North American Title Company v. Super. Ct.

FACTS

Overview of the Superior Court Proceeding In 2007, plaintiff Carolyn Cortina filed a class action complaint alleging various wage and hour violations against her employer, then named North American Title Company, Inc., a California corporation. The complaint was amended in 2009 and 2010 to add 12 additional named plaintiffs and class representatives. In 2010, the superior court granted certification to two classes; the “exempt” and “non-exempt” subclasses, referring to groups of employees that were categorized as salaried and hourly-wage employees, respectively. Before proceeding to a court trial in September 2015, class representatives dismissed statutory wage and hour causes of action under the Labor Code and proceeded solely under Business and Professions Code section 17200 et seq., also known as the unfair competition law. In October 2016, following an approximate 41-day bench trial, the trial judge issued a statement of decision decertifying the non-exempt class and finding liability in favor of class representatives as to the exempt class. In the statement of decision, the trial judge held “due to the consumption of time that would be required to assess the amounts of…