California Appeals Court Confirms "Renewed Direction" In Favor of Class Certification

Posted in News, Wage and Hour on April 14, 2014

As I noted earlier –  – Big wage and hour news today out of Los Angeles.  The Second Appellate District ordered published a powerful opinion reversing a trial court’s order denying class certification in an exempt status misclassification case.  The Order in Martinez v. Joe’s Crab Shacks, found here, confirms that the California Supreme Court’s decision in Brinker gave“renewed direction that class-wide relief remains the preferred method of resolving wage and hour claims, even those in which the facts appeared to present difficult issues of proof.”  That’s the court of appeal’s turn of phrase, not mine.  The decision is particularly significant because it found that variations between restaurant manager class members in the amount of time each may have spent actually performing exempt/nonexempt tasks was no bar to certification.  The ruling thus undercuts one of the main employer arguments in opposing class treatment.

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