California Court of Appeal

In a wage and hour class action brought by current and former business banking officers who claimed they were misclassified by the defendant bank as outside sales personnel exempt from California's overtime laws, and were thus unlawfully denied overtime pay, the judgment in favor of the plaintiffs is reversed, where: 1) the trial plan erroneously relied on representative sampling and thus violated the bank's right to due process of law; 2) the trial court's refusal to allow the bank to introduce evidence to challenge the claims of certain class members violated its due process rights; 3) the statistical sampling methods, with their 43.3 percent margin of error, produced results so unreliable as to render the judgment unconstitutional; and 4) the trial court erred in denying a motion to decertify the class.

Appellate Information

• Decided 02/06/2012
• Published 02/06/2012

Judges

• Dondero

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Carlton DiSante & Freudenberger LLP, Ellen Lake