"Precertification, Stores' Lawyers Crush Class"

Monday's Daily Journal had an article (subscription) about an Orange County Superior Court misclassification case in which a judge apparently granted the defendant's motion to deny class certification. The article identifies the case as "Williams v. AZ3 Inc., JCCP4385; BCBG Overtime Cases, 02CC00378 (Orange Super. Ct., filed Dec. 24, 2002)."

Defendants proactively attack class action allegations in three different ways that I've heard of: (1) demurring to or moving to strike the class allegations, which is a pleadings motion; (2) moving to decertify the class after certification has been granted; and (3) moving to deny class certification, which is an evidentiary motion. It sounds like this one was an evidentiary motion — as opposed to an attack on the pleadings — in support of which the defendant presented declarations to prove that the elements of certification could not be established. I agree with the several lawyers quoted in the article that defense motions to deny class certification are very rare. In fact, I've seen them only in federal court. This may be because the California Rules of Court don't expressly permit such motions. I don't recall hearing of such a motion being granted in a California state case before. Anyone?

Comments

[michael walsh]

We've seen them also brought as motions to dismiss, or motions to dismiss class allegations. The only one ever granted against a class we represented was reversed on appeal.

[mary dumont]

it was in fact done in conley v. pge (131 Cal.App.4th 260), court made a big deal of how this should rarely be done, citing Linder v. Thrifty Oil Co. (2000) 223 Cal.4th 429, but then did it. i think there has been a case since saying Conley that says basically never.

[TommyK]

It is specificaly mentioned in Carabini v. Superior Court,26 Cal. App. 4th 239, 242-43 (1994) and in City of San Jose v. Superior Court, 12 Cal. 3d 447, 453-54 (1974). We do these all the time. The fact that the CRC doesn't address it specifically doesn't mean that you can't do it; it just means the time to file is governed by CCP 1005 rather than the special rules in the CRC for motions for class cert or decert. Every time we do it, the plaintiff's counsel moan and wail that it is not allowed. Sometimes they persuade the trial court, sometimes they don't.