Justia Class Action Opinion Summaries

The Illinois Department of Human Services Home Services Program pays personal home health care assistants to care for elderly and disabled persons. The assistants are considered public employees under the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act, which authorizes collective bargaining. Since 2003, the Union has been the assistants' exclusive representative, required to represent all public employees, including non-members. Under the collective bargaining agreement, the Union collected limited "fair share" fees from workers who chose not to join, which were automatically deducted from the assistants' pay. Workers who objected to this fair-share arrangement sued under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of their claim; the Supreme Court reversed. On remand, the Objectors sought certification of a class of all non-union member assistants from whom the fees were collected until June 30, 2014, when the state stopped the fair-share deductions. They argued that their proposed class of around 80,000 members is entitled to a refund of approximately $32 million. The Seventh Circuit affirmed a holding that class certification was inappropriate, stating that: the class definition was overly broad in light of evidence that a substantial number of class members did not object to the fee and could not have suffered an injury; named plaintiffs were not adequate representatives; individual questions regarding damages predominated over common ones; the class faced manageability issues; and a class action was not a superior method of resolving the issue. View "Riffey v. Rauner" on Justia Law

The Court of Appeal treated the consolidated appeal as a petition for writ of mandate and reached the merits of the superior court's order compelling arbitration of plaintiff's individual claims and terminating the class claims. The court granted the petition in part, finding plaintiff's cause of action under the Labor Code for Doty Bros.' failure to timely pay wages upon his separation from employment and his unfair competition action based on that alleged statutory violation were not encompassed by the arbitration provision in the collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The court denied the petition in all other respects, holding that the remaining causes of action were subject to arbitration, and the trial court's termination of the class claims were proper on the ground that the CBA did not authorize classwide arbitration. View "Cortez v. Doty Bros. Equipment Co." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs are current and former correctional peace officers who work or worked at various state correctional facilities. They brought coordinated class actions alleging they were improperly denied pay for the time they spent under their employer’s control before and after their work shifts while traveling to and from their work posts, attending briefings, checking out mandatory equipment, and submitting to searches at security checkpoints. Plaintiffs alleged causes of action for failure to pay contractual overtime (Lab. Code, 222, 223), failure to pay the California minimum wage (1182.11, 1182.12, 1194), failure to keep accurate records of hours worked (1174), and failure to pay overtime in breach of common law contractual obligations. The court certified classes, with two subclasses, distinguishing between employees represented by unions and those not represented, then held that plaintiffs’ entitlement to overtime pay is controlled by federal, rather than California, law, the entered judgment for defendants. The court of appeal reversed as to the subclass of unrepresented supervisory employees and affirmed as to the subclass of represented employees. View "Stoetzl v. State of California" on Justia Law

Plaintiff brought a claim under Ky. Rev. Stat. 337.385 and filed a motion under Ky. R. Civ. P. 23 to certify a class action in circuit court. The circuit court denied the motion on purely legal grounds. The Court of Appeals affirmed, ruling that section 337.385 does not authorize class actions. The Supreme Court reversed, holding, as a matter of law, that Rule 23 remains an available procedural mechanism applicable to Plaintiff’s cause of action brought under section 337.385. The court remanded the case to the trial court to determine whether Plaintiff’s class met the requirements set forth in Rule 23. View "McCann v. Sullivan University System, Inc." on Justia Law

Regency operated for‐profit cosmetology schools in 20 states. Each offered classroom instruction and practical instruction in a salon, where members of the public could receive cosmetology services at low prices. Hollins, formerly a Regency student, asserts that the work she performed was compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201, and that Regency violated state wage laws. She wanted to bring suit as an FLSA collective action and a state class action but the district court denied her motion to conditionally certify the FLSA action and never certified a class action under FRCP 23. The court addressed the individual merits of her case and granted summary judgment in Regency’s favor. Regency has since closed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, first rejecting a claim that it lacked jurisdiction. There was a final judgment despite the unaccepted opt‐in notices that the court received. On the merits, the court noted that time on the Professional Floor was a state‐mandated requirement for professional licensure; Hollins was actually paying for supervised practical experience; Regency was in the educational business, not in the beauty salon business; and Hollins did not need to go out and find a place where she could serve her supervised practice. View "Hollins v. Regency Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs-appellants Valerie Kizer and Sharal Williams filed this putative class action against their former employer, defendant and respondent Tristar Risk Management (Tristar), alleging Tristar failed to pay Plaintiffs and its other claims examiners overtime compensation because it misclassified them as exempt from California’s overtime laws. The court found Tristar’s alleged misclassification of the proposed class members suitable for class treatment, but it denied the motion because misclassification does not give rise to liability on an overtime claim unless the employees first show they worked hours or days that required overtime compensation. Plaintiffs contended the trial court erred because the amount of overtime worked by the individual class members was a damages issue, and the need for individual proof of damages was not a proper basis for denying class certification. To satisfy the commonality requirement for class certification, Plaintiffs were required to show their liability theory could be established on a classwide basis through common proof. Plaintiffs presented no evidence of any such policy or practice. Without commonality, plaintiffs’ unfair competition law claim also failed. View "Kizer v. Tristar Risk Management" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court granted reviewing this PAGA action to consider the scope of discovery available in PAGA actions. The court held that, in non-PAGA class actions, the contact information of those a plaintiff purports to represent is routinely discoverable without any requirement that the plaintiff first show good cause, and nothing in the characteristics of a PAGA suit affords a basis for restricting discovery more narrowly. The court thus reversed the trial court’s discovery order denying Plaintiff’s motion seeking contact information for fellow California employees in other state Marshalls of CA, LLC stores in this representative action seeking civil penalties on behalf of the State and aggrieved employees statewide for alleged wage and hour violations. The court held that Marshalls did not meet its burden of establishing cause to refuse Plaintiff an answer to his interrogatory seeking the identity and contact information of his fellow Marshalls employees. View "Williams v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County" on Justia Law

Defendant The Copley Press, Inc., owner of the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper (collectively UT), appealed a trial court’s judgment finding plaintiffs (or carriers) were employees of UT in this class action suit. UT argued on appeal: (1) the class representatives were inadequate; (2) the court committed reversible error by not limiting the trial to certified issues and by granting plaintiffs' motion to amend their second amended complaint according to proof; (3) the court did not and could not manage individualized issues; (4) the court's order bifurcating plaintiffs' cause of action under Business and Professions Code section 172001 to be tried first deprived UT of its right to a jury trial; (5) the class award should have been reversed because UT paid carriers enhanced compensation that reimbursed them for expenses the court awarded; (6) the amounts the court awarded were not restitution; (7) the court erred in awarding plaintiffs prejudgment interest; (8) substantial evidence does not support the court's determination that the carriers were employees rather than independent contractors; (9) the court erred in awarding plaintiffs attorney fees under Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5;2 (10) even if attorney fees could be awarded, the court erred by not substantially reducing them for limited success; and (11) the court erred by adopting plaintiffs' lodestar amount in awarding attorney fees. Plaintiffs appealed the award of attorney fees, arguing: (1) the court abused its discretion in not awarding an enhancement of the lodestar amount of their fees; and (2) the court erred in ruling they abandoned their cause of action for damages under Labor Code section 28023 and therefore could not recover attorney fees under that statute. The Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part the judgment, and remanded with directions to redetermine the class award, attorney fees, and prejudgment interest. In all other respects, the trial court was affirmed. View "Espejo v. The Copley Press" on Justia Law

Workers in Waupaca foundries alleged violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201, by not treating the time that workers spend changing clothes and showering on-site after a shift to be compensable “work” time. They alleged that they end their shifts covered in a layer of “foundry dust,” which can irritate the skin and cause lung disease if inhaled. FLSA authorizes collective actions by employees on behalf of “similarly situated” employees. Unlike class actions under FRCP 23, collective actions under FLSA require would-be members to opt in (voluntarily join). The district judge ruled that he would “conditionally certify” the class since the plaintiffs showed a “reasonable basis” for believing that all the class members were similarly situated. After discovery, the judge would determine whether plaintiffs who had opted in were actually similarly situated. After several hundred current and former employees from three states opted in, Waupaca moved to decertify the class. The plaintiffs, deciding to proceed with only Waupaca’s Wisconsin employees, moved to certify a Rule 23 class just for Wisconsin state-law claims, and did not oppose the decertification of Indiana and Tennessee employees. The Seventh Circuit affirmed denial of Waupaca’s request to decertify the entire FSLA class; division of the FLSA class into three subclasses and their transfer to district courts in their respective states; and Rule 23 ceritfication of the Wisconsin claims. View "DeKeyser v. Thyssenkrupp Waupaca, Inc." on Justia Law

The National Labor Relations Board sought enforcement of its Order finding that AEI violated the National Labor Relations Act by barring employees from pursuing class-action litigation or collective arbitration of work-related claims and by forbidding an AEI technician from discussing a proposed compensation change with his coworkers and by firing that technician for discussing the proposed change and complaining to management about it. AEI employees sign an agreement that “Disputes … relating to your employment” must, at the election of the employee or the company, be resolved “exclusively through binding arbitration” and that “you and AEI also agree that a claim may not be arbitrated as a class action, also called ‘representative’ or ‘collective’ actions, and that a claim may not otherwise be consolidated or joined with the claims of others.” AEI’s employee handbook prohibits “[u]nauthorized disclosure of business secrets or confidential business or customer information, including any compensation or employee salary information.” The Sixth Circuit enforced the order. An arbitration provision requiring employees covered by the Act individually to arbitrate all employment-related claims is not enforceable. The evidence was adequate to support the ALJ’s factual findings and conclusion that DeCommer was fired for engaging in protected, concerted activity View "National Labor Relations Board v. Alternative Entertainment, Inc." on Justia Law