Court Decertifies Class Action Against Retailer

(CN) - A California appeals court upheld a lower court's decision to decertify an overtime pay class action against discount retailer Tuesday Morning, saying individual issues predominated over shared ones.

Managers had accused the store of stiffing them on overtime pay.

The 2nd District Court of Appeals in Ventura, Calif., affirmed decertification of the class, saying the managers spent different amounts of time performing managerial and non-managerial duties and could not quality as a class.

Their claim that the company misclassified them as exempt from overtime pay were too dependent on individual work situations to be best served by a class action, the appeals court ruled.

"Substantial evidence supports the trial court's conclusion that individualized issues of liability and damages will predominate over issues common to the class if the overtime claims are tried as a class action," Justice Paul Coffee wrote.

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