In Schmidt v. California Highway Patrol, ___ Cal.App.4th ___ (Aug. 1, 2016), the Court of Appeal (Second Appellate District, Division Six) affirmed an order granting class certification (slip op. at 8-9), as well as the ensuing judgment (id. at 10-11) and attorneys' fees award under Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5 (id. at 11-12).
The opinion (briefly) discusses the elements of class certification, mainly ascertainability, numerosity and typicality. A class consisting of "the vast majority" of 187 persons was sufficiently numerous; the class members' identities need not be proven at the certification stage; and "[t]ypicality refers to the nature of the claim of the class representative, not the specific facts from which the claim arose. (Seastrom v. Neways, Inc. (2007) 149 Cal.App.4th 1496, 1502.)" Slip op. at 9.
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