Brooks v. Pressed Juicery, Inc. ( 2022 )

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 VALERIE BROOKS, individually and on No. 2:19-cv-01687-KJM-CKD behalf of all others similarly situated, 12 ORDER GRANTING JOINT B Plaintiffs, REQUEST FOR APPROVAL OF PARTIES’ REVISED CLAIMS 14 v. PROCESS 15 PRESSED JUICERY, INC., a Delaware corporation; and DOES 1 to 10, inclusive, Defendants. 17 18 This issue 1s before the court on the parties’ joint request for approval of a revised claims 19 | process under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. This is the second such request, the first of 20 | which the court approved. See generally Mot. for Prelim. Approval, ECF No. 19; Order, ECF 21 | No. 24. For the following reasons, the court grants the parties’ motion. 22 | I. BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS 23 The court has summarized the background of this Americans with Disabilities Act 24 | litigation in its previous orders. See, e.g., Order, ECF No. 44, at 1-2. Only a brief summary of 25 | recent developments is necessary here. At the February 2022 Final Fairness Hearing, objector 26 | Timothy Elder expressed concerns with the method used for notice, among other things. See 27 | Minutes for Final Fairness Hearing, ECF No. 40. The court ordered the parties to submit details 28 | of the parties’ revised claims process no later than March 17, 2022. ECF No. 42. The parties 1 began the notification process in early March and submitted details about the process on 2 March 17. See generally Joint Notice, ECF No. 45. 3 “No notice plan is perfect, but perfection is not required.” Jabbari v. Farmer, 4 2020 WL 4048683, at *2 (9th Cir. 2020) (citing Briseno v. ConAgra Foods, Inc., 844 F.3d 1121, 5 1128–29 (9th Cir. 2017). Extra leeway is given especially to cases involving “recoveries too 6 small to incentivize individual litigation,” Briseno, 844 F.3d at 1129, which includes the case at 7 issue. Given the logistical difficulties of identifying the class members here, this court accepts the 8 revised plan for publication of the notice regarding the proposed settlement in six large news 9 outlets as sufficient and markedly improved upon from the original notice plan. The court 10 acknowledges the parties are working to ensure all published notices have the correct deadline 11 for submitting claims. The court also approves of notice being provided via a distribution list 12 containing contact information for organizations benefiting the visually impaired and/or disabled. 13 The court encourages the parties to send notice to this list as soon as possible and no later than 14 March 28 2022. 15 II. CONCLUSION 16 The joint request for approval of notice process is granted. 17 This order resolves ECF No. 45. 18 IT IS SO ORDERED. 19 DATED: March 21, 2022.