Brinker Grant-and-Hold Redux: Goodbye Lamps Plus and Chipotle, Hello Bradley (and Brookler, Sort Of)

Remember Brinker? The wage and hour case to end all wage and hour cases? It's OK if you don't; you can find my discussion of it here.  But if you do, you might also remember that the California Supreme Court issued grant-and-hold orders in eight cases related to Brinker and that the "Br" alliteration was very strong, at least at first: 

Brinkley v. Public Storage (Case No. S168806)
Bradley v. Networkers International LLC (Case No. S171257)
Faulkinbury v. Boyd & Associates (Case No. S184995)
Brookler v. Radioshack Corporation (Case No. S186357)
Hernandez v. Chipotle Mexican Grill (Case No. S188755)
Tien v. Tenet Healthcare (Case No. S191756)
Lamps Plus Overtime Cases (Case No. S194064)
Muldrow v. Surrex (Case No. S200557) 

There has been a tremendous amount of activity on these cases over the last few weeks.  Here's the roundup.  

Three of the cases were remanded to the Second Appellate District, Division Eight: Lamps Plus Overtime Cases (8/20/12) (discussed here); Hernandez v. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (8/21/12) (discussed here); and Tien v. Tenet Healthcare Corp. (10/4/12) (discussed here). In each case, the Court of Appeal pre-Brinker had affirmed a trial court order denying class certification.  And in each case, the Court of Appeal on remand affirmed its pre-Brinker order.  

The California Supreme Court weighed in yesterday, denying the plaintiffs' petitions for review and ordering Lamps Plus and Hernandez v. Chipotle depublished.  The Court has not acted on the plaintiffs' petition in Tien v. Tenet Healthcare, which was filed on November 14.  

In Brookler v. Radioshack Corporation (unpublished 8/26/10), the Court of Appeal (Second District, Division Seven) reversed a trial court order decertifying a meal and rest period class action (discussed here).  The Court relied heavily on Cicairos v. Summit Logistics, Inc. (2005) 133 Cal.App.4th 949. On remand after Brinker, the Court of Appeal last week held that the trial court's decertification order was consistent with Brinker and affirmed.  The Court of Appeal once again left its decision in Brookler unpublished, but you can find it here.  

In Bradley v. Networkers International LLC (unpublished 2/5/09), the plaintiffs filed suit for unpaid overtime and meal and rest period violations.  The trial court denied their motion for class certification, and the Court of Appeal (Fourth District, Division One) affirmed in an unpublished decision.  

Yesterday, the Court of Appeal issued its new decision, which is published, holding that the the trial court erred in refusing to certify the class with respect to each of plaintiffs' claims, except for the off-the-clock claims, which the Court remanded for reconsideration in light of Brinker and the new Bradley decision.  

I will write more about Bradley in the next couple of days.  In the meantime, the opinion is available here.