Last week, Judge Woods granted defendants’ motion to decertify a class because plaintiffs’ counsel failed to comply with its obligation to produce a viable class-wide statement of damages. Judge Woods explained that counsel for plaintiffs had been incompetent throughout the litigation, and the Court was no longer satisfied that plaintiffs’ counsel could adequately represent the class.

Plaintiffs, former employees of defendants, a cosmetic surgery practice, brought a class and collective action for unpaid overtime wages in 2018 that was later certified in May 2021. 

From at least the time of plaintiffs’ Rule 26 disclosures, plaintiffs’ counsel acknowledged that certain class-wide time and payroll information was necessary to calculate class-wide damages. Nevertheless, plaintiffs’ counsel failed to serve discovery requests for such information, despite the Court granting two extensions and later re-opening the discovery period. Although plaintiffs’ counsel maintained that it was defendants that failed to comply with plaintiffs’ discovery requests, plaintiffs’ counsel never took steps to enforce defendants’ compliance, such as filing a motion to compel or requesting an order to show cause.

The turning point for the Court, after numerous court interventions and even imposing sanctions, was “the recent revelation that class counsel failed throughout the discovery period to seek evidence of the class’s damages” as well as plaintiffs’ counsel’s admission, just two weeks before the initial due date for pretrial submissions, that counsel couldn’t identify the class members or assert a specific amount of damages for each class member.

Judge Woods explained his concerns: 

To start, counsel’s failure to comply with their disclosure obligations under Rule 26 that resulted in the preclusion of Plaintiffs’ class-wide damages calculations, standing alone, compels decertification. Damages are the only relief sought in this case. Plaintiffs’ counsel’s conduct has resulted in the barring of the presentation of class-wide damages calculations at a trial that will bind all of the class members. Representation that results in such an adverse result for the class supports the conclusion that counsel are manifestly unable to “fairly and adequately represent the interests of the class” at that trial.