Declaration statement design principle #1: Use a sampling routine to construct

In many wage and hour class actions, asking only a portion of the individuals to fill
out declaration statements or survey is preferable to obtaining surveys and
declaration statements from every member in the potential class. In many instances,
the potential class members are too geographically dispersed to make a total census
count feasible.

For instance, in the grocery story case study (see previous post) the 700 potential members of the class action worked in over 325 geographically dispersed locations throughout the state.
Most stores had at least one pharmacist on duty 24 hours a day. A total census
count of active pharmacists who would be potential class members would involve
administering a survey over a short period of time to employees spread over 2,800
different work shifts (700 members x 4 shifts). Additional effort would have to be
expended to administer the survey to pharmacists that no longer worked at the
company.

Total census counts, even if they are feasible, may not be desirable because
responses may become contaminated as the declaration statements are collected
from potential class members. It is possible that once word of survey or lawsuit gets
out to all the potential class members, later responses may vary from earlier
responses in non-desirable ways. Individuals who complete a declaration statement
in a wage and hour case after they learn of the lawsuit may subsequently go back
and review pay-stubs or other documents and arrive at the estimate of off-the-clock
work in a different manner from individuals who completed statements earlier. In this
instance, the declaration statements of the later potential class members may be
contaminated and should potentially analyzed in a different manner than the ones
completed earlier.

The bottom line is that even if it were possible to survey every person in a potential
class, you may not want to do so. A well designed sample in a wage and hour class
action will help ameliorate many of the problems associated with attempting to take a
complete census count of the entire potential class.

In the grocery store wage and hour case study, declaration statements were taken
from a random sample of 125 pharmacists across the store’s locations within the
state. The pharmacist sample, which used a technique that is called stratified
random sampling, appropriately reflected the stores located in the northern and
southern part of the state and different shifts that the pharmacist worked.