Supreme Court of California
Ayala v. Antelope Valley Newspapers, S206874
In an action brought by four plaintiff-newspaper carriers alleging that defendant illegally treats them as independent contractors, rather than employees, and thereby deprives them of a host of wage and hour protections to which they are legally entitled, the Court of Appeal's decision that the trial court had misunderstood the nature of the inquiries called for in its denial of plaintiffs' request to proceed as a class action, and remand for reconsideration of the class certification motion as to five of the complaint's claims is affirmed, where: 1) whether the hirer's right to control can be shown on a class-wide basis will depend on the extent to which individual variations in the hirer's rights vis-à-vis each putative class member exist, and whether such variations, if any, are manageable; and 2) because the trial court principally rejected certification based not on differences in defendant's right to exercise control, but on variations in how that right was exercised, its decision cannot stand.
Appellate Information
- Decided 06/30/2014
- Published 06/30/2014
Judges
- WERDEGAR
Court
- Supreme Court of California