PRACTITIONER BLOG

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Impact Fund and Amici: Ninth Circuit’s New “De Minimis” Standard for Predominance Is Wrong and Disadvantages Workers
De Minimis Standard, Class Actions Teddy Basham-Witherington De Minimis Standard, Class Actions Teddy Basham-Witherington

Impact Fund and Amici: Ninth Circuit’s New “De Minimis” Standard for Predominance Is Wrong and Disadvantages Workers

Our brief argues that the panel’s decision is inconsistent with decades of Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit precedent regarding class certification and trials challenging employment discrimination and other workplace violations, such as wage theft. To require plaintiffs to demonstrate no more than a “de minimis” number of uninjured class members at the class certification stage forces district courts to engage in a full-blown inquiry into the merits of the case, an inquiry which the Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit have repeatedly stated courts are expressly forbidden to undertake at that stage.

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