5DCA Oral Argument - 2026/03/24 - Mar 24, 2026
argument5DCA Oral Argument - 2026/03/24
California Fifth District Court of Appeal
1h 31m
1 speaker
1 chapter
transcribed 9 days ago
official recording ↗
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Nice to see everyone this morning, especially nice to see all of the students from the Bullard Law Pathway here. We'll look forward to talking to you a little bit later. And we understand, I believe, Mr. Jenkins is here, their teacher. And we'll see you shortly and have a great chat. Let's call the first matter on calendar, Adam Martinez versus Sierra Lifestar. Please state your appearances.
Good morning, Your Honor. H. Scott Leviant, Fort Perth.
Good morning.
Good morning, Your Honors. Brent Woodward, Fort Respondent.
Thank you very much. Mr. Leviant, you've requested 20 minutes. Did you wish to reserve some portion of that time?
First, I don't anticipate that I'll need all 20 minutes unless there are extensive questions. I will reserve if necessary.
And I didn't hear the amount of time that you wanted to reserve, about five minutes or so?
Five minutes at the end.
OK, great. We'll plan on that. We'll ask that you watch the clock, and we'll watch the clock as well. I would just note that we're very familiar with the facts of this case, and would just ask that you keep that in mind during the course of your argument. And with that said, please proceed.
Thank you. If it pleases the court. Boiling down the briefing to its simplest themes, there are two core errors that lead to every other sub-error the trial court committed in its ruling on class certification. First, fundamentally, the court misconstrued what needed to be established to render plaintiff typical of the proposed classes. And as is often the case, what happened here is
looks
like
we might be having a little bit of a technical issue. And you said what typically happens here, and we lost about 10 seconds. So if you wouldn't mind just going back to that, we'll be set.
Thank you. The typicality requisite gets confused for a requirement that the plaintiff be identical or exactly the same as everybody else. The word typical and similarly situated are phrases that are used to make it clear that the plaintiff does not have to be effectively a clone of every other individual. What does have to be true is that the theory that the plaintiff is advancing for certification, whether it's right or wrong on the merits. The theory must be a theory that is cohesive across the group of individuals they're asking to represent. And here, this is the type of allegation in a case that is well-suited to class treatment. It is not dependent upon individual class member testimony or experiences.
What it is dependent upon are some legal determinations about whether bonuses will ultimately be classified as discretionary, meaning they do not need to be factored into regular rate calculations for overtime, meal period premiums, and sick pay. Or are they non-discretionary, which means they're compensation that would be added in for purposes of calculating regular rate of pay to pay
overtime.
Now, whether the plaintiff ultimately proves to be right or wrong about that as to sum all or no bonuses is of no moment. The facts are undisputed before the trial court, which is everyone received the bonus that the plaintiff was a recipient of. There were a collection of other bonuses that were paid. bonuses were never factored in to regular rate of pay.
And so
what has been demonstrated is a simple theory that affects a large group of people. And the determination of whether the theory is right or wrong will answer the question about whether additional compensation is owed to individuals
Mr. Levin, can I stop you for a moment? You said that every member in the class received, a proposed member of the class received the same bonus that Mr. Martinez received?
That is correct. There was evidence in the record that the specific bonus that the plaintiff received was paid to everybody employed at the time. And that was one of the pieces of evidence that the trial court appeared to disregard when it seemed to state in its holding that the plaintiff hadn't established he was a bonus recipient because he had not declared the fact.
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