Sevag Chalian v. Cvs Pharmacy, Inc

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: April 17, 2025
• Docket: 21-55904
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS APR 17 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

SEVAG CHALIAN; et al., No. 21-55904

Plaintiffs-Appellees, D.C. No. 2:16-cv-08979-AB-AGR v.

PARVIN GHASSEMIAN, MEMORANDUM*

Objector-Appellant,

v.

CVS PHARMACY, INC, a Rhode Island corporation; et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Andre Birotte, Jr., District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted October 17, 2022 Submission Vacated January 9, 2023 Resubmitted April 16, 2025 Pasadena, California

Before: CHRISTEN, BUMATAY, and DESAI, Circuit Judges.

Objector Parvin Ghassemian appeals the district court’s order granting final

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. approval of a class action settlement concerning allegations that CVS Pharmacy,

Inc., violated California wage-and-hour laws. Because the parties are familiar with

the facts, we do not recount them here. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C.

§ 1291, and we affirm.

1. Plaintiffs and CVS argue that Ghassemian lacks Article III standing to

pursue this appeal because she entered into a private settlement with CVS, pursuant

to which she dismissed with prejudice her individual claims filed in state court.

Whether Ghassemian has standing to appeal depends on whether she “retains a

personal stake in the case,” Campion v. Old Republic Prot. Co., 775 F.3d 1144, 1146

(9th Cir. 2014), and this court looks to the language of the settlement agreement to

determine whether Ghassemian has such a stake, Brady v. AutoZone Stores, Inc.,

960 F.3d 1172, 1174 (9th Cir. 2020).1

Ghassemian asserts and CVS concedes that their private settlement agreement

states that Ghassemian and CVS sought to resolve all claims and disputes “except

those claims specifically carved out in paragraph 6(b),” which addresses

Ghassemian’s rights as a “class member in the Chalian litigation.” Although

Plaintiffs and CVS argue otherwise, that carve-out was enough to give Ghassemian

1 Although Campion and Brady addressed whether a putative class plaintiff who settles his individual claims after the denial of class certification can then appeal that denial consistent with Article III, the principles discussed therein are instructive here.

2 a stake in the outcome of this class action appeal.

Plaintiffs assert that Ghassemian has no redressable injury because her

individual wage-and-hour claims were the subject of a “final judgment” by the

California court. See Ins. Corp. of Ir., Ltd. v. Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee,

456 U.S. 694, 702 (1982) (holding that parties cannot by agreement confer

jurisdiction on a federal court). But the settlement agreement expressly reserved

Ghassemian’s rights to the class claims that underlie this appeal. In other words, the

agreement resolved some, but not all, of the live controversies between Ghassemian

and CVS.

CVS separately argues that “to the extent [Ghassemian] argues the class

settlement undercompensated her, . . . the injury is self-inflicted.” But this argument

proves too much. If it were correct, any class member who alleges that a settlement

undercompensates but chooses not to opt out would lack standing to appeal.

We cannot conclude either that “no matter what happens on appeal,”

Ghassemian “would not get a penny more,” Campion, 775 F.3d at 1147, or that the

agreement is not enough to give Ghassemian “a financial stake in the outcome,”

Brady, 960 F.3d at 1175. Because Ghassemian maintains a concrete, financial, and

personal stake in the outcome of the appeal, she has standing.1

1 Because we address and ultimately reject Ghassemian’s merits arguments, we need not address whether she also lacks the right to appeal because she is not a party to the class settlement. See Churchill Vill., LLC v. Gen. Elec., 361 F.3d 566, 572 (9th

3 2. Ghassemian argues that the initial class notice was inadequate and that the

district court erred by failing to provide supplemental notice after the settlement was

modified. Although Ghassemian received notice of the settlement “[o]n or about

October 5, 2020,” she did not raise her objections concerning notice until her July

15, 2021 letter brief. The district court therefore struck these objections as untimely.

Because these objections were not properly presented to the district court, we decline

to reach them. See In re Mercury Interactive Corp. Sec. Litig., 618 F.3d 988, 992

(9th Cir. 2010).

3. We next consider whether the district court abused its discretion by

approving the class settlement. See In re Volkswagen “Clean Diesel” Mktg., Sales

Pracs., & Prods. Liab. Litig., 895 F.3d 597, 606, 609 (9th Cir. 2018). To determine

whether a settlement is “fair, reasonable, and adequate,” district courts examine the

eight “Churchill factors” and the “specific factors” identified in Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 23(e)(2). See McKinney-Drobnis v. Oreshack, 16 F.4th 594, 607, 609 &

n.4 (9th Cir. 2021). The district court properly considered each of the required

factors and specifically addressed Ghassemian’s objections. Thus, the district court

did not abuse its discretion by concluding the settlement was fair, reasonable, and

adequate.

Cir. 2004) (noting that “neither Article III nor prudential standing is implicated by the efforts of non-intervening objectors to appeal class-action settlements”).

4 4. We also conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion by

determining that the settlement was not collusive. See id. at 607–08. The district

court properly “looked for and scrutinized any subtle signs that class counsel . . .

allowed pursuit of their own self-interests to infect the negotiations” by explicitly

and comprehensively considering each of the relevant Bluetooth factors and

Ghassemian’s objections. Id. (citation omitted).

5. The district court also did not abuse its discretion by certifying the class

for the purpose of settlement over Ghassemian’s objections to the class definitions.

See In re Hyundai & Kia Fuel Econ. Litig., 926 F.3d 539, 556–58 (9th Cir. 2019)

(en banc). The district court reasonably concluded that the classes were defined so

that no person was a member of both classes and any class member who worked in

the affected regions during the class period would be counted, and recognized that

any overbreadth in the pharmacy class was only a trial management concern. The

district court also properly concluded that both classes satisfied Rule 23(a)’s

requirements and were sufficiently cohesive to satisfy Rule 23(b)(3) for settlement

purposes.

AFFIRMED.2

2 Because Ghassemian “did not increase the fund or otherwise substantially benefit the class members,” she is not entitled to fees. See Vizcaino v. Microsoft Corp., 290 F.3d 1043, 1051 (9th Cir. 2002).