18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

696 Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition Plaintiff alleged that Defendant engaged in false and deceptive advertising in the way that Defendant represented the prices for its hotel rooms, services, and amenities. At a case management conference, the Court issued a scheduling order that explicitly stated that fact and class discovery were not bifurcated. Thereafter, the parties alerted the Court that they disagreed about discovery issues. The Court’s clerk advised the parties to continue their meet and confer efforts and reminded them of the Court’s statements during the case management conference that the class discovery was not bifurcated in part to avoid disputes over whether discovery requests were premature. After the parties still could not agree Plaintiff brought a motion to compel discovery with respect to 55 separate discovery requests that Defendant for which it refused to produce documents. Defendant contended that the requested discovery was irrelevant for several reasons, but primarily Defendant maintained that the requested class discovery was not pertinent to the class certification analysis and was not potentially relevant unless and until the Court certified a class. The Court granted Plaintiff’s motion to compel discovery for the most part, and ordered Defendant to produce the majority of the requested discovery. Plaintiff also brought a motion for sanctions on the grounds that Defendant had not engaged in the discovery process in good faith. The Court agreed with Plaintiff’s position. It found that Defendant failed to comply with the discovery in good faith such that sanctions were warranted. As such the Court ordered Defendant to pay Plaintiff the requested attorneys’ fees, billing rates, and time spent preparing the motion for sanctions in the amount of $12,375. The Court pointed out that it had expressly informed the parties at the initial case management conference and in the scheduling order that fact and class discovery were not bifurcated. Specifically, the Court told the parties at that time that class discovery was not bifurcated was because the Court did not want any issues over whether or not discovery requests were premature. In granting Plaintiff’s motion for sanctions, the Court determined that Defendant refused to produce discovery by making prematurity objections that the Court had told Defendant – multiple times – had no merit. Defendant then tried to bolster those meritless objections with a declaration that claimed burden that: (i) did not exist under a reasonable reading of the discovery requests, (ii) was not asserted in Defendant’s responses, and (iii) was not raised in the parties’ meet and confer discussions leading to this motion. Thus, the Court concluded that the “burden” of dealing with Defendant’s unreasonable approach to discovery had fallen largely on the Court. Id. at *6. For these reasons, the Court granted Plaintiff’s motions to compel discovery and for sanctions in part. Hart, et al. v. Crab Addison, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 95395 (W.D.N.Y. May 19, 2021). Plaintiffs filed a class action alleging violations of the FLSA and various state wage & hour laws. After the case settled, Plaintiffs thereafter filed motions for sanctions against two law firms, Epstein, Becker & Green, P.C. ("Epstein") and Fisher & Phillips, LLP ("Fisher Phillips"), and two attorneys at Fisher Phillips, Brian Gershengorn ("Gershengorn") and Melissa Osipoff ("Osipoff"), who previously represented Defendant Ignite Restaurant Group, Inc. ("Ignite"). Id . at *43. The Magistrate Judge previously filed a report and recommendation (“R&R) granting in part and denying in part Plaintiffs’ motion. The Court adopted the R&R of the Magistrate Judge in its entirety. The R&R recommended that the application be granted as against Gershengorn and Osipoff in two respects: (i) pursuant to Rule 16(f), Gershengorn and Osipoff would be required to reimburse Plaintiffs for reasonable attorney fees’ and costs incurred between May 17, 2016 and June 6, 2016 to prepare for, and attend, a Court-ordered evidentiary hearing on June 6, 2016, at which Gershengorn and Osipoff failed to produce a witness; and (ii) that pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1927 and the Court’s inherent authority, Gershengorn and Osipoff each be required to pay $3,000 to the Clerk of the Court, and to reimburse Plaintiffs’ counsel for their reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs in prosecuting the sanctions motion. Id . at *44-5. Gershengorn and Osipoff filed their objections to the R&R on the grounds that they were not provided proper notice of the alleged sanctionable conduct, and that such conduct was not properly punishable under Rule 16(f), and with regard to the recommended sanction under 28 U.S.C. § 1927 and the Court’s inherent power, they did not have proper notice of the alleged misrepresentations made to the Court, and that their statements were not made in bad faith. Id . at *45. The Court found that the Magistrate Judge accurately described the context in which the statements, which were indeed inaccurate and misleading, were made. For these reasons, the Court rejected the objections to the R&R. Accordingly, the Court adopted the R&R of the Magistrate Judge granting in part and denying in part Plaintiffs’ motion for sanctions. Holley, et al. v. Gilead Science, Inc. , 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 48596 (N.D. Cal. March 8, 2021). Plaintiffs filed a class action alleging that Defendants fraudulently concealed that fact that its HIV medication Truvada was known to cause serious kidney and bone damage. Defendant filed a motion for sanctions against Plaintiffs’