Unpublished class certification opinion: Aguiar v. Cintas Corp. No. 2

The Second Appellate District, Division Seven, issued an unpublished class certification opinion a couple of weeks ago. Aguiar v. Cintas Corporation No. 2, case no. B182477 (Sept. 27, 2006). The opinion should have been published for a couple of reasons. First, it is one of the only post-Sav-on opinions in which an appellate court reversed an order denying class certification after applying the deferential standard of review governing findings of fact, as set forth in Sav-on. Second, its discussion of subclasses goes farther than any other published opinion. Many published opinions state that subclassing is possible and even encouraged, such as Richmond v. Dart Industries, Inc., 29 Cal.3d 462 (1981); Vasquez v. Superior Court, 4 Cal.3d 800 (1971); and Hicks v. Kaufman & Broad Home Corp., 89 Cal.App.4th 908 (2001). Aguiar cites all of these opinions (slip op. at 13), then goes on to provide concrete examples of the kinds of subclasses that can be certified, and to explain how subclasses would operate at the trial court level. For example, the opinion says that once several subclasses have been certified, leave to amend the complaint may be sought to ensure that a proper representative of each subclass is joined as a named plaintiff. Slip op. at 17. No published opinions go into this kind of detail on subclasses. For these reasons, the opinion merits publication under Rule of Court 976(c).