Chen v. eBay CA1/2, A158417

Ten California residents who sold on eBay brought a putative class action (filed 2015) against eBay (and PayPal initially); the operative pleading was a second amended complaint.
Two claims survived demurrer: (1) breach of contract under eBay’s Buyer Protection / "money back guarantee" (alleging eBay routinely favors buyers and ignores seller evidence); and (2) breach of the implied covenant arising from eBay’s August 2014 changes to its seller performance/rating system.
In 2019 plaintiffs moved to certify two California classes: (A) money back guarantee class (sellers from Jan 1, 2010–Dec 31, 2018); (B) seller rating-system class (sellers continuously active Aug 20, 2013–Aug 20, 2014).
Judge Smith denied certification: she found the money-back guarantee claim lacked a uniform company practice (so common issues would not predominate) and the seller-rating claim was not manageable or superior to individual actions given individualized causation and damages inquiries.
The court sustained many of eBay’s evidentiary objections to plaintiffs’ declarations and credited eBay evidence (including testimony/training materials from eBay’s director of buyer protection and a statistic that ~69.8% of claims were decided for buyers).
Plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration was denied; they appealed. The Court of Appeal affirmed, applying the abuse-of-discretion/substantial-evidence standards and upholding the trial court’s manageability and commonality findings.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the seller-rating-system class was manageable and superior	Certification appropriate because liability could be resolved classwide and damages could be calculated or apportioned	Not manageable: individualized questions of causation and lost-profit damages would predominate; class procedure would be impracticable	Denied — trial court did not abuse discretion; individualized causation/damages made class unmanageable and not superior
Whether the money-back-guarantee claim presented predominant common questions / a uniform practice of favoring buyers	Plaintiffs say eBay had a company-wide practice of ignoring seller evidence and routinely ruling for buyers, so common proof establishes liability	eBay presented evidence showing agents are trained to consider seller evidence, protections existed, and outcomes were mixed, undermining any uniform policy	Denied — substantial evidence supports trial court’s finding no uniform company practice and lack of predominance
Whether plaintiffs’ anecdotal agent declarations and auto-adjudication allegations suffice to show a systematic policy	Anecdotes and evidence of auto-adjudication show a uniform bias toward buyers	Anecdotes were inadmissible or insufficient; auto-adjudication applied only in some objective cases and was not uniform across millions of disputes	Denied — trial court reasonably found anecdotal evidence insufficient and auto-adjudication immaterial to class certification

Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior Court, 53 Cal.4th 1004 (Cal. 2012) (trial court has broad discretion on class certification; review for abuse of discretion)
Duran v. U.S. Bank National Assn., 59 Cal.4th 1 (Cal. 2014) (manageability and superiority can defeat certification despite common liability issues)
Linder v. Thrifty Oil Co., 23 Cal.4th 429 (Cal. 2000) (class certification requires an ascertainable class and community of interest: predominance, typicality, adequacy)
Sav-On Drug Stores, Inc. v. Superior Court, 34 Cal.4th 319 (Cal. 2004) (predominance is factual and reviewed for substantial evidence)
Sargon Enterprises, Inc. v. University of Southern California, 55 Cal.4th 747 (Cal. 2012) (abuse-of-discretion standard described as requiring trial-court ruling not be so irrational that no reasonable person could agree)
Hypertouch v. Superior Court, 128 Cal.App.4th 1527 (Cal. Ct. App. 2005) (individual claims procedures may undercut superiority/practicality of class treatment)
Dunbar v. Albertson’s Inc., 141 Cal.App.4th 1422 (Cal. Ct. App. 2006) (plaintiff must explain how proposed procedures will manage individualized issues)
ABM Industries Overtime Cases, 19 Cal.App.5th 277 (Cal. Ct. App. 2017) (inquiry into existence of a uniform employer practice)
Diamond v. General Motors Corp., 20 Cal.App.3d 374 (Cal. Ct. App. 1971) (class unmanageable where recovery depended on substantial individual issues)