Chirar v. Hilton Worldwide LLC

Opinion

1 2 3 6 7 CARLOS GONZALEZ, et al., Case No. 14-cv-01523-JSW

8 Plaintiffs, ORDER RE MOTION TO DECERTIFY v. 9 Re: Dkt. No. 205 Defendant. 11

12 13 The Court has received Defendant’s motion to decertify. (Dkt. No. 205.) 14 In its Class Certification Order, the Court noted that “[d]eciding this question will be 15 premised upon common evidence regarding what reasonable customers would have understood 16 about the service charge and will rely upon a limited set of discrete documents provided to 17 customers by Defendant (contracts, Banquet Event Order forms (BEOs), menus/website, and 18 check receipts).” (Dkt. No. 122). 19 Defendant moves to decertify the class on grounds that post-certification discovery has 20 revealed a lack of common evidence. Specifically, Defendant contends that the relevant contracts 21 vary to the degree that they no longer qualify as a “discrete” or “limited” set. (Dkt. No. 205 at 7– 22 9.) Defendant contends that this discovery undermines the basis of Court’s certification of the 23 class, which was premised at least in part on the Court’s finding that a “limited set of discrete 24 documents” existed. (Id.) 25 Plaintiffs contend that the contracts in question remain sufficiently similar to support class 26 certification. In support, Plaintiffs offer an attorney declaration stating that Defendant’s event 27 contracts fall into one of five categories, depending on whether they use the term “gratuity” or 1 service charge is distributed. (Dkt. 209 at 14.) Defendant notes that Plaintiffs’ counsel’s 2 declaration does not provide examples of contracts that would fit into these categories or explain 3 how these categories were devised. (Dkt. 217 at 2-6.) Defendant further notes that counsel does 4 not purport to have reviewed every contract such that she has the personal knowledge necessary to 5 support her declaration. (/d. at 3.) 6 The Court provides Plaintiffs with an opportunity to provide any further evidence to 7 demonstrate that the relevant set of contracts remain sufficiently “discrete” and “limited” to 8 support class certification by August 29, 2024. See Grayson v. 7-Eleven, Inc., 2011 WL 2414378 9 (S.D. Cal. June 10, 2011) (The court could not “simply rely on counsel’s assurances that applying 10 the laws of various states would not overwhelm a finding of predominance, rather, counsel must 11 affirmatively demonstrate the accuracy of the assertion.”) qa 12 7) IT IS SO ORDERED. fj

= 3 Dated: August 9, 2024 \ offre AT □□ 15 EHEREY S. WHITE United States District Judge 16

it

4 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28