Justia U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff filed a putative class action against Mercer, alleging that Mercer had a common policy or practice of failing to inform domestic farm workers of the availability of H-2A work that paid $12 per hour, in violation of the Agricultural Workers’ Protection Act (AWPA), 29 U.S.C. 1831(e) and 1821(f), and the Washington Consumer Protection Act (CPA), Wash. Rev. Code 19.86.020. Plaintiffs also alleged that Mercer failed to pay its own domestic workers $12 per hour when they carried out the same tasks as foreign H-2A workers, in violation of AWPA and state wage laws.The district court certified an Inaccurate Information class and an Equal Pay subclass, corresponding to plaintiffs’ claims. In regard to the Inaccurate Information class, the court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion by finding common questions and in finding that common issues predominated under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3). In regard to the Equal Pay subclass, the court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion by identifying a common question of fact concerning whether Mercer’s domestic workers were consistently paid $12 per hour for H-2A work. Finally, the court concluded that the district court did not err in finding that the typicality requirement was met in this case. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Ruiz Torres v. Mercer Canyons" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit on his own behalf and also moved to represent 605 former and current sales associates as a class, alleging that Stoneledge requires sales associates to perform many tasks unrelated to sales. Plaintiff claimed that Stoneledge does not pay its sales associates for such work, beyond what they earn in commissions, and this policy violates California wage and hour laws. The district court granted class certification under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. The court concluded that the district court permissibly concluded that plaintiff had pleaded a common injury capable of class-wide resolution; where the need for individual damages calculations does not, alone, defeat class certification, the district court permissibly ruled that individual claims did not predominate in this case; and the district court did not violate the Rules Enabling Act, 28 U.S.C. 2072(b), or abuse its discretion in certifying the class. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Bermudez Vaquero v. Ashley Furniture" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, 108 individuals with property near the Boeing facility, filed suit against Boeing and Landau in state court, alleging that for several decades Boeing released toxins into the groundwater around its facility in Auburn, Washington, and that for over a decade Landau had been negligent in its investigation and remediation of the resulting pollution. Boeing removed to federal court based on diversity and the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), 28 U.S.C. 1332(d). The district court remanded to state court finding that there was not complete diversity and plaintiffs' action came within the single-event exception to CAFA federal jurisdiction. In this appeal, Boeing argued that plaintiffs have not demonstrated that they seek “significant relief” from Landau, the in-state defendant, and that Landau’s conduct does not form “a significant basis of the claims asserted,” as required by section 1332(d)(4)(A)(i). The court concluded that plaintiffs have adequately pled both that they are seeking “significant relief” from Landau and that Landau’s alleged conduct forms a “significant basis” for their claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Allen v. Boeing Co." on Justia Law

Florencio Pacleb filed a class action complaint against Allstate, alleging that he received unsolicited automated calls to his cell phone in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), 47 U.S.C. 227. Allstate deposited $20,000 in full settlement of Pacleb’s individual monetary claims in an escrow account “pending entry of a final District Court order or judgment directing the escrow agent to pay the tendered funds to Pacleb, requiring Allstate to stop sending non-emergency telephone calls and short message service messages to Pacleb in the future and dismissing this action as moot.” The court affirmed the district court's order denying Allstate’s motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The court concluded that, even if the district court entered judgment affording Pacleb complete relief on his individual claims for damages and injunctive relief, mooting those claims, Pacleb would still be able to seek class certification under Pitts v. Terrible Herbst, Inc., which remains good law under Gomez v. Campbell-Ewald Co. The court also concluded that, even if Pitts were not binding, and Allstate could moot the entire action by mooting Pacleb’s individual claims for damages and injunctive relief, those individual claims are not now moot, and the court will not direct the district court to moot them by entering judgment on them before Pacleb has had a fair opportunity to move for class certification. View "Chen v. Allstate Ins. Co." on Justia Law

Appellants and appellees are two teams of named plaintiffs and their respective lawyers who disagree over the proper direction for a consumer class action settlement. In Radcliffe I, the court held that appellees created a conflict of interest by conditioning incentive awards for the class representatives on their approval of the proposed settlement agreement. On remand, appellants moved the district court to disqualify appellees’ counsel from representing the class based on that conflict. The court agreed with the district court that California does not apply a rule of automatic disqualification for conflicts of simultaneous representation in the class action context, and concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that appellees’ counsel will adequately represent the class. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of the qualification motion. View "Radcliffe v. Experian Info. Solutions" on Justia Law

Google's AdWords program is an auction-based program through which advertisers would bid for Google to place their advertisements on websites. Pulaski and others filed a putative class action alleging that Google misled them as to the types of websites on which their advertisements could appear. On appeal, Pulaski challenged the district court's denial of class certification, holding that on the claim for restitution, common questions did not predominate over questions affecting individual class members. The court held that a court need not make individual determinations regarding entitlement to restitution. Instead, restitution is available on a class wide basis once the class representative makes the threshold showing of liability. Therefore, the court concluded that the district court erred in holding that such individual questions would predominate. In Yokoyama v. Midland National Life Insurance Co., the court held that damage calculations alone cannot defeat certification. The court concluded that Yokoyama remains the law of the court and the district court erred in not following the rule in Yokoyama. Finally, the court concluded that the proposed method for calculating restitution was not “arbitrary” under Comcast Corp. v. Behrend. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Pulaski & Middleman, LLC v. Google, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a malpractice suit against Milberg and others for failing to meet the discovery requirements in the Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company, Inc. (VALIC) class action. On appeal, Intervenor-plaintiff-appellant Lance Laber challenged the district court's denial of plaintiffs' motion for class certification. The court concluded that the district court properly applied the choice-of-law rules of Arizona, the forum state. However, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings, concluding that the district court erred in holding that the law of each class member’s home state governed his or her individual claim, rather than the law of Arizona where the alleged malpractice occurred. View "Bobbitt v. Milberg LLP" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, seeking to represent a class of service technicians, filed suit against his employer, Hobart, and its parent company, ITW, alleging that Hobart did not compensate its technicians for the time they spent commuting in Hobart’s service vehicles from their homes to their job sites and from those job sites back home, and that Hobart failed to provide its technicians with meal and rest breaks. The district court denied the class certification and granted partial summary judgment to defendants. The district court also determined that plaintiff did not comply with the notice requirements of California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), Cal. Lab. Code 2698 et seq. The court concluded that the district court erred in denying class certification because it evaluated the merits rather than focusing on whether the questions presented - meritorious or not - were common to the class; the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that the proposed class failed to meet the requirements of Rule 23(b) because questions as to why service technicians missed their meal and rest breaks would predominate over questions common to the class; in regard to plaintiff's commute-time claim, the court concluded that there was a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether Hobart requires technicians to use its vehicles for their commute; and the district court properly dismissed the PAGA claim because plaintiff's letter is insufficient to allow the Labor and Workforce Development Agency to intelligently assess the seriousness of the alleged violations. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. View "Alcantar v. Hobart Service" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against First American, seeking to represent a class of similarly-situated home buyers and alleging that First American engaged in a national scheme of paying the title agencies things of value in exchange for the title agencies’ agreement to refer future title insurance business to First American, in violation of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), 12 U.S.C. 2601–2617. The district court denied plaintiff's motion for class certification. The court concluded that section 2607(c)(2) cannot apply to First American’s transactions as a matter of law, so the district court erred in relying on section 2607(c)(2) to determine the propriety of class certification. The district court erred in concluding that the common issue does not predominate over individual issues for the proposed class members. Here, plaintiffs contends that First American utilized a nationwide scheme of buying minority interests in the title agencies in order to secure remittance streams from the agencies’ future referrals. This common scheme, if true, presents a significant aspect of First American’s transactions that warrant class adjudication: Whether First American paid a thing of value to get its agreement for exclusive referrals. Therefore, the court vacated the district court’s denial of class certification in part as to these transactions that involved the common scheme presented to First American’s board of directors. The court also concluded that, even if other service providers may have also influenced the home buyers’ decision to choose First American, there remains a predominant, common question of whether the title agencies’ contractual obligations affirmatively influenced the home buyer’s choice of First American. First American's transactions with the newly-formed agencies at issue do not share common questions of fact between First American and the transactions with the preexisting title agencies and thus do not require common proof to resolve the validity of each of the class members’ claims. The court affirmed the district court’s denial of class certification in part as to the newly-formed title agencies, vacated the district court’s denial of class certification in part as to the remaining title agencies, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Edwards v. The First American Corp." on Justia Law

The district court, in evaluating whether it had jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, 28 U.S.C. 1332(d), over the removed action, analyzed this consolidated case as though it remained two separate class actions, and concluded that CAFA’s local controversy exception applied to the first-filed class action, Bridewell-Sledge v. Blue Cross of California, but that the exception did not apply to the second-filed class action, Crowder v. Blue Cross of California. The court held that it was improper for the district court to view Bridewell-Sledge and Crowder as two separate class actions after they had been consolidated by the state court. In this case, the Bridewell-Sledge/Crowder consolidated class action should have been viewed by the district court as a single class action when evaluating jurisdiction under CAFA. Once it is recognized that the two cases became one, it is clear that CAFA’s local controversy exception applies to the consolidated class action, and, therefore, the district court was required to remand the entire Bridewell-Sledge/Crowder consolidated class action to state court. View "Bridewell-Sledge v. Blue Cross of CA" on Justia Law