ALAMEDA COUNTY TAXPAYERS’ ASSOCIATION INC, A CALIFORNIA NONPROFIT MUTUAL BENEFIT CORPORATION, et al. vs CITY OF LIVERMORE, A CALIFORNIA GENERAL LAW CITY

Petitioners oppose, arguing that the City waived any right to seek modification and that Leeds neither constitutes new law nor warrants excluding landlords. 24CV058036: ALAMEDA COUNTY TAXPAYERS' ASSOCIATION INC, A CALIFORNIA NONPROFIT MUTUAL BENEFIT CORPORATION, et al. vs CITY OF LIVERMORE, A CALIFORNIA GENERAL LAW CITY 07/09/2026 Hearing on Motion - Other Motion to Modify the Class Definition CRS# 437750759751 in Department 20

NO WAIVER OF RIGHT TO SEEK MODIFICATION

Preliminarily, the City did not waive the right to seek modification of the Class when it entered into the Stipulation. The cited provisions of the stipulation address the “RIGHT TO MOVE FOR DECERTIFICATION,” and nothing in the stipulation addresses, let alone waives, the City’s right to seek modification of the class definition. The California Rules of Court treat these as distinct motions. (Compare CRC, rule 3.764(a)(3) [amendment and modification] with id., subd(a)(4) [decertification].) Moreover, waiver is the intentional relinquishment of a known right, and the party asserting waiver bears the burden of proving it. Petitioners have not shown that the City intentionally surrendered a right the stipulation nowhere addresses.

In any event, the parties could not by stipulation divest this Court of its inherent authority to decertify a class — or to modify it — when individual issues threaten to render the litigation unmanageable. (Kight v. CashCall, Inc. (Ct. App. 2014) 231 Cal.App.4th 112, 127.) A stipulation that purported to bar the Court from addressing a genuine manageability problem arising from new appellate authority would be unenforceable, because the Court’s obligation to ensure that the class device remains a fair and appropriate vehicle cannot be bargained away by the parties.

The Court therefore finds that the City did not waive its right to seek modification of the Class based on a change in the law or on manageability concerns, such that the Court will proceed to the merits.

LEEDS IS NEW LAW BUT DOES NOT DICTATE THE RESULT

The Court further finds that Leeds v. City of Los Angeles (Ct. App. 2025) 115 Cal.App.5th 537 constitutes new law for purposes of this motion. A motion to modify or decertify generally requires a showing of “new law or newly discovered evidence showing changed circumstances” (Kight, supra, at p. 125 [citation omitted].) Leeds, certified for publication on October 24, 2025 — eight months after the Class was certified — is the first published California decision to address class certification of a Zolly-type claim premised on a pass-through theory of standing under Proposition 26. (See Zolly v. City of Oakland (2022) 13 Cal.5th 780.) Whether Leeds is properly characterized as “new law” or as a clarification of existing predominance and superiority principles, it is a sufficient ground for the Court to revisit the propriety of the certified Class.

Leeds supports, as argued by the City, that a manageability issue may be lurking in the present case. In Leeds, as here, a class of customers challenged municipal waste-hauler franchise fees alleged to have been passed through to them as an unlawful tax. The Court of Appeal affirmed the denial of certification, citing the trial court’s finding that the “‘real claim is for refunds,’”

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF ALAMEDA

24CV058036: ALAMEDA COUNTY TAXPAYERS' ASSOCIATION INC, A CALIFORNIA NONPROFIT MUTUAL BENEFIT CORPORATION, et al. vs CITY OF LIVERMORE, A CALIFORNIA GENERAL LAW CITY 07/09/2026 Hearing on Motion - Other Motion to Modify the Class Definition CRS# 437750759751 in Department 20 which would “‘require[] a class of persons who both made payments and suffered an economic loss because they did not pass through the payments to others,’” which the court characterized as a “core issue . . . not susceptible to common proof.” (Leeds, supra, at pp. 544, 548.) That reasoning identifies a legitimate concern: to the extent the Class includes landlords who passed the cost of the Agreement Fees through to their tenants, individualized inquiries into who bore the economic burden of the fees could complicate the predominance and superiority analysis.

Leeds does not, however, dictate the result on this motion, for two reasons.

First, Leeds is not “on all fours” with this case. The composition of the Leeds class differs materially from the Class here. The program at issue in Leeds — “recycLA” — served only commercial and multi-unit dwellings, not single-family residences. (Leeds, supra, at p. 540.) The named plaintiffs were a commercial tenant, commercial property owners, the owner of nineteen multi-family properties, and a condominium owner, together with plaintiffs who alleged only that they paid the haulers. (Id. at p. 542.)

The class in Leeds thus was comprised of members who “‘stand in a myriad of different positions’” along a chain of owners, landlords, homeowners’ associations, and tenants, such that “three different parties could potentially recover for the same franchise fee paid to the City.” (Id. at p. 546, fn. 4.) Individualized passthrough issues in Leeds were therefore pervasive and potentially implicated every class member.

By contrast, the Class here is composed overwhelmingly of single-family residential accounts — approximately 94% on the present record — which are typically occupied by the customers who pay for service and who bear the cost of the fees directly, with no downstream tenant. (See Plaintiffs’ Opposition, p. 6.) The accounts the City identifies as potentially held by landlords number 1,980, or roughly 7% of the Class. (See City’s MPA, p. 8:4.) On this record, the individualized pass-through inquiry touches, at most, a minority of the Class rather than its entirety. That difference is material to predominance.

Second, Leeds affirmed a discretionary, record-bound ruling, and did not announce a categorical bar on the inclusion of landlords in a franchise-fee class. The Court of Appeal grounded its decision in the trial court’s “broad discretion in determining whether certification is appropriate,” and declined to disturb the trial court’s balancing of the relevant factors. (Leeds, supra, at p. 549.) Leeds thus stands for the proposition that a trial court has broad discretion to address landlord pass-through issues on the record before it — not for the proposition that landlords must, as a matter of law, be excluded.

THE CITY’S EVIDENCE OF PASS-THROUGH IS WEAK, AND EXCLUSION IS PREMATURE

The predominance inquiry requires the Court to determine whether the elements of liability are susceptible of common proof or, if not, “whether there are ways to manage effectively proof of

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF ALAMEDA

24CV058036: ALAMEDA COUNTY TAXPAYERS' ASSOCIATION INC, A CALIFORNIA NONPROFIT MUTUAL BENEFIT CORPORATION, et al. vs CITY OF LIVERMORE, A CALIFORNIA GENERAL LAW CITY 07/09/2026 Hearing on Motion - Other Motion to Modify the Class Definition CRS# 437750759751 in Department 20 any elements that may require individualized evidence.” (Brinker Rest. Corp. v. Superior Ct. (2012) 53 Cal.4th 1004, 1024.) As the party moving to modify — in effect, to partially decertify — the City bears the burden of demonstrating that continued class treatment of landlord accounts is improper. (Kight, supra, 231 Cal.App.4th at p. 126.)

On the present record, the City has not carried that burden. The common questions in this action — whether the Agreement Fees are taxes subject to voter approval; whether the City can establish an exception under article XIII C; whether the vehicle impact fee violates Vehicle Code section 9400.8; and whether LSI passed the fees through to its customers at all — predominate and are susceptible of common proof. (See Stipulation and Order Re: Class Certification at p. 4:20-21.) The individualized issue the City raises — whether particular landlords further passed the cost of the fees to their tenants — is, at this juncture, largely hypothetical.

The Court finds that the City’s evidence regarding the level of any pass-through is weak at best. The City’s showing rests on an address-mismatch analysis: where a bill is sent to an address different from the service address, the City infers that a landlord is paying for a tenant’s service. But the City concedes that this analysis “does not affirmatively identify” accounts for which a landlord is paying for a tenant’s service (City’s MPA at pp. 7:23), and Petitioners correctly observe that an address mismatch shows only where a bill is sent — not that any landlord in fact recovered the cost of the Agreement Fees from any tenant.

Unlike in Leeds, where the record included testimony that a property owner set tenant rents to cover his costs and evidence that some owners used ratio billing to allocate utility costs to tenants (Leeds, supra, at p. 547), the record here contains no comparable evidence that Livermore landlords actually passed the Agreement Fees through to their tenants. Whether and to what extent any portion of a customer’s bill is attributable to the challenged fees is a factual question, and the City has not developed that record.

Excluding 1,980 landlord accounts from the Class on this showing would be premature. Individualized issues that may be managed through available procedural tools do not defeat class treatment. Our Supreme Court has catalogued those tools — including bifurcation, subclasses, administrative claims processing, questionnaires, single-issue hearings, separate miniproceedings, and reference to special masters — and has endorsed “subclassing or [other judicial] intervention” to “incorporate the class differences into the litigative process” and “give all class members their due.” (See Sav-On Drug Stores, Inc. v.

Superior Ct. (2004) 34 Cal.4th 319, 340 fn, 13 [citation omitted]; id. at p. 344 [Brown, J., conc.].) The Court concludes that the appropriate course is to isolate landlord accounts in a subclass now and to address any individualized issues they may present if and when those issues actually materialize.

DISPOSITION

Accordingly, the City’s motion is DENIED to the extent it seeks to exclude from the Class

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF ALAMEDA

24CV058036: ALAMEDA COUNTY TAXPAYERS' ASSOCIATION INC, A CALIFORNIA NONPROFIT MUTUAL BENEFIT CORPORATION, et al. vs CITY OF LIVERMORE, A CALIFORNIA GENERAL LAW CITY 07/09/2026 Hearing on Motion - Other Motion to Modify the Class Definition CRS# 437750759751 in Department 20 customers who paid for solid waste services for a property they rented out, leased, or subleased to another.

Pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 382 and California Rules of Court, rule 3.764(a)(2)– (3), the Court GRANTS the motion in part and modifies the certification order to establish a subclass within the Class (the “Landlord Subclass”), defined as

"All members of the Class who paid solid waste service fees to Livermore Sanitation, Inc. (a.k.a. Waste Connections) for solid waste services provided to a property that they rented out, leased, or subleased to another (including renting or subleasing only part of the property)."

All customers who are not members of the Landlord Subclass remain in the Class as previously certified. The Class, as so modified, otherwise remains certified on the terms set forth in the February 5, 2025 order.

The Court reserves for later determination all individualized issues, if any, presented by the Landlord Subclass, including whether and to what extent any Landlord Subclass member passed the cost of the Agreement Fees through to a tenant. Should such issues actually materialize, the Court will address them through case-management mechanisms to be developed as the case progresses — which may include, without limitation, bifurcation of common liability from individualized entitlement issues, single-issue hearings, reference to a special master, a postjudgment or post-liability claims process, or, if appropriate, decertification of the Landlord Subclass.

If a party does not timely contest the foregoing Tentative Ruling and appear at the hearing, the Tentative Ruling will become the order of the court.

HOW DO I CONTEST A TENTATIVE RULING?

THROUGH ECOURT Notify the Court and all the other parties no later than 4:00 PM one court day before the scheduled hearing, and briefly identify the issues you wish to argue through the following steps: 1. Log into eCourt Public Portal 2. Case Search 3. Enter the Case Number and select "Search" 4. Select the Case Name 5. Select the Tentative Rulings Tab 6. Select "Click to Contest this Ruling" 7. Enter your Name and Reason for Contesting 8. Select "Proceed"

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF ALAMEDA

24CV058036: ALAMEDA COUNTY TAXPAYERS' ASSOCIATION INC, A CALIFORNIA NONPROFIT MUTUAL BENEFIT CORPORATION, et al. vs CITY OF LIVERMORE, A CALIFORNIA GENERAL LAW CITY 07/09/2026 Hearing on Motion - Other Motion to Modify the Class Definition CRS# 437750759751 in Department 20 BY EMAIL Send an email to the DEPARTMENT CLERK and all the other parties no later than 4:00 PM one court day before the scheduled hearing. This will permit the department clerk to send invitations to counsel to appear remotely.

BOTH ECOURT AND EMAIL notices are required.