Adam Hohnbaum, et al. vs Brinker Restaurant Corp, et al., Superior Court of the State of California for the County of San Diego

Critical legal question: How often did restaurant employees miss one or more 10-minute breaks they were legally entitled to during the class period?

How TST helped answer it: Working in conjunction with an expert witness, we helped develop and field a questionnaire that measured the number of breaks missed by restaurant employees during the class period. Using high quality social science research methods and a list of class members provided by Defense counsel, we conducted a telephone survey of class members. These data were used to compute the total number of breaks missed by respondents during the class period as well as the number of days on which at least one break was missed.  Based on these computations, we assisted the expert in calculating what monetary damages were owed to the class.

Unique challenges

• This class was highly mobile – class members were current and former hourly employees at several national chain restaurants. TST oversaw extensive tracing procedures to locate respondents, coordinating the efforts of attorneys, private investigators and field work providers.
• Additionally, many class members did not speak English as their Native language. So, we fielded a translated version of the questionnaire for respondents who would prefer to answer the questions in Spanish.

Evans vs. Washington Mutual Bank, Orange County Superior Court

Critical legal question: How much money did Washington Mutual loan officers spend on business expenses that were not reimbursed?

How TST helped answer it: Working in conjunction with an expert witness, we helped develop and field a telephone survey of class members.

Unique challenges

• We needed to be sure that all business expenses were captured, and we had to segment the data by year. This required exceptionally clear questions that went through several rounds of pretesting.
• Many of the items claimed as business expenses could be used for personal reasons as well. We had to design a series of questions to partial out personal from business

Budeprion XL Marketing & Sales Litigation, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

Critical legal question: Would patients take a generic drug if they knew the drug worked differently than a branded drug?

How TST helped answer it: Working in conjunction with an expert witness, we helped develop and field an online survey of people who had previously taken one or more anti-depressants to test the impact of accurate vs. standard label information on agreeing to take a drug.

Unique challenges

• We needed to be sure that respondents could read a large amount of text information about the drug in question – necessitating the use of an online panel.

Case not disclosed, currently in litigation

Critical legal question: Is the evidence provided by another expert high quality and error free?

 How TST helped answer it: Working in conjunction with an expert witness, we reviewed the original data used to generate conclusions, and assisted the expert in compiling a list of potential problems with the work. Our experience generating reports in other cases made TST a good choice for this work since we know when and how things can go wrong.

Unique challenges

• We received the report and had to turn around a critique on a very short timeline – under a week. The flexibility of our staff allowed us to do so in an effective way.