Wilson v. The La Jolla Group (Mar. 12, 2021, D077134)
Plaintiffs brought a wage-and-hour class action for those who worked for the defendant as signature gatherers on behalf of political campaigns and political action committees, alleging the defendant misclassified them as independent contractors. The trial court denied class certification and plaintiffs appealed.
The Court of Appeal affirmed as to all but the claim for inaccurate wage statements. The court rejected plaintiffs’ contention that class certification was appropriate because the overarching misclassification issue was common to all class members. The court held that misclassification was only part of the equation, and class certification could still be denied if individual inquiries necessary to establish liability on the underlying wage-and-hour claims predominated over common questions.
The appellate court concluded that, as to most of the underlying claims, the trial court reasonably found individual issues would predominate over any common misclassification issues. The court reversed the denial of class certification as to the inaccurate wage statement claim because liability for that claim depended solely on the common misclassification question. However, the court declined to require class certification, instead remanding for the trial court to consider whether the inaccurate wage statement claim would raise problems implicating the manageability and superiority requirements for class certification.
