Court reverses $43 million wage and hour judgment, decertifies class

All wage and hour class actions are difficult, and some are nearly impossible to manage. After 19 years of litigation, multiple appellate detours, a bifurcated bench trial, testimony from hundreds of class members, and a $43 million judgment, the California Court of Appeal concluded that a trial plan had collapsed under the weight of individual issues. The result was reversal, decertification, and a remand (sending the case back to the lower court) for retrial of the named individuals’  separate claims.

When representative proof isn’t representative enough 

In the 2014 California Supreme Court class action case Duran v. U.S. Bank National Assn, the class had alleged their employer misclassified them as exempt from the laws requiring premium pay for overtime and mandatory meal breaks and rest periods during the workday. Such lawsuits are notoriously difficult to manage on a large scale, are often deemed unsuitable for class treatment, and usually settle if class certification is granted. Duran involved a class of 260 people, lasted more than 16 years, and ultimately ended in decertification because of the unmanageability of issues arising from the  employer’s defenses. 

The court of appeal called the following case “even rarer and more beastly than Duran,” lasting 19 years. The court lamented “the end is still nowhere in sight.”