Miscellaneous

Update: Baristas Win Super Grande Award

By Anne Skove, Esq.

We recently noted the employment case against Starbucks.

Guess who won?

Let's just say that they're going to laugh at nickel you drop into the tip jar.

See Court Awards Starbucks Baristas $86 Million in Tip-Pooling Case, Greg Moran, San Diego Union-Tribune (March 20, 2008).

How often does this type of case (much less this type of win) occur? Gut guess: not too often. The Class Action Defense Blog tries to keep a running count of new class action suits in California (state and federal). They often find that labor cases top the list of case types.

If you're really curious, the California Court Research and Statistics division keeps stats for the past 10 years. But if you want anything outside California, be aware: state-level class action data is hard to come by, and verdict reporters are notoriously misleading.

In your copious free time, check out A Model Plan to Resolve Federal Class Action Cases by Jury Trial, Laurens Walker, Virginia Law Review, vol. 88, no. 2 (April 2002). (Link is to SSRN abstract.)

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on March 20, 2008 (boomark / email).