Review of LACBA Dinner on Dukes and Concepcion

I organized and had the honor of introducing the speakers at last night's Los Angeles County Bar Association program on class action practice after Wal-Mart v. Dukes and AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion: Nancy Abell of Paul Hastings, Brad Seligman of The Impact Fund, and our moderator, Aaron Cole of Irell & Manella. 158 people attended, making it the most successful dinner that the Labor and Employment Law Section has presented.

Wal-Mart v. Dukes: Aaron did a nice job of explaining the decision. Not surprisingly, Nancy and Brad disagreed strongly on its impact going forward. Brad emphasized that the theory of the case -- that a company policy giving discretion to local decision-makers can have a disparate impact on employees -- is very narrow and rarely used, so that the ultimate impact of Dukes may be more narrow than we all may assume. Nancy emphasized more broadly applicable rules found in the decision, such as the limitation on the use of aggregated statistics and the use of Daubert motions on class certification. Brad countered that Daubert challenges have been used for several years and will continue to be used, but whether they will succeed in keeping social scientists out of the certification debate in the future remains to be seen.

Nancy argued that the Hilao v. Estate of Marcos method of trying class actions -- what Justice Scalia referred to as "trial by formula" -- is dead, at least in Title VII cases, and cited Marlo v. UPS II (9th Cir.) and the more recent Cruz v. Dollar Tree (N.D. Cal.). Brad countered that this part of the decision rests on the language of Title VII (limiting its impact in other class cases) and in any case, the plaintiffs never relied on Hilao, which was inserted sua sponte by the Ninth Circuit in its en banc decision. He said that in Dukes, the plaintiffs have full data on the disparate impact of Wal-Mart's policies and can try the case based on that data, rather than on sampling. The Supreme Court, however, did not address this issue.

Brad conceded that the most significant impact of Dukes outside of the Title VII context is that if a plaintiff seeks a monetary recovery, Rule 23(b)(2) is out, and the case will be analyzed under Rule 23(b)(3). Nancy added that plaintiffs likely will seek to work with the EEOC, which may intervene in Title VII cases and which is not bound by Rule 23. Brad said that we likely will see larger cases broken down regionally. "Stay tuned."

AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion: Again, Aaron did a nice job summarizing the case. Nancy argued that along with Discover Bank, Gentry v. Superior Court is dead, and last week's Brown v. Ralph's Grocery is wrongly decided. Brad argued that California courts are going to follow their own line -- as in Brown -- until the Supreme Court says no, and that AT&T's arbitration agreement was unusually generous and that more standard arbitration agreements may not receive such a warm welcome in the courts.

Justice Moreno then asked what impact AT&T might have on the California Supreme Court's decision in Sonic-Calabasas A, Inc. v. Moreno, which he authored. Nancy stated, no offense to Justice Moreno, that it is dead. Brad countered that enforcement actions before the DLSE or under PAGA may not be subject to arbitration under the Supreme Court's EEOC v. Waffle House decision.

Asked whether a class action ban might violate the National Labor Relations Act by interfering with concerted activity, Brad responded that at least one such case is under consideration by the NLRB.

All in all, a very interesting night for us class action wonks. Thank you to Nancy, Brad, Aaron, and everyone else involved for making it such a success.