DeclarationCal. Super. - 3rd Dist.November 25, 2019 DECLARATION IN SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY APPROVAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 ERIC B. KINGSLEY, Esq., (SBN 185123) eric@kingsleykingsley.com KELSEY M. SZAMET, Esq. (SBN 260264) kelsey@kingsleykingsley.com KINGSLEY & KINGSLEY, APC 16133 Ventura Blvd., Suite 1200 Encino, CA 91436 Telephone: (818) 990-8300// Fax: (818) 990-2903 Attorneys for Plaintiff Jeramie Giles and the Proposed Class Leonard H. Sansanowicz (SBN 255729) leonard@law-slg.com SANSANOWICZ LAW GROUP, P.C. 1635 Pontius Avenue, Second Floor Los Angeles, CA 90025 Tel: (323) 677-0200// Fax: (323) 549-0101 Attorneys for Plaintiff Patrick McClanahan and the Proposed Class SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOR THE COUNTY OF PLACER JERAMIE GILES, an individual, on behalf of himself and others similarly situated Plaintiff, vs. CIK POWER DISTRIBUTORS, LLC, a California limited liability company; and DOES 1 to 100, inclusive, Defendants. Placer County Superior Court Case No. S-CV-0044085 CASE NO. S-CV-0044085 DECLARATION OF LEONARD H. SANSANOWICZ IN SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY APPROVAL OF CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT [Filed concurrently with Memorandum of Points and Authorities, Declaration of Kelsey M. Szamet, and Proposed Order] Date: January 15, 2021 Time: 8:30 am Dept.: 40 Action Filed: November 25, 2019 Trial Date: July 6, 2021 PATRICK MCCLANAHAN, an individual, on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated Plaintiff, vs. CIK POWER DISTRIBUTORS, LLC, a California limited liability company, and DOES 1 to 100, inclusive, Defendants. Los Angeles County Superior Court Case No 20STCV00307 12/29/2020 1 DECLARATION IN SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY APPROVAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 DECLARATION OF LEONARD H. SANSANOWICZ I, Leonard H. Sansanowicz, declare: 1. I am over 18 years old and not a party to this action. I have personal knowledge of the matters stated herein, and if called as a witness I could and would competently testify under oath thereto. I am an attorney licensed to practice before all courts of the State of California and the United States District Courts for the Central, Eastern, Northern, and Southern Districts of California. I am the principal of Sansanowicz Law Group, P.C. and counsel for the class action plaintiff Patrick McClanahan. I submit this declaration in support of Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Approval of Class Action Settlement. 2. I received my Juris Doctor from Loyola Law School in 2007 and was admitted to the California bar in May 2008. While in law school, I completed externships at the Office of the City Attorney of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, and the United States Attorney's Office, Central District of California. As a certified law clerk at the U.S. Attorney's Office, I successfully prosecuted a misdemeanor trial as the lead trial attorney, obtaining a sentence from the U.S. Magistrate Judge. As a certified law clerk at the District Attorney's Office, I personally conducted over a dozen preliminary hearings and sat second chair for a felony trial that resulted in conviction. While at the City Attorney's Office, I assisted in trial preparation and sat second chair in a civil lawsuit the City successfully defended. Also, while in law school, I was a member of the prestigious Byrne Trial Advocacy Team, which consistently is considered one of the nation's top law school mock trial advocacy teams by the U.S News & World Report's Annual Ranking and was a Senior Articles Editor of the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review. 3. Since becoming an attorney, I have practiced exclusively in the area of employment law, representing plaintiffs in discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and wrongful termination cases, as well as individual and multi-plaintiff wage and hour actions, and state and federal class and representative actions. 4. Immediately prior to and upon passing the bar exam, I worked for three and one-half years as a law clerk and associate to Steven G. Pearl of The Pearl Law Firm. Mr. Pearl is a recognized authority in the area of wage and hour law who has been recognized as a Super Lawyer 2 DECLARATION IN SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY APPROVAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 both as an attorney and as a mediator and is an Advisor and former Executive Committee Member of the State Bar Labor and Employment Law Section. Together with Mr. Pearl, I co-authored a chapter on the Fair Labor and Standards Act in a practice guide published by the National Employment Lawyers Association and Lexis Nexis’s Matthew Bender series. During my time with The Pearl Law Firm, I tried four bench trials and two default prove-ups on my own and sat second chair for a jury trial and two other bench trials, all in the wage and hour context. 5. Following The Pearl Law Firm, I was an associate with Lavi & Ebrahimian, LLP for approximately two and one-half years, where I handled numerous cases in all aspects of employment law, including individual and multi-plaintiff wage and hour actions, state and federal class actions, wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment and retaliation cases. During my time at Lavi & Ebrahimian, LLP, I was the lead (and sole) trial counsel in two jury trials, both of which resulted in 12-0 verdicts in favor of my clients: Arrellano v. The Castle Valet Car Wash, Inc., et al., Orange County Superior Court Case No. 30-2009-00116989 (2013), and Hernandez v. Headquarters Marketing, Inc., et al., Los Angeles Superior Court Case No. BC443589 (2012). 6. Also during my time at Lavi & Ebrahimian, LLP, I handled wage and hour class actions against such employers as: Option One Home Medical Equipment, Inc., which settled for $3,000,000; Burrtec Waste Group, Inc., which settled for $2,789,000; Trojan Battery Co., Inc., which settled for $850,000; Packaging Dynamics Corporation, which settled for $625,000; Famsa, Inc., which settled for $602,000; Juicy Couture, Inc., which settled for $520,000; CR&R Inc., which settled for $350,000; Exopack-Ontario, Inc., which settled for $350,000; Visterra Credit Union, which settled for $325,000; BHFC Operating, LLC, which settled for $315,000; Philatron International, Inc., which settled for $250,000; United Natural Foods West, Inc., which settled for $250,000; and TeamOne Employment Specialists, LLC, which settled for $220,000. 7. I was an associate, Senior Associate, and Senior Counsel with Feldman Browne Olivares, APC (“FBO”), from January 2014 through May 2018. At FBO, I continued to handle numerous cases in all aspects of employment law. For example, I sat second chair in a successful prosecution of a disability discrimination/wrongful termination/defamation trial, Rivera v. Costco Wholesale Corporation, Riverside County Superior Court Case No. RIC 1218368, which resulted 3 DECLARATION IN SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY APPROVAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 in a verdict of $1,686,500 in our client’s favor. 8. During the time I was with FBO, the class actions I handled that resolved included Kellogg Brown & Root, LLC, for $3,750,000; Golden Road Food Services, LLC, which settled for $1,500,000; Rockstar Beverage Corp., which settled for $1,400,000; Matheson Tri-Gas, Inc., which settled for $1,300,000; and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., which settled for $750,000. 9. For six consecutive years (2013-2018), I was named a Southern California Rising Star by Super Lawyers magazine, a distinction given to 2.5% of attorneys who either are under forty (40) years of age or have been in practice for less than ten (10) years based on peer balloting.1 From 20152-2018, I was named to the Up & Coming 100 list, meaning the top 100 attorneys to watch from the Rising Stars. For the past three years (2019-2021), I have been named a Southern California Super Lawyer in the area of Employment Litigation: Plaintiff, a designation granted to the top 5% of attorneys in a geographic area based on peer nominations and evaluations. 10. I have been a contributing author to the California State Bar Labor & Employment Law Review, co-authoring the Wage and Hour Update, since July 2015. 11. I am a member of and active in several plaintiff’s and employment groups, including the California Employment Lawyers Association (“CELA”), a statewide organization of over 1,200 attorneys who devote the major portion of their practices to representing employees in individual employment cases and class actions, the Los Angeles chapter of the National Employment Lawyers Association (“NELA”), and the Los Angeles County Bar Association Labor and Employment Law Section (“LACBA”). I am a Member of CELA’s Executive Board and an active member of several CELA committees, including past co-chair of the Worker Outreach Committee, through which I organized Know Your Rights presentations throughout Southern California. I also am a member of the LACBA Labor & Employment Executive Committee and served for three years as co-chair of their Saturday Seminar Committee, which 1 The Super Lawyer selections process is conducted by the publishers of Law and Politics magazine and results are published in Los Angeles Magazine, The New York Times, and Southern California Super Lawyers Magazine. 2 The first year Super Lawyers created the Up & Coming 100 list was 2015, and I was awarded the distinction each year for the first four years of its existence. 4 DECLARATION IN SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY APPROVAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 produces three to four continuing legal education programs on employment law per year. Through my work on LACBA’s Saturday Seminar Committee, but not during my tenure as co-chair, I: moderated a panel of three sitting judges of the Los Angeles County Superior Court (the Honorable Rupert A. Byrdsong, the Honorable Randolph M. Hammock, and the Honorable Ruth A. Kwan) (Nov. 2020); coordinated and hosted a mock voir dire presentation with four exceptional practitioners (Dan Stormer and David deRubertis for Plaintiff, Tracey Kennedy (Sheppard Mullin) and Elena Baca (Paul Hastings) for Defendant), two jury consultants, and Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mary Anne Murphy (June, 2014); and moderated a Nuts 'N Bolts seminar on employment law (including wage and hour, discrimination, retaliation, and wrongful termination) (Jan. 2012). In addition to the Saturday Seminar Committee, I also serve on the LACBA Annual Symposium Committee, helping to organize the Labor and Employment Section’s Annual Symposium, usually held at the Millennium Biltmore hotel in Los Angeles. In March 2020, I co-presented the Year in Review panel at the Annual Symposium with George W. Abele of Paul Hastings. 12. I moderated a panel on arbitration at CELA’s Twelfth Annual Advanced Wage and Hour Conference (May 2016) and also have moderated: a webinar for the State Bar Labor and Employment Section, “Using Unpaid Interns, Apprentices, Volunteers, and Trainees: It Could Cost You!” (Dec. 2015); a panel on emerging trends in wage and hour law at CELA’s Eleventh Annual Advanced Wage and Hour Conference (April 2015); a panel on Electronically Stored Information at CELA’s annual conference (Oct. 2014); and hosted CELA’s Seventh Annual Advanced Wage and Hour Conference (April 2011). I also was a panelist for a continuing legal education event, “When Industry Practice and Labor Law Collide: Hot Topics in Entertainment and Employment Law,” Beverly Hills Bar Ass’n Labor & Employment Section (Dec. 2012). 13. Pursuant to my work with CELA’s Wage and Hour Committee, I submitted amicus letters requesting de-publication of the following cases: Bain v. Tax Reducers, Inc. (2013) 219 Cal.App.4th 110; Tien v. Tenet Healthcare Corp. (2011) 192 Cal.App.4th 1055; and In re: Lamps Plus Overtime Cases, Flores, et al. v. Lamps Plus, Inc., et al. (2011) 195 Cal.App.4th 389. All three cases were de-published. 5 DECLARATION IN SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY APPROVAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 14. I have served as a judge for multiple years in law school trial advocacy competitions, through both the American Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Section and for the National Civil Trial Competition. 15. My current regular billing rate is $750 per hour. I was approved at $700 per hour in 2019 in the matter of Prieto, et al. v. Elite Line Services, Inc., et al., L.A.S.C. Case No. BC670048, and in 2020 in the matter of Chen, et al. v. United Talent Agency, et al., L.A.S.C. Case No. BC641930. (See attached orders, ¶6.) I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed this 20th day of December 2020, at Los Angeles, California. Leonard H. Sansanowicz Declarant Exhibit A Exhibit B 1 PROOF OF SERVICE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 (PROOF OF SERVICE) [CCP 1013(a)(3)] STATE OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES I am employed in the County of Los Angeles, State of California. I am over the age of 18 years and not a party to the within action. My business address is 16133 Ventura Boulevard, Suite 1200, Encino, California 91436. On December 21, 2020, I served all interested parties in this action the following documents described as: DECLARATION OF LEONARD H. SANSANOWICZ IN SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY APPROVAL OF CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT by placing a true copy thereof enclosed in a sealed envelope addressed as follows: Brian P. Maschler, Esq. Mark S. Posard, Esq. Judith A. Cregan, Esq. bmaschler@grsm.com mposard@grsm.com jcregan@grsm.com GORDON REES SCULLY MANSUKHANI, LLP 3 Parkcenter Drive, Suite 200 Sacramento, CA 95825 Attorneys for Defendant Leonard H. Sansanowicz leonard@law-slg.com SANSANOWICZ LAW GROUP, P.C. 8549 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 200 Beverly Hills, CA 90211-3104 Attorneys for Plaintiff, Patrick McClanahan [ ] (BY MAIL) I am "readily familiar" with the firm's practice of collection and processing correspondence for mailing. Under that practice it would be deposited with U.S. postal service on that same day with postage fully prepaid at Encino, California in the ordinary course of business. I am aware that on motion of the party served, service is presumed invalid if postal cancellation date or postage meter date is more than one day after date of deposit for mailing in affidavit. [XX] BY ELECTRONIC SERVICE: I caused a true and correct copy thereof to be electronically filed using the Labor and Workforce Development Agency Electronic Filing (“EF”) System (https://dir.tfaforms.net/271) and service was completed by electronic means by transmittal of the documents referenced herein on the EF System. [XX] BY ELECTRONIC MAIL TRANSMISSION: I caused the document to be send to the persons at the e-mail address(es) listed on the attached service list. I did not receive, within a reasonable time after the transmission, any electronic message or other indication that the transmission was unsuccessful. A pdf copy of which was sent via email to the below email address(es). [XX] (STATE) I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of California that the above is true and correct. Executed on December 21, 2020 at Woodland Hills, California. Michelle A. Tanzer
