Judge: Randall J. Sherman, Case: 2022-01246363, Date: 2023-08-04 Tentative Ruling

The tentative ruling is to continue the hearing on plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Approval of Class Action Settlement to November 3, 2023 at 10:00 a.m.  Counsel must file supplemental papers addressing the court’s concerns (not fully revised papers that would have to be re-read) at least 16 days before the next hearing date.  Counsel should submit an amendment to the settlement agreement rather than any amended settlement agreement.  Counsel also should provide a red-lined version of any revised papers, including the class notice.  Counsel also should provide the court with an explanation of how the pending issues were resolved, with references to any corrections to the settlement agreement and the class notice, rather than with just a supplemental declaration or brief that simply asserts the issues have been resolved.

The motion does not provide the court with the estimated high, low or average individual payments to the class members.  The estimated average payment should be provided for preliminary approval, but if the high and low estimated payments are not available at this time, they must be provided in the motion for final approval.

The allocation of only 20% of the settlement payments for wages appears to be low.  The estimated exposure analysis in the motion allocates more than 50% of the class members’ potential (non-PAGA) recovery to wages.  Either an increase to 33 1/3% or an adequate explanation of why the figure is not at least 33 1/3% is required.

The settlement agreement in §§8.6 and 8.8.4, and the class notice in §4.3, provide that the Administrator will resolve any workweek disputes.  The documents should reflect instead that the Administrator and the parties will attempt to resolve any such dispute, but the court ultimately will decide any unresolved dispute.

The pages of the class notice must be numbered.

Rather than having class members prepare their own opt-out requests, the class notice must include an exclusion form that class members can complete and submit.  The form must be referenced in the class notice.

The class notice references the release for the class members and the release for the PAGA aggrieved employees interchangeably as “Released Claims”.  The class notice should reference the release for the class members as the “Released Class Claims” and the release for the aggrieved employees as the “Released PAGA Claims”.

The court will not issue an injunction against the class members or the aggrieved employees.  The language in Sections 3.9 and 3.10 of the class notice addressing future claims that may be barred must be modified to reflect that future claims may be barred only as a matter of law.  In Section 3.9, change “will be legally barred” to “may be barred as a matter of law”, and change “you cannot sue” to “you may not be entitled to sue”.  In Section 3.10, change “will be barred from asserting PAGA claims against Defendant” to “may be barred as a matter of law from asserting the released PAGA claims against Defendant”, and change “cannot sue” to “may not be entitled to sue”.

In §8 of the class notice, the courtroom for the Final Approval Hearing is incorrectly identified as Department 21 rather than Department CX105.

Counsel should propose a realistic Final Approval Hearing date, bearing in mind that all papers in support of the Final Approval Hearing, including detailed hourly breakdowns of plaintiff’s attorneys to support a lodestar cross-check, detailed plaintiff attorney cost breakdowns, an Administrator declaration and invoice, and plaintiff’s declaration to support the enhancement request, must be filed at least 16 calendar days before the Final Approval Hearing date, to provide enough time for court review, and must be served in compliance with CCP notice of motion requirements.

Plaintiff is ordered to give notice to defense counsel unless notice is waived.