In an opinion with significant implications for California employment law class actions, the California Court of Appeal in Duran v. U.S. Bank National Association ruled that a trial court’s use of statistical sampling violated the defendant’s due process rights. On February 6, the First Appellate District decertified the Duran class and overturned a $15 million judgment that was entered following a bench trial at which a sampling of class members was used to determine liability and damages for the entire class. Citing approvingly to language in the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes decision, the Court of Appeal observed that this “trial by formula” was inappropriate, and further held that using sampling to establish classwide liability violated the defendant’s due process rights to challenge each class member’s claims.

Denying that its ruling will decide “whether the class action will survive as an effective method to try wage and hour misclassification cases,” the California Court of Appeal observed that statistical sampling may still be appropriate at the damages stage of trials. Duran, however, not only delimits the use of sampling in misclassification class actions but also raises serious questions about the manageability of other employment law class actions where liability depends upon the conduct of each class member.

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