Employer Forced To Disclose Contact Information for Potential Class Members
In Lee v. Dynamex, Inc., a California Court of Appeal reversed an order denying class certification because the trial court had refused to permit discovery of class member contact information under Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. v. Superior Court.
Plaintiff and class representative Charles Lee filed a putative class action lawsuit against his former employer Dynamex, Inc., a parcel delivery company. Lee, a former driver for Dynamex, alleged Dynamex improperly reclassified the drivers from employees to independent contractors in violation of California law. Shortly after filing the complaint, Lee sought to discover the names and addresses of all drivers who had worked as independent contractors for Dynamex. Dynamex refused to provide the requested information, relying on Pioneer Electronics, 40 Cal.4th 360 (2005), in which the court approved the use of an “opt-in” letter for notifying members of a putative class of the pending lawsuit. Dynamex rejected Lee’s proposal to use an “opt-out” letter. At a December 12, 2006 hearing, Lee sought to certify a class. After Dynamex argued that the proposed class was over-inclusive, Lee refined the putative class definition.
The Court denied Lee’s motion based on the lack of ascertainability of the class; a lack of commonality among the factual situations of the various drivers; a lack of typicality of the claims and defenses relating to Lee, the proposed class representative; and the court’s doubt class adjudication would be the superior remedy for resolution of the claims raised in the complaint.
Lee appealed the order denying class certification. The Court of Appeal found that the basic parameters of the class proposed by Lee were readily ascertained through company records, and thus, the trial court’s rejection of the proposed class on this ground was unjustified. In addition, the Court of Appeal determined that the trial court abused its discretion in denying plaintiffs' motion to compel disclosure of the identity of potential class members. The Court of Appeal noted that in Pioneer Electronics, supra, 40 Cal.4th 360, decided after the trial court rulings in Lee v. Dynamex, Inc., the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Court of Appeal decision relied upon by Dynamex in opposing Lee’s precertification discovery request, finding the Court of Appeal’s decision requiring an opt-in letter, rather than an opt-out procedure, had been overly deferential to the consumers’ rights of privacy. The Supreme Court noted that, “contact information regarding the identity of potential class member is generally discoverable, so that the lead plaintiff may learn the names of other persons who might assist in prosecuting the case." The Supreme Court therefore held the trial court had reasonably concluded the plaintiff’s interest in obtaining contact information outweighed the modest privacy invasion occasioned by the opt-out letter proposed by the plaintiff. (Pioneer, supra, 40 Cal.4th at p. 373-374).