CashCall, Inc. v. Superior Court

We hold that in the circumstances of this case the trial court did not err by applying a balancing test and ordering precertification discovery in a class action for the purpose of identifying class members who may become substitute plaintiffs in place of named plaintiffs who were not members of the class they purported to represent. We conclude there is no bright-line rule that the original class representative plaintiffs must be members of the class to have standing to obtain precertification discovery.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On May 16, 2006, plaintiffs Amanda Kight, Kay-Francis Mulligan, and Brenda Guzman filed a class action complaint against defendant CashCall, Inc., and 50 “Doe” defendants (CashCall) alleging violation of their privacy rights. The complaint alleged each of the plaintiffs had borrowed money from CashCall, and CashCall, in making consumer loans and collecting delinquent payments on those loans, had “illegally secretly monitor[ed] telephone and other conversations between [CashCall’s] employees and Plaintiffs, as well as other class members as alleged herein.” The complaint alleged: “Such illegal monitoring was done for the purpose of…