California Supreme Court activity for the week of October 11, 2010

The California Supreme Court held its (usually) weekly conference on October 13, 2010.  Notable results include:

• On a Petition for Review, a grant and hold was issued in Faulkinbury v. Boyd & Associates, Inc. (June 24, 2010), covered previously here.

I previously wrote that the opinion in Faulkinbury offered nothing interesting in my opinion.  The Court of Appeal simply repeated the refrain that the trial court has fairly broad discretion when ruling on a motion for class certification.  However, after Wednesday, Faulkinbury just got more interesting.  The Supreme Court issued its grant and hold pending...wait for it...the outcome in Brinker.  One might surmise that the standard applied by the trial court in Faulkinbury may be materially affected by the outcome of Brinker.  That's interesting.  It suggests that the Supreme Court is thinking about how the certification process will be impacted by its ruling in Brinker.  In fact, the Supreme Court may already have some tentative thoughts about the likelihood of that occurring.  After all, since the trial court denied certification of a meal period claim in Faulkinbury, one could suppose that the Supreme Court is leaning towards a decision in Brinker that would change that result.