Kizer v. Tristar Risk Mgmt., 13 Cal. App. 5th 830 (2017)
Plaintiffs Valerie Kizer and Sharal Williams filed this putative class action, alleging their former employer had misclassified them and other similarly situated claims examiners as exempt from overtime. The trial court denied the class certification motion on the ground that plaintiffs had failed to show they had worked days or hours that would have rendered them eligible for overtime pay and, therefore, they failed to establish that common issues predominated. Further, plaintiffs had failed to present evidence of a uniform employer policy or practice that generally required class members to work overtime. The Court of Appeal affirmed the denial of class certification, rejecting plaintiffs’ assertion that the trial court had denied the motion because plaintiffs had failed to show the amount of overtime each potential class member worked – “the fact of damage is a liability issue that focuses on the existence of harm establishing a plaintiff’s entitlement to damages; it is not concerned with the amount of damage.”
