18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

410 Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition Wesson, et al. v. Staples The Office Superstore, LLC, 2021 Cal. App. LEXIS 743 (Cal. App. 2d Dist. Sept. 9, 2021). Plaintiff, a store general manager (“GM”), brought a putative wage & hour class action alleging violations of the California Labor Code (“CLC”). Plaintiff also asserted a representative claim under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (“PAGA”) on behalf of himself and 345 GMs in California. In his PAGA claim, Plaintiff sought almost $36 million in civil penalties for alleged CLC violations, which were all premised on the theory that Defendant had misclassified its GMs as exempt executives. Defendant moved to strike Plaintiff’s PAGA claim on the basis that given the number of employees it covered and the nature of his allegations, the action would be unmanageable and would violate Defendant’s due process rights. Defendant contended that its intended affirmative defense – that it properly classified its GMs as exempt and thus committed no Labor Code violations – would require individualized proof as to each GM, and thus that the claim could not be fairly and efficiently litigated. In his opposition, Plaintiff asserted that the trial court lacked authority to ensure that PAGA actions were manageable, and argued that even if the trial court had such authority, it was sufficient that his prima facie case was manageable. According to Plaintiff, whether Defendant’s affirmative defense could be managed at trial was irrelevant. While Defendant’s motion to strike was pending, Plaintiff moved for summary adjudication of his PAGA claim. The trial court subsequently invited Plaintiff to submit a trial plan showing that his PAGA action would be manageable at trial. In response, Plaintiff continued to insist that the trial court lacked authority to require that his PAGA claim be manageable, and laid out his plan to prove his prima facie case using common proof, but declined to address how the parties could litigate Defendant’s affirmative defense. The trial court concluded that the PAGA claim could not be managed at trial and granted Defendant’s motion to strike. Given this ruling, the trial court found no need to consider Plaintiff’s motion for summary adjudication as to his PAGA claim and denied the motion. Plaintiff challenged both rulings on appeal before the California Court of Appeal. Plaintiff argued on appeal that the trial court erred in failing to consider his motion for summary adjudication, as it had the potential to narrow the issues and make the action more manageable. As to Defendant’s motion to strike, Plaintiff repeated his arguments on appeal that the trial court had no authority to strike his PAGA claim as unmanageable, and that any manageability assessment need not have considered Defendant’s affirmative defense. In addressing the question of first impression, the Court of Appeal held that trial courts have inherent authority to ensure that PAGA claims will be manageable at trial, and to strike such claims if they cannot be managed. The Court of Appeal reasoned that case law provided for trial courts to consider the manageability of representative claims in other contexts and the PAGA claims involved comparable or greater manageability concerns. Second, the Court of Appeal held that Defendant was entitled to a fair opportunity to litigate available affirmative defenses, which a manageability assessment had to take into account, because due process required a fair opportunity to present a defense. Finally, the Court of Appeal held that because Plaintiff’s lack of cooperation with the trial court’s manageability inquiry stymied efforts to proceed, it was not error for the trial court to strike the PAGA claim, which alleged misclassification, on the basis that it was unmanageable. For these reasons, the Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s order dismissing Plaintiff’s PAGA claim. Wilson, et al. v. The La Jolla Group, 2021 Cal. App. LEXIS 201 (Cal App. 4th Dist. March 12, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of signature gatherers on behalf of political campaigns and political action committees, filed a class action alleging that Defendant misclassified them as independent contractors and thereby failed to pay minimum wages, overtime pay, denied them meal and rest breaks, expense reimbursements, timely final wage payments, and itemized wage statements. Plaintiffs filed a motion for class certification pursuant to Rule 23, and the trial court denied the motion. On appeal, the California Court of Appeal affirmed in part and reversed in part the trial court’s rulings. Plaintiffs contended that the trial court erred by finding common questions did not predominate and the class action procedure was not superior to individual actions. Plaintiffs also argued that the trial court erred by not granting a related motion for reconsideration. The Court of Appeal found that the trial court erred by declining to certify a class for one cause of action that asserted claims for failure to provide written and accurate itemized wage statements. The Court of Appeal thus reversed the order denying class certification in part as to the wage statement claim. The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s order in all other respects. Defendant argued that the putative class members’ individual circumstances were so variable that Plaintiffs could not prove Defendant’s liability for any wage violations on a class-wide basis. The Court of Appeal agreed that the record showed the work habits and practices of the signature gatherers varied widely. The Court of Appeal therefore ruled that the trial court did not err in finding that individual issues of liability predominated for the non-wage statement claims, notwithstanding the common question of misclassification. The Court of Appeal reasoned that Plaintiffs’ claims for overtime pay and meal and rest break violations were