Our client, a national bank, prevailed in the California Supreme Court following a first-of-its kind class action trial and multiple appeals. CDF defended the bank against a class action alleging misclassification of exempt loan officers who were engaged in selling loans to small businesses. The primary dispute at trial was the applicability of the California outside salesperson exemption to each employee in the class. After aggressively defending the client against these claims for more than a decade, including a months-long class action trial premised on an unprecedented "representative" trial methodology that involved statistical terminology but ignored relevant legal and statistical principles, CDF appealed both the trial plan and class judgment, resulting in a reversal and an order decertifying the class from the Court of Appeal. The plaintiffs petitioned the California Supreme Court for review, and CDF went on to successfully defend the client before the California Supreme Court. The California Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeal's judgment in its entirety, resulting in a total victory for the bank - with the trial court judgment reversed and the class decertified.
Location
California Supreme Court; California Court of Appeal, First District, Division 1; Alameda County Superior Court