Class Actions Brief Blog

We have reported recently in this space on the certification of state wage and hour claims. Judge Gergel recently continued with this trend, certifying a class of Jamaican workers at the Kiawah Island Golf Resort who contend they weren’t paid enough by the Resort. See Moodie v. Kiawah Island Inn Co. LLC, No. 2:15-cv-1097 (D.S.C. Aug. 24, 2015). Defendants argued that the differences in class members were such that the court would have to certify six classes, but the Court rejected that notion, saying the argument stemmed from a “novel proposition that Plaintiffs must propose [a] separate class for every claim in the complaint.” Immediately following that, Judge Gergel gave a nod to “issue certification” in dicta, citing the language of Rule 23(c)(4) without wrestling with the difficulties looming in a surface analysis of that question, something which we have dealt with before here. The Court found that the legality of deductions made from the wages of the putative class was “central to the validity of each one of the claims,” and rejected the defense argument that a conflict arose by virtue of the representation of former employees by current employees. Citing Gunnells v. Healthplan Servs. Inc., Judge Gergel also rejected the argument that difficulties in determining damages resulted in a predominance problem for the class. In so holding, the Court did not grapple with the numerous cases post-Gunnells, including Comcast and its progeny that illustrate how individual damages issues can threaten the viability of class relief. In certifying the class, the Court paid particular attention to the difficulties associated with some 500 workers filing individual claims, noting that “class members are residents of a foreign country, likely to have limited financial resources, unfamiliar with the U.S. Court system, and have relatively small claims.”