Starbucks Corp. v. Superior Court

Can a purported remedy cause the very disease it is supposed to prevent? In this so-called “headless” class action, the answer regrettably is yes.

During the first administration of Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr., in the mid-1970’s, the California Legislature reformed the state’s marijuana laws to require the “destruction” by “permanent obliteration” of all records of minor marijuana convictions that were more than two years old. Employers were prohibited from even asking about such convictions on their job applications, with statutory penalties of the greater of actual damages, or $200 per aggrieved applicant.

Real parties in interest are three individuals who brought a class action against petitioner Starbucks Corporation (Starbucks), seeking some $26 million in statutory penalties on behalf of an estimated 135,000 job applicants, because Starbucks’s preprinted job application allegedly violated provisions of this marijuana reform legislation. In Starbucks Corp. v. Superior Court (2008) 168 Cal.App.4th 1436 [ 86 Cal.Rptr.3d 482 ] (Starbucks I), we held real parties in interest did not have standing to represent the proposed class because none had any marijuana…