Ninth Circuit might send employee break case to Supreme Court

During oral argument earlier this week in Cole v. CRST Van Expedited, Inc., a Ninth Circuit panel seemed ready to send the case to the California Supreme Court to answer a state law question concerning rest breaks.  One judge told counsel for the plaintiff and appellant, who was resisting sending the case to the Supreme Court, that normally “plaintiffs who lose in the district court are just dying to get to the California Supreme Court and the defendants who lose in the district court don’t want to get anywhere near the California Supreme Court.”