Wage Law

The Supreme Court conference this week was of more interest than usual to wage and hour attorneys who handle class actions or representative actions, even though none of the cases were wage and hour cases. Probably the most interesting was the order depublishing Sony Electronics, Inc. v. Superior Court (2006) 145 Cal.App.4th 1086. In the published opinion, the Fourth District Court of Appeal found that the trial court erred in defining the class as "[a]ll persons or entities [in the United States] who purchased Sony Vaio GRX [Series Notebook computers]"] in which the memory connector pins for either of the two memory slots were inadequately soldered" because an ascertainable class must be defined according to objective facts, not conclusions of liability:

the class definition requires a merits-based determination in order to establish whether a particular GRX Series Notebook owner is a member of the class. The members of such a class are thus not readily identifiable so as to permit appropriate notice to be given and the definition would not permit persons who receive notice of this action to determine whether they are part of the class.

The case was remanded with directions for further proceedings to determine whether an ascertainable class could be determined. Apparently, Martin Hapner (the plaintiff) and his team of lawyers from California, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, were content to return to the trial court and tighten up their class definition, because no petition for review was filed.

The opinion was originally unpublished, but after Sony Electronics filed a request for publication, the case was ordered published at 145 Cal.App.4th 1086 (and two weeks after that, Sony asked the court to add two more of its attorneys to the published opinion). In February, San Diego attorney Timothy Cohelan filed a request to depublish the opinion, and as a result, Sony Electronics, Inc. v. Superior Court (2006) 145 Cal.App.4th 1086 is no longer good law. So forget what we said about it back in January.