Jaimez v. First Choice Appeal: The Court of Appeal heard oral arguments on Monday November 16, 2009 regarding the trial court's denial of class certification and denial of our motion to amend the complaint to add two additional class representatives . The highly esteemed Justices Robert M. Mallano, Presiding Justice, Jeffrey W. Johnson, and Victoria Gerard Chaney remanded the case to the trial court ordering that a first amended complaint be filed, allow the plaintiff to name new class representatives and enter an order granting class certification. We are very pleased with this decision. The court's order will become final on or before April 12, 2010. Thereafter, we expect to move the trial court to enforce the order and approve notice to go to the class thereafter. Please monitor this site for future developments.

Rubio's Class Action Settlement: On March 2, 2010, The Court of Appeal issued a Remittitur, meaning this matter is now back in front of the State Court. Accordingly, the next hearing  is currently set for April 20, 2010 in the State Court.

The Class anticipates asking the trial court to enter an order excluding the 140 people from the class settlement and then asking that the settlement payment occur as soon as possible. It is anticipated that Rubio's will oppose this request. Unfortunately, there is a lot of uncertainty and the class will ask the court to decide this crucial decision as soon as possible.

Please monitor our website for up to date status.

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Brinkley v. Public Storage: The Court of Appeal issued a ruling that agreed with the trial court's summary judgment in favor of Public Storage. As such, on December 4, 2008 the plaintiff, Mr. Brinkley, on behalf of himself and the class of employees, filed a Petition for Review with the California Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has agreed to review the Court of Appeal ruling on a "grant and hold" basis pending its opinion on a companion case of Brinker v. Superior Court (Hohnbaum),(2008) 165 Cal. App. 4th 25. As such, this means that the Brinkley v. Public Storage class action is stayed until the Supreme Court issues its ruling in Brinker. The Brinker matter is fully briefed and the Supreme Court has yet to issue a date for oral argument. Please keep checking our website to monitor the status of this appeal.

Tien v. Tenet:

As you may know, the Tien & McDonough v. Tenet (meal break case) is currently pending in the California Court of Appeal. The Los Angeles Superior Court Judge initially granted class certification to the employees then later reversed its own decision and denied class certification. Thus the lawyers for the employees have filed a Notice of Appeal asking the court of appeal to review the trial court decision and enter a class certification order. At this time, we are in the process of preparing the appellant's opening brief and will update the status when the brief has been filed.

Unfortunately, we can not be certain as to when the Court of Appeal will schedule the matter for oral argument. Generally, an appeal can take approximately 18 months to 24 months from the date of filing the Notice of Appeal. As such, we can not offer any specific response as to when a decision will be made other than estimate that it will occur sometime in the year 2011.

Please monitor our website for up to date status. 

Methodist Hospital of Arcadia: The Court granted Final Approval of the Class Action Settlement on November 12,2008. As such, the time to file an appeal expired on January 12, 2009 wherein no appeal has been filed. This is great news as the settlement is legally considered final as of January 12, 2009.if you made a valid and timely and valid claim you can expect your first settlement payment to be mailed on or about April 13, 2009.

According to the Court approved settlement Methodist is to deposit the first settlement payment of $2 Million dollars to the Claims Administrator by March 13, 2008 such that the first payment to class members who made a timely and valid claim will be mailed on or before April 13, 2009.The remainder of the payment mailing schedule is set forth below as follows:

• Second payment on or before December 31, 2011
• Third payment on or before December 31, 2012
• Fourth payment on or before December 31, 2014 and
• Fifth and final payment on or before December 31, 2015.

If you have a Change of Address from this date forward until final payment in 2015 please contact our office and/or the Methodist Hospital Claims Administrator with your new address to ensure you are in receipt of your payments. The claims administrator can be reached at:

Methodist Hospital Litigation Settlement Administrator
c/o The Garden City Group, Inc.
P.O. Box 9313 Dublin,
OH 43017-4213.