The California Supreme Court Declines to Hold Back The Tide of Overtime Class Actions.
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On August 26, 2004, the California Supreme Court released its eagerly awaited opinion in Sav-On Drug Stores, Inc. v. Superior Court, — Cal.4th –, 2004 WL 1902370 (2004). For several years now, California has been the battleground over a uniquely costly form of employment litigation–one that combines the state’s unusually employee-friendly overtime laws with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23-type “opt out” class litigation. Sav-On is the first such class action to make its way to the California Supreme Court. Employers hoping that the Court would use Sav-On as a vehicle for restricting overtime class actions will be disappointed. Rather than making a sweeping statement endorsing overtime class actions, or condemning them, the Court steered a middle course that emphasized the trial court’s discretion in fashioning class certification rulings, and the limited scope of appellate review. The Sav-On Decision Because the Supreme Court’s opinion avoids making any grand, doctrinal pronouncements about how overtime law “fits” into the class action framework, it is essential to understand the history of the Sav-On litigation and how it fits into broader litigation trends. Class Action Principles. Although it employs a slightly different nomenclature, class certifications standards under California law are not significantly different from Rule 23 standards. To certify a case as a class action, plaintiff must show “the existence of an ascertainable class and a well-defined community of interest among the class members. The community of interest requirement consists of three factors: (1) the predominance of common questions of law or fact; (2) a showing that plaintiff’s claim is typical of the class; and (3) that plaintiff can adequately represent the class.” Richmond v. Dart Industries, Inc., 29 Cal.3d 462, 470 (1981). Likewise, there must also be a sufficient number of class members in order to make the class action mechanism a preferable method of resolving the dispute. These elements are referred to as, respectively, ascertainability, commonality, predominance, typicality, adequacy, and numerosity. Class certification is most often defeated on commonality or predominance grounds, and less often (in decreasing order of frequency) defeated on the grounds of typicality, adequacy, ascertainability, and numerosity. In an overtime classification case, the plaintiffs inevitably argue that the common policies, practices, and procedures imposed… More : accessmylibrary.com |