California Legal Brief

The Rule of **Cortina v. North American Title Company** is that a trial court's authority to delegate matters to a referee without the parties' consent is strictly circumscribed by the California Constitution and Code of Civil Procedure, and a nonconsensual reference of substantial scope and magnitude is entirely unauthorized and requires reversal, under circumstances where wage and hour class action proceedings are referred to a referee over defendant's strenuous objections without meeting the constitutional and statutory requirements for nonconsensual reference.

The Rule of Martinez v. Sierra Lifestar, Inc. is that a defendant's argument that bonuses were discretionary or in the nature of gifts does not defeat typicality of a class representative's wage and hour claims when the same argument applies to identical bonuses paid to other class members, under circumstances where the employer used a uniform practice of excluding all such bonuses from regular rate of pay calculations.