Nguyen

INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff Anthony Nguyen filed a class-action lawsuit in May 2011 against employer Inter-Coast International Training, Inc. for various Labor Code violations. Plaintiff Cheryl Alexander was added as a named plaintiff in May 2015, and the court granted class certification in September 2015. The case was stayed twice while Inter-Coast appealed court rulings denying petitions to compel arbitration. A trial was set for January 2020, just inside the five-year deadline under Code of Civil Procedure, section 583.310.1 The parties discovered at the final status conference two weeks before trial that the court had granted summary judgment in favor of Inter-Coast against a majority of class members, but the court had not served the written ruling on the parties. Plaintiffs then requested additional time to name a new class representative. Inter-Coast moved to dismiss under the five-year rule, asserting that the active time of the case, not including the two stays during appeals, exceeded five years. Plaintiffs opposed the motion to dismiss, asserting that an additional 14-day stay should be subtracted from the five-year period, and that the court’s failure to serve the parties…