In Munoz v. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc., Court held that the “death knell” doctrine did not apply and a claim was not appealable. Under California law, an order denying a motion to certify all class claims leaving only the named plaintiff’s individual claims in the trial court is an appealable order under the ―death knell doctrine. The rationale of permitting appeal of what would otherwise be an intermediate order is that absent immediate review, the plaintiff would have no financial incentive to pursue his or her case to final judgment just to preserve the ability to appeal the denial of the plaintiff‘s class certification motion.  The death knell doctrine does not apply to orders only partially certifying a class.

Here, Plaintiffs appealed from an order denying certification of a class of approximately 26,000 nonexempt California current and former employees of defendant Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. regarding what plaintiffs alleged was Chipotle’s policy to require employees to purchase slip-resistant shoes from a vendor, Shoes for Crews, in order to work at Chipotle.  Plaintiffs further contended that Chipotle deducted the cost of these shoes from employee wages without obtaining the employee’s written authorization, these deductions caused wages to dip below minimum wage, and Chipotle’s pay stubs were noncompliant because they did not contain the start date for the pay period.  Plaintiffs set forth these claims in seven causes of action, and Munoz sought civil penalties on behalf of herself and “all current and former employees” under the Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (“PAGA”) for all causes of action except their Business and Professions Code section 17200 claim.

The Court held that the trial court’s order denying plaintiffs’ class certification motion and granting Chipotle’s motion to deny class certification was a non-appealable order because the PAGA claims remained in the trial court and the “death knell” doctrine did not apply.  The Court stated that  given the potential for recovery of significant civil penalties if the PAGA claims are successful, as well as attorney fees and costs, plaintiffs have ample financial incentive to pursue the remaining representative claims under the PAGA and, thereafter, pursue their appeal from the trial court‘s order denying class certification. Denial of class certification where the PAGA claims remain in the trial court would not have the ―legal effect‖ of a final judgment.  The Court made clear that it expressed no opinion on the merits of the trial court‘s order denying plaintiffs’ class certification motion and granting defendant’s motion to deny class certification, or the court’s evidentiary rulings related to those motions.

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