Young v. ByteDance Inc.
- Vince Chhabria
- 3:22-cv-01883
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Young v. ByteDance Inc., Judge Chhabria denied a motion to deny class certification, saying arbitration issues should be addressed separately.
The parties to the proposed class action, including the proposed class members who signed arbitration agreements and those who did not. The order leaves the ultimate decision on class certification for a separate hearing.
What happened
In Young v. ByteDance Inc., TikTok and ByteDance argued that people who signed arbitration agreements should be excluded from the proposed class. They argued that this issue defeated class certification altogether.
The court rejected that approach at this stage. It said the arbitration issue could reduce the proposed class from about 12,600 people to about 4,100 or 4,300 people, depending on whether people who signed agreements with Vaco should be included, rather than ending class certification.
Judge Vince Chhabria denied the motion to deny class certification. The court said the arbitration issue should instead be addressed at the hearing on the separate motion for class certification, and it did not decide whether the class should ultimately be certified.
The detailed version
- Young v. ByteDance Inc. · No. 3:22-cv-01883
- Vince Chhabria
- Aug. 30, 2024
Background
The defendants filed a motion seeking to deny class certification. The opinion refers to TikTok and ByteDance as arguing that people who signed arbitration agreements should be excluded from the proposed class. The proposed class was described as containing roughly 12,600 people before resolving that issue.
Court’s reasoning
The court said TikTok and ByteDance made an exceedingly strong argument that people who signed arbitration agreements should be excluded from the class. But the defendants did not explain why that issue should defeat class certification altogether. The court said the issue could instead reduce the proposed class to roughly 4,100 or 4,300 people, depending on whether people who signed agreements with Vaco should be included.
The court distinguished Lawson v. Grubhub, Inc., explaining that in that case all class members except the named plaintiff and one other person had signed arbitration agreements. The court stated that, if a class is ultimately certified here, people who signed arbitration agreements will almost certainly be excluded. It said that issue should be discussed at the hearing on the motion for class certification.
Ruling
Judge Vince Chhabria denied the motion to deny class certification. The order did not grant class certification or decide the final membership of the proposed class. The parties may incorporate by reference the briefs they filed for the denied motion rather than repeating those arguments.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.