CROSKEY, J.
The trial court in the instant matter granted a motion for class certification based solely on a single appellate court opinion. Shortly after the class certification motion was granted, the Supreme Court depublished the appellate court opinion on which the trial court had relied. By this time, the 10-day period for defendant to seek reconsideration of the trial court's order under Code of Civil Procedure section 1008, subdivision (a) had
The instant case was brought against Farmers Insurance Exchange (Farmers) by three of its claims adjusters, alleging, on behalf of a class of claims adjusters employed by Farmers, various violations of the Labor Code, including a failure to pay overtime and a failure to provide meal and rest breaks. The operative complaint is the second amended complaint, filed February 20, 2012. A major issue in the case will be if the plaintiff employees are subject to these requirements of the Labor Code, or if, in the alternative, they are exempt administrative employees.
The complaint seeks to define the class as "all persons who, since May 18, 2003, have been employed, or are currently employed, by [Farmers] in California as a Claims Representative who were paid as exempt employees during the Class Period, as the same are defined pursuant to statute and/or California or federal regulatory determination, and were not included as class members in the Bell v. Farmers Insurance Exchange
On March 26, 2012, plaintiffs moved for certification of the class.
A few days before Farmers filed its opposition, Division One of the Second Appellate District issued its published opinion in Harris v. Superior Court (July 23, 2012, B195121) (Harris), review denied and opinion ordered not published October 24, 2012, S205297.
On September 28, 2012, plaintiffs filed their reply in support of class certification.
A petition for review was filed in Harris on September 4, 2012. On October 5, 2012, the day of the hearing on the class certification motion, the parties in the instant matter filed a joint statement setting forth their positions on the issue of whether the trial court should resolve the class certification motion immediately or defer ruling until the Supreme Court had ruled on the petition for review in Harris. Farmers, not surprisingly, requested that the court defer ruling. Plaintiffs disagreed, stating, of Harris, "as long as it remains published the Court is required to follow it ...." The trial court ultimately chose to resolve the matter before it, without waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on the petition for review in Harris.
At the hearing on the motion, the trial court emphasized that Harris controlled the disposition of the motion. The court stated, "Farmers will have many arguments to make in its appellate attack on my ruling today. It in effect will be an opportunity to weigh in on the July Harris ruling. HO So, you've made a complete record here. You can say anything you want now, but I believe my role is severely confined in terms of any kind of legal analysis." The trial court added that it was aware that Farmers argued that Harris conflicted with other Court of Appeal opinions. The court stated, however, that it would not attempt to resolve that dispute. The court stated, "You know, it's an amusing rule really for a trial court to consider that when there's an argument that there's a conflict between the Court of Appeal and the Court of Appeal, it's some lonesome trial judge somewhere who's supposed to say: Oh, yes, I'm appointed [to] the Supreme Court for temporary purposes here and I will make the call on this. HQ That is [Auto Equity].[
At one point, the trial court stated, to Farmers's counsel, "I just think it would be akin to trial court insubordination for a case such on all fours, factually speaking, to come down from the Court of Appeal in July and for me to reach some other result on some other ground." The court continued, "one of the great advantages of living in a society governed by the rule of law is the law is predictable. I think if you asked a hundred objective observers what would a trial court do with an insurance company adjuster
Plaintiffs did not disagree with the court's tentative opinion. However, plaintiffs' counsel did note that the tentative opinion stated, "The issue is whether insurance adjusters are exempt," when, in fact, the issue was whether the insurance adjusters in this case were exempt, not whether insurance adjusters in general were exempt. The court agreed, and added the word "these" before "adjusters," before adopting its tentative opinion.
The trial court made its ruling at the October 5, 2012 hearing. On October 24, 2012, the Supreme Court denied the petition for review in Harris, but ordered the opinion not to be officially published. As a result of the depublication order, the Harris opinion could not "be cited or relied on by a court or a party in any other action." (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a).) Because the trial court had relied heavily on Harris, which could no longer be relied upon, Farmers requested that the trial court reconsider its order on the class certification motion.
The hearing was held on January 22, 2013. Before the hearing, the trial court issued its tentative opinion, which relied on California Rules of Court, rule 8.1125(d). That rule states, "A Supreme Court order to depublish is not an expression of the court's opinion of the correctness of the result of the decision or of any law stated in the opinion." The trial court's tentative ruling quotes the rule, then states, "According to the California Rules of Court, then, Supreme Court depublication of an opinion does not constitute a change of law. [¶] For this reason, the motion is denied."
At the hearing on the motion, Farmers's counsel attempted to elicit from the court if the court was denying reconsideration on the basis that it had no jurisdiction to reconsider its order because there had been no change in the law, or if, in the alternative, the court was denying reconsideration because it was adopting the rationale of the depublished Harris opinion as its own. It was clear from the trial court's responses that the former was the case; the court simply concluded that depublication of an opinion did not constitute a change in the law. The court stated, "All that's before me today is a motion for reconsideration. And it would be proper for me to reconsider only if there's been a change in the law. There's been no change in the law according to a California Rule of Court laid down before this dispute arose."
Thereafter, the court stated that when it relied on Harris previously, it had done so both because Harris was controlling precedent and because the logic
The trial court denied the motion and adopted its tentative ruling. The court suggested that Farmers appeal, stating, "[w]e need some appellate guidance here ...."
Thereafter, Farmers sought an order from the court under Code of Civil Procedure section 166.1. That provision permits a trial court to indicate "in any interlocutory order a belief that there is a controlling question of law as to which there are substantial grounds for difference of opinion, appellate resolution of which may materially advance the conclusion of the litigation." (Ibid.) The court granted such certification. At the hearing on the Code of Civil Procedure section 166.1 request, the court stated, "I have never encountered a situation where the lynch pin authority, the only one I ci[t]ed ... was depublished after my ruling." The court added, "I'd like the Court of Appeal behind closed doors to puzzle over the meaning of a Supreme Court depublication. They don't have to, as I have, ponder the Rule of Court and its
On February 15, 2013, Farmers filed a petition for writ of mandate, seeking relief from both the trial court's denial of reconsideration and from its grant of class certification. After preliminary briefing, we issued an order to show cause. Additional briefing was filed. We now grant the petition.
The parties have also briefed, at great length, the merits of the depublished Harris opinion, on the theory that the trial court may have adopted the rationale of Harris as its own. The predicate for such a discussion is simply untrue. While the trial court noted a certain respect for the analysis in Harris, the court never adopted the rationale as its own. Instead, as we have set forth at length above, the trial court followed Harris as controlling precedent at the class certification hearing, and denied reconsideration on the basis that Harris's depublication did not constitute a change in the law. Thus, we do not have before us a trial court opinion adopting as its own the Harris analysis, and there is, therefore, no reason for this court to express an opinion on the analysis in a depublished Court of Appeal opinion.
A trial court's ruling on a motion for reconsideration is reviewed under the abuse of discretion standard. (Glade v. Glade (1995) 38 Cal.App.4th 1441, 1457 [45 Cal.Rptr.2d 695].) All exercises of discretion must be guided by applicable legal principles, however, which are derived from the statute under which discretion is conferred. (F.T. v. L.J. (2011) 194 Cal.App.4th 1, 15 [123 Cal.Rptr.3d 120]; City of Sacramento v. Drew (1989) 207 Cal.App.3d 1287, 1298 [255 Cal.Rptr. 704].) If the court's decision is influenced by an erroneous understanding of applicable law or reflects an unawareness of the full scope of its discretion, the court has not properly exercised its discretion under the law. (F.T. v. L.J., supra, 194 Cal.App.4th at pp. 15-16.) Therefore, a discretionary order based on an application of improper criteria or incorrect legal assumptions is not an exercise of informed discretion and is subject to reversal. (Ibid.)
In Phillips, the trial court denied a motion by Sprint to compel arbitration based on a contract provision it found unenforceable under then controlling law. (Phillips, supra, 209 Cal.App.4th at p. 764.) After the United States Supreme Court abrogated the California Supreme Court opinion on which the trial court had relied, the trial court granted Sprint's renewed motion to compel arbitration, and in the alternative, exercised its discretion to reconsider its order based on the change of law occasioned by the new opinion under Code of Civil Procedure section 1008, subdivision (c). (Phillips, supra, 209 Cal.App.4th at p. 765.) In its decision, the trial court emphasized that, had the case been poised for trial, it might not have exercised its discretion to rehear the issue, but since the suit was still distant from trial and so little advanced, it was reasonable to reconsider such a fundamental matter. (Id. at p. 769.) On appeal, the Court of Appeal affirmed this decision, reasoning that reconsideration was proper in light of the significance of the new law, the distance of the trial and the failure to make any showing of prejudice to the other parties. (Ibid.)
In the instant case, the trial court declined to grant reconsideration on the basis that the depublication of the Harris opinion could not constitute a change of law within the meaning of Code of Civil Procedure section 1008, subdivision (c). It considered no other factors, and relied solely on California Rules of Court, rule 8.1125(d) for this conclusion. As we shall discuss below, this was error.
Before we reach the merits of the issue, however, we first address plaintiffs' contention that a trial court's discretionary determination not to grant reconsideration on its own motion is not subject to review by means of a petition for writ of mandate. We do not doubt that, under usual circumstances, this is the general rule.
The instant case is distinguishable, requiring a different result. In this case, we have the "[something] more" and "other compelling facts" which were missing from International Ins. Co. v. Superior Court, supra, 62 Cal.App.4th at p. 788. Specifically, we are presented with a trial court which denied reconsideration, not as an exercise of discretion, but based solely on its interpretation of a court rule. Moreover, the trial court expressed its own concerns regarding its interpretation of the rule of court, recommending that Farmers seek appellate review and certifying the matter under Code of Civil Procedure section 166.1 as presenting "a controlling question of law as to which there are substantial grounds for difference of opinion." Under these circumstances, the writ petition does not seek review of a trial court's routine determination to not exercise its discretion, but review of a potentially erroneous interpretation of a rule of court. Writ review is therefore appropriate.
Because depublication renders the opinion noncitable and removes its precedential value, it nullifies the opinion and renders it nonexistent. (See Heaton v. Marin County Employees Retirement Bd., supra, 63 Cal.App.3d at p. 431; Knouse v. Nimocks, supra, 8 Cal.2d at pp. 483 — 484.) In this case, Harris existed at the time of the order granting class certification then subsequently was depublished, thereby disappearing from the law and changing the applicable legal context surrounding the decision. Thus, it constitutes a change in the law that had existed at the time of the order. The trial court reasoned that because depublication does not express approval or disapproval by the Supreme Court, it is not a change of law. But a change of law had occurred simply from the fact that the existing body of precedential law had changed, irrespective of the Supreme Court's reasons for changing it. Thus,
Rather than remanding for the trial court to exercise its discretion to determine, under the proper standard, whether reconsideration should be granted, we conclude that, under the unique circumstances of this case, it would be an abuse of discretion to deny reconsideration. Each of the factors considered by the Phillips court weighs heavily in favor of reconsideration. These factors are the importance of the change of law, the timing of the motion, and the circumstances of the case.
The importance of the change of law occasioned by the depublication of Harris cannot be understated. Harris provided the sole legal authority for the trial court's grant of class certification. The court not only relied exclusively on Harris, but reasoned that because Harris controlled the decision, it was severely confined in terms of any independent legal analysis. When Farmers argued that Harris conflicted with other Court of Appeal opinions, the court did not attempt to resolve that dispute. Instead, the court found that "it would be akin to trial court insubordination ..." for it "to reach some other result on some other ground," in light of Harris. As Harris has ceased to exist for precedential purposes, the stated legal basis for the trial court's class certification order has disappeared.
The other factors also support reconsideration. The timing of the reconsideration request was prompt. The trial court granted class certification on October 5; the Supreme Court depublished Harris on October 24; and Farmers requested reconsideration two days later. There was no delay. Moreover, there was no prejudice. When the trial court initially granted class certification, the court stayed the resolution of pending discovery issues and class notice for 20 days,
In short, the entire legal justification for the trial court's certification order disappeared with the depublication of Harris, and nothing had occurred in the case in reliance on the certification order. Reconsideration should have been granted. (Cf. Valdez v. Himmelfarb (2006) 144 Cal.App.4th 1261, 1275 [51 Cal.Rptr.3d 195]
The petition for writ of mandate is granted. Let a writ of mandate issue directing the trial court to vacate its order denying reconsideration of the class certification motion, and to issue a new and different order granting reconsideration of the motion in the absence of the Harris opinion. Farmers shall recover its costs in this writ proceeding.
Klein, P. J., and Aldrich, J., concurred.
Although the federal district court upheld the December Order and denied the motion for reconsideration, its reasoning was not based on the depublication of Clary being insufficient to constitute a change of law. In the December Order, the court had explicitly stated that it was not relying solely on Clary, but "applying] the reasoning of Clary." (American Economy, supra, 900 F.Supp. at p. 1252.) The court constructed its own reasoning and relied on a number of other authorities in reconsidering the May Order and changing its prior ruling. (Id. at pp. 1251-1255.) Accordingly, in denying reconsideration of the December Order, the court noted that depublication was not an expression of the Supreme Court's opinion on Clary, and, in any event, there were grounds for the decision independent of Clary. (Id. at p. 1256.) American Economy is thus distinguishable. It did not involve a court concluding, as a matter of law, that depublication cannot constitute a change in the law; instead, the court acknowledged the depublication of the opinion, considered its effect, and ultimately concluded that the prior order was sufficiently supported even in the absence of the precedential authority of the depublished case.