Noel v. Thrifty Payless, Inc. should be decided soon, addressing whether class members must be identifiable

In what might be a significant decision, Noel v. Thrifty Payless, Inc. was argued to the California Supreme Court on May 8, 2019. The issue presented for review is as follows: “Must a plaintiff seeking class certification under Code of Civil Procedure section 382 or the Consumer Legal Remedies Act demonstrate that records exist permitting the identification of class members?” While California appeared to have settled this question decisively many decades ago, the question arose when the First Appellate District (Division Four) opined that such identification was required. A decision may issue any time in the next couple of weeks. This is not likely to be an issue for wage and hour cases — where employer records are basically always available as a source of identification information — but is may be an issue in consumer class actions, where specific class members identification may not be possible.