate the value of their share of the settlement, and can readily access court documents to investigate the nature of the case. Courts have also emphasized that “the best notice practicable” should consider the circumstances of each individual case. In Roes, 1-2 v. SFBSC Management, LLC, the Ninth Circuit remanded a class action settlement to the district court, in part because the class notice provided was inadequate.889 There, despite concerns that putative class members might be difficult to reach by mail, the settlement provided no other means of providing notice to former employees. Then, when at least 12% of the mailed notices were ultimately determined to be undeliverable, the parties still made no efforts to find additional means of notice reasonably calculated to reach those class members. Roes held that, given this, the parties should have explored other options, such as email or social media postings, that might have reached the transient workforce in question. Because they failed to do so, the notice was not the best notice practicable, and the case was remanded to the district court. The judges in the Alameda County Superior Court, Complex Division, have also required that the parties make exhaustive efforts to notify class members of the claims and ensure they have sufficient information to exercise their options under the settlement. For example, in addition to requiring that the administrator send a reminder postcard to class members who have not made claims, the judges in Alameda have ordered that the administrator make at least three telephone calls to class members. E. Objection to Settlements When a class settlement is slated for final approval, often the last hurdle the settling parties must surmount is any objection to the settlement. Any member of the settlement class who does not opt out of the settlement may assert an objection to the settlement.890 Courts tend to be extremely reluctant to sustain objections where the sole basis is that the objector believes the settlement is not generous enough. After all, if an individual believes his wage and hour claim is worth more than the class is receiving, then he can opt out of the settlement and assert his own claim (and typically can recover attorney’s fees if he prevails). In 7-Eleven Owners for Fair Franchising v. Southland Corp.,891 the Court of Appeal explained that a trial court, in evaluating an objection that a settlement was too low given the merits of the case, must not substitute its own 888 Hypertouch, Inc. v. Superior Court, 128 Cal. App. 4th 1527, 1539 (2005) (notice “must be the best practicable, reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their objections”). 889 944 F.3d 1035, 1046 (9th Cir. 2019). 890 Wershba v. Apple Computer, Inc., 91 Cal. App. 4th 224, 235 (2001). 891 85 Cal. App. 4th 1135 (2000).
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