Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-13-56606/USCOURTS-ca9-13-56606-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 790
Nature of Suit: Other Labor Litigation
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

RICARDO BERMUDEZ

VAQUERO, on behalf of

himself and all others

similarly situated,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

ASHLEY FURNITURE

INDUSTRIES, INC., A

Wisconsin Corporation;

STONELEDGE FURNITURE,

LLC, a Wisconsin Limited

Liability Corporation,

Defendants-Appellants.

No. 13-56606

D.C. No.

2:12-cv-08590-PA-MAN

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Percy Anderson, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted May 24, 2016*

Pasadena, California

Filed June 8, 2016

* The panel unanimously concludes that this case is suitable for decision

without oral argument. Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

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2 VAQUERO V. ASHLEY FURNITURE

Before: Susan P. Graber and Ronald M. Gould, Circuit

Judges, and Wiley Y. Daniel,** Senior District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Graber

SUMMARY***

Class Certification

The panel affirmed the district court’s order granting class

certification under Fed. R. Civ. P. 23 to a plaintiff

representing a class of former and current sales associates of

Stoneledge Furniture, LLC, alleging violations of California’s

minimum wage and hour laws.

The panel held that plaintiff established commonality, as

required by Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a), and the district court

permissibly concluded that plaintiff pleaded a common injury

capable of class-wide resolution. The panel also held that

plaintiff established the predominance of class claims, as

required by Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(3); and the district court

permissibly ruled that individual claims did not predominate

in this case. Finally, the panel held that class certification did

not alter the parties’ substantive rights, and the district court

did not violate the Rules Enabling Act in certifying the class.

** The Honorable Wiley Y. Daniel, Senior United States District Judge

for the District of Colorado, sitting by designation.

 

*** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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VAQUERO V. ASHLEY FURNITURE 3

COUNSEL

J. Kevin Lilly and Scott M. Lidman, Littler Mendelson, P.C.,

Los Angeles, California, for Defendants-Appellants.

Michael D. Singer and Jeff Geraci, Cohelan Khoury &

Singer, San Diego, California; Kevin T. Barnes and Gregg

Lander, Law Offices of Kevin T. Barnes, Los Angeles,

California; Raphael Katri, Law Offices of Raphael A. Katri,

Beverly Hills, California; Michael Rubin, Altshuler Berzon

LLP, San Francisco, California; for Plaintiff-Appellee.

OPINION

GRABER, Circuit Judge:

Defendant Stoneledge Furniture, LLC, pays its sales

associates only on commission but, it is alleged, requires

sales associates to do many tasks that are unrelated to sales. 

Plaintiff Ricardo Bermudez Vaquero, a former sales

associate, asserts that this policy violates California’s

minimum wage and hour laws. He sued Stoneledge Furniture

and its parent company, Defendant Ashley Furniture

Industries, Inc., on his own behalf and also moved to

represent 605 former and current sales associates as a class. 

The district court granted class certification under Federal

Rule of Civil Procedure 23. We affirm that decision in this

interlocutory appeal.

Stoneledge Furniture is a wholly owned subsidiary of

Ashley Furniture Industries. At the time the district court

granted class certification, Stoneledge operated 14 retail

furniture stores in California and employed about 600 sales

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4 VAQUERO V. ASHLEY FURNITURE

associates, who primarily sold furniture and accessories to

Stoneledge’s customers. Stoneledge paid its sales associates

on commission.

Vaquero worked as a sales associate at Stoneledge from

2010 to 2012. He alleges that Stoneledge requires sales

associates to perform many tasks unrelated to sales, for

example, cleaning the store, attending meetings, and carrying

furniture. According to Vaquero, Stoneledge does not pay its

sales associates for such work, beyond what they earn in

commissions, and this policy violates California wage and

hour laws.

Vaquero initially filed this action in state court in

California and sought class certification. Under the Class

Action Fairness Act of 2005, 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(2),

Defendants removed the case to federal court, and Vaquero

moved to be named a class representative. He asked to

represent four subclasses, three of which were derivative of

the first: (1) a class of all California sales associates

employed from August 24, 2008, to the present who were

paid less than minimum wage for non-sales time worked;

(2) sales associates who were not provided with itemized

wage statements; (3) former sales associates who were not

paid all wages due at separation; and (4) sales associates who

were subject to unlawful business practices. Vaquero

introduced pay plans and policies, along with declarations

from putative class members, to serve as representative

evidence on liability. If successful on the merits, Vaquero

proposed to resolve the damages phase of the litigation

through use of a survey, sampling evidence, or a special

master.

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VAQUERO V. ASHLEY FURNITURE 5

The district court denied class certification for the third

subclass (what it called the “waiting class”), but granted it for

the other subclasses. Defendants moved to appeal the district

court’s decision to certify the remaining subclasses pursuant

to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(f). We granted

permission for the appeal. For purposes of the appeal, both

parties have treated the remaining subclasses as a single

entity, which they describe, in general terms, the way the first

subclass is defined. The sole issue before us on appeal is

whether the district court properly granted class certification.

We review for abuse of discretion a district court’s class

certification ruling. Parra v. Bashas’, Inc., 536 F.3d 975, 977

(9th Cir. 2008). In reviewing any particular underlying Rule

23 determination, the standard is also abuse of discretion. 

Yokoyama v. Midland Nat’l Life Ins. Co., 594 F.3d 1087,

1091 (9th Cir. 2010).

The district court granted class certification under Rule

23(b)(3). To justify certification under that provision, a

plaintiff must prove that the class meets all prerequisites

under Rule 23(a)1 and that the class meets two requirements

under Rule 23(b)(3).2 Defendants argue that Vaquero has

1 Rule 23(a) provides: “One or more members of a class may sue or be

sued as representative parties on behalf of all members only if: (1) the

class is so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable; (2) there

are questions of law or fact common to the class; (3) the claims or

defenses of the representative parties are typical of the claims or defenses

of the class; and (4) the representative parties will fairly and adequately

protect the interests of the class.”

2 Rule 23(b)(3) provides: “A class action may be maintained if Rule

23(a) is satisfied and if . . . the court finds that the questions of law or fact

common to class members predominate over any questions affecting only

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6 VAQUERO V. ASHLEY FURNITURE

failed to prove commonality, as required by Rule 23(a), and

predominance of class claims, as required by Rule 23(b)(3). 

Defendants also assert that class certification has altered the

parties’ substantive rights in violation of the Rules Enabling

Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2072(b).

A. Commonality

Rule 23(a)(2) provides that a plaintiff may sue as a

representative member of a class only if “there are questions

of law or fact common to the class.” The requirement of

“commonality” means that the class members’ claims “must

depend upon a common contention” and that the “common

contention, moreover, must be of such a nature that it is

capable of classwide resolution—which means that

determination of its truth or falsity will resolve an issue that

is central to the validity of each one of the claims in one

stroke.” Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. 338, 350

(2011).

The Supreme Court’s most thorough interpretation of the

commonality requirement is Dukes, and Defendants rely on

that case to argue that commonality does not exist here. In

Dukes, the Supreme Court denied certification of a class of

more than a million members—female employees of the

corporation—who claimed that the retailer’s delegation of

promotion decisions to individual managers, in combination

with its corporate culture, denied them equal pay and

promotional opportunities in violation of Title VII. Id. at

367. The Court held that the plaintiffs “wish to sue about

individual members, and that a class action is superior to other available

methods for fairly and efficiently adjudicating the controversy.” 

(Emphases added.)

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VAQUERO V. ASHLEY FURNITURE 7

literally millions of employment decisions at once. Without

some glue holding the alleged reasons for all those decisions

together, it will be impossible to say that examination of all

the class members’ claims for relief will produce a common

answer to the crucial question why was I disfavored.” Id. at

352. In that case, subjective decisions by many managers in

different locations could not be considered a common injury

across a class of more than one million plaintiffs. Id.

Therefore, the plaintiffs failed to make the prerequisite

showing of commonality required by Rule 23(a). Id.

Here, by contrast, the common injury is far less extensive,

far less abstract, far less dispersed, and far more objective and

focused. California law proscribes compensation through

commission for work that is not “directly involved in

selling.” Ramirez v. Yosemite Water Co., 978 P.2d 2, 10 (Cal.

1999) (internal quotation marks omitted). California law also

prohibits “averaging” to meet minimum wage requirements. 

Armenta v. Osmose, Inc., 37 Cal. Rptr. 3d 460, 468 (Ct. App.

2005). Stoneledge paid sales associates only through

commissions. If the company required sales associates to do

work not “directly involved in selling” and failed to

compensate the sales associates for such work, then it

violated California’s minimum wage laws for all such

employees. Thus, the complaint contains a “common

contention” that easily “is capable of classwide resolution”: 

it is one type of injury allegedly inflicted by one actor in

violation of one legal norm against a relatively small number

of class members who all generallyperformed the same work. 

Dukes, 564 U.S. at 350. The district court permissibly

concluded that Vaquero had pleaded a common injury

capable of class-wide resolution.

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8 VAQUERO V. ASHLEY FURNITURE

B. Predominance

Under Rule 23(b)(3), a class may be certified only if

“questions of law or fact common to class members

predominate over any questions affecting only individual

members.” The Supreme Court has noted that, “[i]f anything,

Rule 23(b)(3)’s predominance criterion is even more

demanding than Rule 23(a).” Comcast Corp. v. Behrend,

133 S. Ct. 1426, 1432 (2013).

Defendants argue that, when damages calculations cannot

be performed on a class-wide basis, predominance has not

been reached. Defendants maintain that the Supreme Court’s

holding in Comcast controls. There, in an antitrust case, the

Court reviewed the certification of a class of consumers. Id.

The plaintiffs offered a complex damages model to show how

the customers were subject to anti-competitive prices. Id. at

1432–33. The Court reversed the class certification because

the model “failed to measure damages resulting from the

particular antitrust injuryon which petitioners’ liability in this

action is premised.” Id. at 1433.

We have interpreted Comcast to mean that “plaintiffs

must be able to show that their damages stemmed from the

defendant’s actions that created the legal liability.” Pulaski

& Middleman, LLC v. Google, Inc., 802 F.3d 979, 987–88

(9th Cir. 2015) (quoting Leyva v. Medline Indus., Inc.,

716 F.3d 510, 514 (9th Cir. 2013)), petition for cert. filed,

84 U.S.L.W. 3500 (U.S. Mar. 1, 2016) (No. 15-1101). If the

plaintiffs cannot prove that damages resulted from the

defendant’s conduct, then the plaintiffs cannot establish

predominance. Id.

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VAQUERO V. ASHLEY FURNITURE 9

No such problem exists in this case. Vaquero alleges that

Defendants’ consciously chosen compensation policy

deprived the class members of earnings in violation of

California’s minimum wage laws. In a wage and hour case,

unlike in an antitrust class action, the employer-defendant’s

actions necessarily caused the class members’ injury. 

Defendants either paid or did not pay their sales associates for

work performed. No other factor could have contributed to

the alleged injury. Therefore, even if the measure of damages

proposed here is imperfect, it cannot be disputed that the

damages (if any are proved) stemmed from Defendants’

actions. The district court did not abuse its discretion in

holding that different damages calculations do not defeat

predominance in this circumstance.

Our precedent is well settled on this point. In Yokoyama,

we held that “damage calculations alone cannot defeat

certification.” 594 F.3d at 1094. That is, the “amount of

damages is invariably an individual question and does not

defeat class action treatment.” Id. (quoting Blackie v.

Barrack, 524 F.2d 891, 905 (9th Cir. 1975)). We have

repeatedly confirmed the Yokoyama holding that the need for

individualized findings as to the amount of damages does not

defeat class certification. See Leyva, 716 F.3d at 514

(holding that “the presence of individualized damages cannot,

by itself, defeat class certification under Rule 23(b)(3)”);

Jimenez v. Allstate Ins. Co., 765 F.3d 1161, 1167 (9th Cir.

2014) (holding that Leyva was the “controlling case,” and that

individual damages calculations did not defeat class

certification), cert. denied, 135 S. Ct. 2835 (2015). Indeed,

“Yokoyama remains the law of this court, even after

Comcast.” Pulaski & Middleman, 802 F.3d at 988.

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10 VAQUERO V. ASHLEY FURNITURE

The Supreme Court has not disturbed our precedent. In

Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo, 136 S. Ct. 1036 (2016), the

district court had certified a class of employees who claimed

that their employer had violated wage and hour laws by

failing to pay overtime compensation for time spent donning

and doffing protective gear. The employer had failed to keep

records of such time, so employees relied on “representative

evidence,” including employees’ testimony, video recordings,

and an expert’s statistical analysis, to establish both liability

and damages on a class-wide basis. Id. at 1043. The

employer challenged the certification of the class, in that case

as here, contending that individual inquiries predominated

over common questions. Id. at 1046. The use of expert

statisticians and statistical surveys, it claimed, could not

defeat the need for individualized liability determinations for

each class member. Id. The employer sought a “broad rule

against the use in class actions of what the parties call

representative evidence.” Id. The Court declined to establish

such a rule. Id. It held that a “representative or statistical

sample, like all evidence, is a means to establish or defend

against liability. Its permissibility turns not on the form a

proceeding takes—be it a class or individual action—but on

the degree to which the evidence is reliable in proving or

disproving the elements of the relevant cause of action.” Id.

The Court held that class certification was appropriate even

though class members might have to prove liability and

damages individually. Id.

Under Tyson Foods and our precedent, therefore, the rule

is clear: the need for individual damages calculations does

not, alone, defeat class certification. Accordingly, we hold

that the district court permissibly ruled that individual claims

did not predominate in this case.

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VAQUERO V. ASHLEY FURNITURE 11

C. Rules Enabling Act

The Rules Enabling Act provides that a procedural rule

“shall not abridge, enlarge or modify any substantive right.” 

28 U.S.C. § 2072(b). This mandate applies to class actions

brought under Rule 23. Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp., 527 U.S.

815, 845 (1999). Defendants claim that the nature of the

damages calculations in this case violates their rights under

the Rules Enabling Act. They argue that the use of

representative evidence would inevitably change the

substantive rights of the parties by preventing Defendants

from individually cross-examining and challenging each class

member’s claims. Again, Defendants rely heavily on the

Supreme Court’s opinion in Dukes. In Dukes, the Court

rejected the plaintiffs’ trial plan to determine individual

entitlement to backpay through statistical sampling. 564 U.S.

at 367. The Court held that the “class cannot be certified on

the premise that Wal-Mart will not be entitled to litigate its

statutory defenses to individual claims.” Id.

Defendants’ reliance on Dukes, in this regard, is

misplaced. As the Court made clear in Tyson Foods: 

“[Dukes] does not stand for the broad proposition that a

representative sample is an impermissible means of

establishing classwide liability.” Tyson Foods, 136 S. Ct. at

1048. “In a case where representative evidence is relevant in

proving a plaintiff’s individual claim, that evidence cannot be

deemed improper merely because the claim is brought on

behalf of a class. To so hold would ignore the Rules

Enabling Act’s pellucid instruction that use of the class

device cannot ‘abridge any substantive right.’” Id. at 1046

(ellipsis omitted).

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12 VAQUERO V. ASHLEY FURNITURE

In Tyson Foods, the Court made clear that the defendants

could still challenge the sufficiency of the evidence,

notwithstanding class certification: “When, as here, the

concern about the proposed class is not that it exhibits some

fatal dissimilarity but, rather, a fatal similarity—an alleged

failure of proof as to an element of the plaintiffs’ cause of

action—courts should engage that question as a matter of

summary judgment, not class certification.” Id. at 1047

(internal quotation marks and brackets omitted).

We also note that Defendants’ concerns are hypothetical

at this stage of the litigation. The district court has discretion

to shape the proceedings. With a class of only about 600

members, the court could choose an option such as the use of

individual claim forms or the appointment of a special

master, which plainly would allow Defendants to raise any

defenses they may have to individual claims.

In this case, as in Tyson Foods, the district court’s grant

of class certification has not expanded Vaquero’s substantive

rights or those of the class. Defendants may challenge the

viability of Vaquero’s evidence at a later stage of the

proceedings. Accordingly, the district court did not violate

the Rules Enabling Act or abuse its discretion in certifying

the class.

AFFIRMED.

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