{"id":469,"date":"2026-01-27T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/california.shuster.info\/?p=469"},"modified":"2026-01-27T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T12:00:00","slug":"lovejoy-transdev-class-decertification-overlapping-state-actions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/california.shuster.info\/?p=469","title":{"rendered":"Lovejoy v. Transdev Services \u2014 S.D. Cal. Decertifies Bus Driver Class and Stays Action in Light of Overlapping Earlier-Filed State-Court Cases"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Case<\/dt>\n
Lovejoy v. Transdev Services, Inc.<\/dd>\n
Court<\/dt>\n
U.S. District Court \u2014 Southern District of California<\/dd>\n
Date Decided<\/dt>\n
2026-01-27<\/dd>\n
Docket No.<\/dt>\n
3:23-cv-00380<\/dd>\n
Status<\/dt>\n
Unreported \/ Non-Citable<\/dd>\n
Topics<\/dt>\n
Class action decertification, overlapping state and federal class actions, Landis stay, Federal Rule 23 superiority requirement, bus driver wage and hour<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Background<\/h2>\n

Cherisha Lovejoy filed a putative class action in February 2023 in the Southern District of California against her employer Transdev Services, Inc. alleging that the company paid bus driver\/operator employees for idealized “paddle estimates” of hours rather than for actual hours worked, and asserted standard California wage-and-hour and unfair-competition claims. The court certified the class for all causes of action after two rounds of briefing.<\/p>\n

It later came to the court’s attention that there were five parallel state-court actions against the same defendant or its corporate affiliates in Los Angeles Superior Court \u2014 including the Reese action (filed August 2021), the Diaz class action (filed October 2022), and the related Diaz PAGA action \u2014 all involving overlapping or broader proposed classes of California Transdev workers and similar wage-and-hour theories. After Lovejoy unsuccessfully moved to stay the state actions, the court issued an order to show cause and the parties briefed whether the federal class should remain certified given the parallel proceedings.<\/p>\n

The Court’s Holding<\/h2>\n

The court decertified the class, granted the defendant’s motion to stay, and denied as moot the plaintiff’s motion for approval of class notice.<\/p>\n

Federal Rule 23 requires that a class action be the “superior” method of resolving the dispute. When earlier-filed state-court class actions cover overlapping classes and similar claims and have advanced further procedurally, the federal class action is generally not superior. The court explained that allowing the federal action to proceed in parallel would risk inconsistent judgments, duplicative discovery, and confusion among potential class members. The earlier-filed state-court actions could provide complete relief to the same workers under the same legal theories.<\/p>\n

Having decertified, the court applied the discretionary Landis v. North American Co.<\/em> stay framework \u2014 the same framework used in earlier California decisions to stay federal class actions in favor of overlapping state class actions. The factors favored a stay: significant overlap with state cases, the state proceedings were further along, and pressing forward with parallel federal-court litigation would impose hardship without offsetting benefit.<\/p>\n

Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n