NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

TIMOTHY BELEW, on behalf of himself 

and all others similarly situated, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

 v. 

BRINK'S, INCORPORATED, a Delaware 

corporation, 

Defendant-Appellee, 

 v. 

DORIAN CERON, 

Objector-Appellant.

No. 15-56821 

D.C. No. 

3:14-cv-01748-JAH-JLB 

MEMORANDUM*

TIMOTHY BELEW, on behalf of himself 

and all others similarly situated, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

 v. 

BRINK'S, INCORPORATED, a Delaware 

corporation, 

Defendant-Appellee, 

No. 16-56376 

D.C. No. 

3:14-cv-01748-JAH-JLB 

 

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent 

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

FILED

MAY 3 2018

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
2 

 v. 

DORIAN CERON, 

Objector-Appellant.

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of California

John A. Houston, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted November 13, 2017

Pasadena, California

Before: HAWKINS, GRABER, ** and PARKER,*** Circuit Judges.

Objector Dorian Ceron appeals from a judgment adopting the parties’ Joint 

Stipulation, certifying a class for settlement purposes pursuant to Rule 23(b)(3), and 

awarding attorneys’ fees and an incentive payment to Plaintiff Timothy Belew. We 

have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm in part, vacate in part, and 

remand with further instructions.

There was an abuse of discretion in approving the Joint Stipulation that 

included an overbroad release of claims. See Hanlon v. Chrysler Corp., 150 F.3d 

1011, 1026–27 (9th Cir. 1998) (stating the standard of review). A settlement 

 

** This appeal was argued before a panel that included Judge Kozinski, who 

retired before a disposition could be filed. Judge Graber was randomly drawn as a 

replacement. She has reviewed the record and considered the parties’ arguments 

before concurring in this disposition.

*** The Honorable Barrington D. Parker, Jr., United States Circuit Judge for 

the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, sitting by designation.
3 

agreement is not fundamentally fair under Rule 23(e)(2) if it is “the product of 

collusion among the negotiating parties.” In re Mego Fin. Corp. Sec. Litig., 213 

F.3d 454, 458 (9th Cir. 2000) (citing Class Plaintiffs v. City of Seattle, 955 F.2d 

1268, 1290 (9th Cir. 1992)). One indication of collusion is an overbroad release of 

claims, wherein claims that are not within the “identical factual predicate” of the 

claims alleged in the complaint are released. Hesse v. Sprint Corp., 598 F.3d 581, 

590 (9th Cir. 2010). Under this test, the released claims must “arise from the same 

common nucleus of operative fact” as those alleged in the complaint. Class 

Plaintiffs, 955 F.2d at 1288.

Here, claims relating to meal and rest period violations, unpaid minimum 

wages, unreimbursed expenditures, and other unpaid wages—claims that class 

representative Belew did not possess—arise from factual predicates different from

claims alleging unpaid overtime wages. The operative complaint contains less than 

two pages of factual allegations, all of which are specific to the practices employed 

by Brink’s to calculate and pay overtime wages; these allegations fail to present a 

related, let alone “identical,” factual predicate necessary to release claims involving 

meal and rest period violations, unpaid minimum wages, unreimbursed 

expenditures, and other unpaid wages. See, e.g., Hesse, 598 F.3d at 591 (noting that 

“superficial similarity” is insufficient to meet the identical factual predicate test).
4 

Ordinarily, a class settlement “must stand or fall in its entirety,” because we 

lack the power to “rewrite agreements reached by parties.” Dennis v. Kellogg Co., 

697 F.3d 858, 868 (9th Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, 

however, the non-overtime-related claims were considered by Brink’s to have zero 

value, and the settlement contained no separate consideration for those claims. For 

that reason, it is possible to excise the release of those claims from the Joint 

Stipulation without “rewriting” anything.

Shorn of the release of the unrelated claims, the district court’s approval of 

the Joint Stipulation seems entirely appropriate. Accordingly, we affirm the 

approval of the Joint Stipulation, instruct the district court to sever claims involving 

meal and rest period violations, unpaid minimum wages, unreimbursed 

expenditures, and other unpaid wages from the Joint Stipulation’s release of claims, 

and remand consistent with this disposition.

AFFIRMED in part, VACATED in part, and REMANDED for proceedings 

consistent with the above instructions. Each party shall bear their own costs on 

appeal.1

 

1 All pending motions, see Doc. 75, are denied as moot.