Back in December, I posted about the Court of Appeals decision in Sony Electronics v. Superior Court, Fourth District, D048468, a case which seemed to strike a serious blow against the certification of merits-based classes. Figuratively puffing my chest out, I offered this:
This is kind of huge for the defense. For example, in the Lease Documents cases in Los Angeles Superior Court, Mr. Trygar and his friends are suing just about every new car dealer in the State in a UCL class action on a variety of theories, arguing that class membership can be determined by reviewing all of the dealers' records about every transaction. This seems to put the kaybosh on this kind of case (and could, all by itself, take the rest of the air out of the Lease Documents cases, in which yours truly happens to be one of the liaison counsel for the dealers).
Brilliant. Nothing like a little hubris. The California Supreme Court has now depublished the decision. For you non-California types, that means that without deciding the merits, they decided the case can't be cited and has no precedential value.
UCL Practitioner posts on this here. Wage Law posts on it here.