Court filing
Response in Opposition re 567 Motion to Exclude the Purported Expert Opinions — In re BofA Unemployment Litigation (Dkt. 620)
Filed January 8, 2026 in In re Bank of America California Unemployment Benefits Litigation; one of 1415 filings from this case.
Record facts
| Court | U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California |
|---|---|
| Filed | 2026-01-08 |
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California · No. 3:21-md-02992-GPC-MSB · Doc. 620 · 2026-01-08 · Docket on CourtListener
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PLAINTIFFS’ OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO EXCLUDE
EXPERT OPINIONS OF GREG J. REGAN
Case No.: 3:21-md-02992-GPC-MSB
JOSEPH W. COTCHETT (SBN 36324)
jcotchett@cpmlegal.com
BRIAN DANITZ (SBN 247403)
bdanitz@cpmlegal.com
KARIN B. SWOPE (Pro Hac Vice)
kswope@cpmlegal.com
VASTI S. MONTIEL (SBN 346409)
vmontiel@cpmlegal.com
CAROLINE A. YUEN (SBN 354388)
cyuen@cpmlegal.com
COTCHETT, PITRE & McCARTHY, LLP
840 Malcolm Road, Suite 200
Burlingame, CA 94010
Telephone: (650) 697-6000
Fax: (650) 697-0577
MICHAEL RUBIN (SBN 80618)
mrubin@altber.com
CONNIE K. CHAN (SBN 284230)
cchan@altber.com
JAMES BALTZER (SBN 332232)
jbaltzer@altber.com
KATHERINE G. BASS (SBN 344748)
kbass@altber.com
ALTSHULER BERZON LLP
177 Post Street, Suite 300
San Francisco, CA 94108
Telephone: (415) 421-7151
Fax: (415) 362-8064
Co-Lead Counsel for Plaintiffs and the Proposed Class
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
IN RE BANK OF AMERICA
CALIFORNIA UNEMPLOYMENT
BENEFITS LITIGATION
Case No. 3:21-md-02992-GPC-MSB
PLAINTIFFS’ OPPOSITION TO
DEFENDANT’S DAUBERT
MOTION TO EXCLUDE
CERTAIN EXPERT OPINIONS
OF GREG J. REGAN
This document relates to All Actions
Judge: Hon. Gonzalo P. Curiel
Ctrm: 12A
Date: April 17, 2026
Time: 1:30 p.m.
FILED PROVISIONALLY UNDER SEAL
Case 3:21-md-02992-GPC-MSB Document 620 Filed 01/08/26 PageID.44237 Page
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PLAINTIFFS’ OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO
EXCLUDE EXPERT OPINIONS OF GREG J. REGAN
Case No.: 3:21-md-02992-GPC-MSB
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 1
BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................................... 3
LEGAL STANDARD ....................................................................................................................... 6
ARGUMENT ................................................................................................................................... 7
I.
As the Court Held, It Is the Bank’s Burden, Not Regan’s, to Identify Any
Fraudsters Remaining in the Class ............................................................................ 7
II.
Regan’s Testimony Concerning Consequential Damages is Admissible ................. 9
III.
Regan’s Testimony as to Disgorgement Based on “Float Revenue” Is
Admissible ............................................................................................................... 13
IV.
The Bank’s Challenges to Regan’s Customer-Service Class Methodology
Also Fail .................................................................................................................. 15
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................... 16
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PLAINTIFFS’ OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO EXCLUDE
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TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
Page(s)
Cases
Alaska Rent-A-Car, Inc. v. Avis Budget Grp., Inc.,
738 F.3d 960 (9th Cir. 2013) ........................................................................................... 6, 9, 15
Belyea v. GreenSky, Inc.,
2025 WL 589037 (N.D. Cal., 2025) ........................................................................................ 11
Bonner v. ISP Tech., Inc.,
259 F.3d 924 (8th Cir. 2001) ............................................................................................... 7, 12
Briseno v. ConAgra Foods, Inc.,
844 F.3d 1121 (9th Cir. 2017) ................................................................................................. 11
City of Pomona v. SQM North America Corp.,
750 F.3d 1036 (9th Cir. 2014) ......................................................................................... 3, 7, 13
In re ConAgra Foods, Inc.,
90 F.Supp.3d 919 (C.D. Cal. 2015) ................................................................................... 11, 12
Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc.,
509 U.S. 579 (1993) ......................................................................................................... passim
Duncan v. Blackbird Prods. Grp., LLC,
2021 WL 7708670 (W.D. Mo. Mar. 4, 2021) ......................................................................... 15
Elosu v. Middlefork Ranch Inc.,
26 F.4th 1017 (9th Cir. 2022) .................................................................................................... 9
Fitzhenry-Russell v. Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Inc.,
326 F.R.D. 592 (N.D. Cal. 2018) ............................................................................................ 11
Flintkote Co. v. Lysfjord,
246 F.2d 368 (9th Cir. 1957) ..................................................................................................... 2
Hartley v. Dillard’s, Inc.,
310 F.3d 1054 (8th Cir. 2002) ................................................................................................. 12
Jinro Am., Inc. v Secure Invs., Inc.,
266 F.3d 993 (9th Cir. 2001) ..................................................................................................... 6
Korea Supply Co. v. Lockheed Martin Corp.,
29 Cal.4th 1134 (2003) ............................................................................................................ 14
Lambert v. Nutraceutical Corp.,
870 F.3d 1170 (9th Cir. 2017) ................................................................................................. 14
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Case No.: 3:21-md-02992-GPC-MSB
McMorrow v. Mondelez International, Inc.,
2021 WL 859137 (S.D. Cal. Mar. 8, 2021) ............................................................................. 11
Meister v. Mensinger,
230 Cal.App.4th 381 (2014) .............................................................................................. 14, 15
Nguyen v. Nissan North America, Inc.,
932 F.3d 811 (9th Cir. 2019) ............................................................................................... 5, 11
Primiano v. Cook,
598 F.3d 558 (9th Cir. 2010) ....................................................................................... 3, 7, 8, 15
SEC v. Platforms Wireless Int’l Corp.,
617 F.3d 1072 (9th Cir. 2010) ................................................................................................. 15
United States v. 17.69 Acres of Land,
2004 WL 5632928 (S.D. Cal. 2004) ..................................................................................... 3, 7
Van v. LLR, Inc.,
962 F.3d 1160 (9th Cir. 2020) (Van I) ............................................................................. passim
Van v. LLR, Inc.,
61 F.4th 1053 (9th Cir. 2023) (Van II) .......................................................................... 5, 10, 16
Statutes
15 U.S.C. §1693 .............................................................................................................................. 2
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PLAINTIFFS’ OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO EXCLUDE
EXPERT OPINIONS OF GREG J. REGAN
Case No.: 3:21-md-02992-GPC-MSB
INTRODUCTION
The Bank’s Daubert challenge to damages expert Greg Regan rehashes the
same arguments this Court already considered and squarely rejected in granting
Plaintiffs’ motion for class certification. While the Bank now cloaks those arguments
in the trappings of Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert rather than Rule
23(b)(3) predominance, that repackaging is more stylistic than substantive. The
Bank’s meritless arguments should once again be rejected.
First, the Bank contends that Regan’s expert opinions should be precluded
because his proposed damages methodology does not include a mechanism for
independently detecting which class members are secret fraudsters—those whom the
Bank has long insisted (without providing supporting evidence) may be lurking
among the certified class members. Not only does this recycled argument ignore the
Court’s prior ruling that EFTA places the burden on the Bank to identify any such
fraudsters, but it also ignores that Regan’s damages methodology includes an easily
applied mechanism for carving out from the classwide damages calculations all
damages attributable to any individuals who are at any point eliminated from the class
or whose damages turn out to be zero when Regan’s formulas are applied (say,
because there were no funds in an Account Freeze class member’s account when it
was wrongfully frozen). As an accounting expert, Regan’s testimony need not and
could not go beyond that.
Second, the Bank contends that “Regan’s methodologies produce no evidence
of damages.” Regan Mot. at 13. Initially, this contention fails because it entirely
ignores Regan’s methodology for calculating the principal amount of damages for
members of the Claim Denial, Credit Rescission, and Account Freeze classes, Decl.
of James Baltzer (“Baltzer Dec.”) Ex. A (Regan Report dated March 4, 2025) ¶¶38-
39, 66-67, 78-79, a methodology the Bank does not challenge. The Bank’s contention
also fails as to Regan’s methodology for calculating those class members’
consequential lost-time-value-of-money damages, because the Bank simply repeats
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Case No.: 3:21-md-02992-GPC-MSB
the same challenges to that methodology that this Court rejected in its class
certification order. In that order, this Court emphasized that the Ninth Circuit in Van
v. LLR, Inc., 962 F.3d 1160 (9th Cir. 2020) (Van I), had approved that same approach
for calculating the class members’ lost time value of money in the aggregate, while
concluding that any dispute over “which interest rates should be applied is an issue
for the fact finder.” Infra at 5. Because the Court has already accepted Regan’s
classwide interest rate Methodology 1 as a valid basis for calculating classwide
damages, any arguments the Bank offers to dispute Regan’s underlying assumptions
go to the weight of Regan’s opinions (i.e., to reduce or increase the interest rates he
proposes) rather than their admissibility. Once Plaintiffs establish the fact of damages,
as they unquestionably can, their proof of the amount of damages is subject to a far
lesser burden, and Regan’s methodologies are certainly sufficiently supported to meet
that burden. See, e.g., Flintkote Co. v. Lysfjord, 246 F.2d 368, 392 (9th Cir. 1957).
Third, the Bank’s objections to Regan’s methodologies for calculating
disgorgement and for calculating Consumer Service class damages also repeat the
same arguments this Court has already rejected. Infra at 4.
The Bank does not challenge Regan’s proposed calculation of: (1) statutory
damages under 15 U.S.C. §1693m(a)(2)(B); (2) the principal amounts of the class
members’ unauthorized ATM transaction claims at issue; or (3) the lengths of time
those amounts were withheld from class members (as the first two amounts are set by
statute and the latter is based on the Bank’s own discovery responses).
The Bank also makes no effort to challenge Regan’s experience and expertise
as a damages expert (and could not plausibly do so given his vast experience in the
field and as a testifying expert). Instead, the Bank picks away at a few points as to
which it contends Regan’s methodology is inadequate, like his supposed failure to
independently determine which, if any, of the roughly
class members are
hidden fraudsters. But Regan’s methodology for determining class membership
appropriately relies on the Bank’s own data reflecting the Bank’s determinations of
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PLAINTIFFS’ OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO EXCLUDE
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fraud and expressly excludes all fraudsters identified to date; that same methodology
can be applied to exclude any additional individuals the Bank determines to be
fraudsters. Infra at 8-9. It was not Regan’s job to ferret out whether any of the
remaining class members should be excluded from the class. So even if the Bank were
right that “Plaintiffs carry the burden of proffering a methodology that culls uninjured
plaintiffs from the class,” Regan Mot. at 1, which is contrary to this Court’s previous
burden-of-proof rulings, that would still not be a basis for excluding Regan’s
testimony.
The law is clear that an expert’s testimony “need not establish every element
that the plaintiff must prove[] in order to be admissible.” Primiano v. Cook, 598 F.3d
558, 565 (9th Cir. 2010). It is also well accepted that, “[a]s a general rule, questions
relating to the basis and sources of an expert’s opinion affect the weight to be assigned
that opinion rather than its admissibility and should be left for the jury’s
consideration.” United States v. 17.69 Acres of Land, 2004 WL 5632928 at *1 (S.D.
Cal. 2004). Thus, even if the Bank’s misplaced arguments as to the nature of
Plaintiffs’ burdens of proof were accepted, those arguments would go to the weight
of Regan’s testimony, not to its admissibility. City of Pomona v. SQM North America
Corp., 750 F.3d 1036, 1044 (9th Cir. 2014).
For these reasons, as further explained below, none of the Bank’s renewed
efforts to relitigate its repeatedly rejected legal arguments come close to requiring the
exclusion of Greg Regan, an undisputedly qualified damages expert. The Bank’s
motion should therefore be denied.
BACKGROUND
Greg Regan is a Certified Public Accountant. See Baltzer Dec. Ex. A ¶24 &
Appendix A. He has previously been retained as an expert by governmental entities
such as the SEC, the CFPB, and numerous State Attorneys General, and he has
performed expert analyses in cases involving a broad range of companies, including
Amazon, Avaya, ASML, Beyond Meat, Cisco, Fitbit, Google, Intuit, and PNC Bank.
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Case No.: 3:21-md-02992-GPC-MSB
Id. ¶26. The Bank does not dispute Regan’s expertise or qualifications to testify as an
expert. Instead, it contends that his “methodologies and conclusions” are so
“flaw[ed]” in this particular case as to require their exclusion. See Regan Mot. at 5, 7.
Regan submitted his initial report on August 29, 2024 in support of Plaintiffs’
motion for class certification. Baltzer Dec. Ex. B (Regan Report dated August 29,
2024). That report proposed two alternative methodologies for calculating the Bank’s
total damages liability, including the classwide damages attributable to the Claim
Denial, Credit Rescission, and Account Freeze class members’ lost access to their
unemployment insurance (“UI”) funds. His “Methodology 1” proposed to calculate
class members’ consequential damages by applying to their principal damages a
uniform, compound interest rate reflecting the time value of money for this particular
population (unemployment insurance beneficiaries during the height of the pandemic)
deprived of these particular funds (UI benefits). The time value of money is the
uncontroversial concept that a dollar now is worth more than a dollar later, and a
compound interest rate reflecting that concept is a “standard way of calculating the
harm resulting from denial of access to funds.” Baltzer Dec. Ex. B ¶¶8, 45-52, 85, 90,
100. His “Methodology 2,” by contrast, proposed to calculate the actual costs most
likely incurred by class members (credit card debt and late fees) as a result of being
denied access to their funds, based on the assumptions
Id. ¶¶8, 53-
75, 86-89, 101. The Court found that the assumptions underlying Methodology 2 were
not sufficiently supported by evidence in the class certification record. Id. ¶¶8, 53-
75; see also ECF 494 at 87-88.
While the Bank emphasizes the Court’s rejection of Methodology 2, it ignores
that the Court accepted Methodology 1, the only methodology that Regan advocates
in his merits report presently at issue. The Court based its approval of Methodology
1 on the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Van I, in which “[t]he Ninth Circuit [] recognized
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Case No.: 3:21-md-02992-GPC-MSB
injury in the form of ‘the lost time value of money’ and an award of interest as a way
of measuring and remedying that injury.” ECF 494 at 86 (quoting Van I, 962 F.3d at
1162).
In Van, a class action against a company that charged an improper sales tax to
many customers but later refunded the overcharged amounts, the Ninth Circuit
approved the use of a classwide interest rate to calculate the lost time value of the
delayed refunds, despite variations in the individual economic situations of class
members and the absence of any proof of any particular class members’ borrowing
practices. Van v. LLR, Inc., 61 F.4th 1053, 1061 (9th Cir. 2023) (Van II) (approving
a classwide annualized interest rate of 4.35%); accord Nguyen v. Nissan North
America, Inc., 932 F.3d 811, 821 (9th Cir. 2019) (approving classwide benefit-of-the-
bargain damages in defective auto part case, in which plaintiffs proposed using
average cost of replacing defective clutch system as proxy for the amounts of
customer overpayment, despite classwide variations in cost, timing, and fact of
replacement).
As in Van, this Court concluded in its class certification order that the class
members’ “varying economic circumstances” could not preclude Plaintiffs from
calculating the lost time value of unlawfully withheld funds through application of a
classwide interest rate, and that any dispute over “which interest rates should be
applied is an issue for the factfinder” at trial. ECF 494 at 86-87. After all, if damages
in cases like this and Van could not be based on generalized classwide assumptions
(the underpinnings of which can be probed on cross-examination), no case involving
the lost time value of money could ever proceed to trial on a classwide basis.
Regan’s March 4, 2025 merits report, here at issue, is fully consistent with Van
and this Court’s class certification order. Baltzer Dec. Ex. A. That report no longer
relies on assumptions
and no longer proposes
Methodology 2 as a mechanism for calculating classwide damages. Instead, Regan
draws upon the extensive economic literature analyzed by Plaintiffs’ expert labor
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economists—Profs. Chloe East and David Levine—to present an evidence-based
calculation of a classwide interest rate based on the lost time value of money for the
population affected by the Bank’s misconduct. Id. ¶¶40-51. Given the evidence of
that population’s “lower incomes” in general and the associated likelihood that their
lost access to the wrongfully held principal would require them to borrow, reduce
consumption, or forgo payments that would have reduced existing debt, Regan
proposes that a 20% interest rate would be an appropriate approximation of the time
value of money for this particular population. He also illustrates his calculations with
a 10% interest rate as an alternative. Id.
Nothing in Regan’s report or analysis conflicts with the basic premise,
embraced by this Court and the Ninth Circuit, that the specific interest rate to be used
to calculate classwide lost time-value damages is ultimately for the trier of fact to
determine. Id. ¶46 & n.46. Should the trier of fact determine that a different interest
rate should be used—if not the rates proposed by Regan, then perhaps the rates
proposed by Prof. East, Prof. Levine, or
—that interest rate can be inserted into
Regan’s formulas to determine that element of classwide damages (amount of funds
withheld x length of time withheld x interest rate). Baltzer Dec. Ex. A ¶¶44, 69, 80;
see also ECF 494 at 86-87.
LEGAL STANDARD
To be admissible, testimony from a qualified expert need only “help the trier
of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.” Fed. R. Evid. 702;
see Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 597 (1993). As the Supreme
Court has explained, Rule 702’s application must be consistent “with the liberal thrust
of the Federal Rules and their general approach of relaxing the traditional barriers to
opinion testimony.” Daubert, 509 U.S. at 588 (cleaned up). Expert witnesses are thus
“permitted wide latitude to offer opinions, including those that are not based on
firsthand knowledge or observation,” so long as “the expert’s opinion [has] a reliable
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basis in the knowledge and experience of his discipline.” Id. at 592; see also, e.g.,
Jinro Am., Inc. v Secure Invs., Inc., 266 F.3d 993, 1004 (9th Cir. 2001).
Under this standard, a district court’s task is not to “decid[e] whether the expert
is right or wrong, just whether his testimony has substance such that it would be
helpful to a jury.” Alaska Rent-A-Car, Inc. v. Avis Budget Grp., Inc., 738 F.3d 960,
969-70 (9th Cir. 2013). Expert testimony “need not establish every element that the
plaintiff must prove[] in order to be admissible.” Primiano, 598 F.3d at565. “As a
general rule, questions relating to the basis and sources of an expert’s opinion affect
the weight to be assigned that opinion rather than its admissibility and should be left
for the jury’s consideration.” 17.69 Acres, 2004 WL 5632928, at *1 (emphasis added).
“[I]t is up to the opposing party to examine the factual basis for the opinion in cross
examination. Only if the expert’s opinion is so fundamentally unsupported that it can
offer no assistance to the jury must such testimony be excluded.” Bonner v. ISP Tech.,
Inc., 259 F.3d 924, 929-30 (8th Cir. 2001) (citations omitted); see also City of
Pomona, 750 F.3d at 1044 (“Challenges that go to the weight of the evidence are
within the province of the fact finder… A district court should not make credibility
determinations that are reserved for the jury.”)
ARGUMENT
I.
As the Court Held, It Is the Bank’s Burden, Not Regan’s, to Identify
Any Fraudsters Remaining in the Class.
The Bank begins with the brazen assertion that Regan’s EFTA-related
methodologies must be excluded in their entirety because they do not “reliably”
identify “cardholders who either intended to file fraudulent disputes or who simply
reported authorized transactions by mistake,” Regan Mot. at 10, thus repackaging into
Daubert trappings an argument the Court squarely rejected on class certification.
In opposing certification, the Bank had argued that Plaintiffs’ EFTA claims
could not be certified because individualized inquiries would be required to determine
which, if any, class members were in fact undiscovered fraudsters. ECF 347 at 19-23.
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In support, the Bank pointed to photographic evidence from a few ATM withdrawals
that it contended were proof that some class members’ purportedly unauthorized
ATM transactions were in fact authorized. Id. In reply, Plaintiffs pointed out that
under EFTA, it is the Bank’s burden to establish that any disputed transactions were
in fact authorized and that the Bank, despite having many opportunities, had
repeatedly failed to meet that burden as to the class members. ECF 392 at 6-7 (citing
15 U.S.C. 1693g(b) (“[T]o deny a claim, ‘the burden of proof is upon the [bank] to
show the [disputed transaction] was authorized.’”)). Plaintiffs further explained that
“the Bank has had ample opportunity to identify” any fraudsters: “first, pursuant to
its reconsideration process; second, pursuant to the June 2021 Yick injunction (which
required the Bank to investigate any claim by authenticated cardholders previously
denied based solely on the CFF); and third, by the OCC/CFPB consent orders, which
in July 2022 required the Bank to identify all those harmed by its use of CFF-1 and
” Id. at 7. Plaintiffs also pointed out that if
the Bank were right that the law required each class member to individually prove
that their claim arose from a genuinely unauthorized transaction, “nothing would stop
financial institutions from summarily denying all error claims without investigation,
forcing each denied claimant to proceed individually or not at all, thereby completely
nullifying EFTA’s consumer protection goals.” Id. at 6.
This Court agreed with Plaintiffs. It explained: “Contrary to BANA’s
argument, the burden of proving each disputed transaction was ‘unauthorized’ is on
BANA, not Plaintiffs, the EDD debit cardholders.… BANA, not EDD cardholders,
has to [] ‘show that claims are unauthorized before denying claims[.]’” ECF 494 at
51-52. That burden belongs to the Bank, not to Plaintiffs’ damages expert. Nothing
prevents the Bank from attempting to meet its burden of identifying fraudsters going
forward, and if it does, those fraudsters would be excluded from Regan’s damages
calculations under his proposed methodology. Baltzer Dec. Ex. A ¶¶ 4 & nn.10, 32.
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The Bank’s argument thus ignores the basic principle that an expert’s testimony
“need not establish every element that the plaintiff must prove[] in order to be
admissible.” Primiano, 598 F.3d at 565; see also Daubert, 509 U.S. at 596 (“Vigorous
cross-examination, presentation of contrary evidence, and careful instruction on the
burden of proof are the traditional and appropriate means of attacking shaky but
admissible evidence.”). Regan’s testimony need not itself establish liability or defeat
every defense the Bank might assert for his testimony to assist the trier of fact. See
Alaska Rent-A-Car, Inc., 738 F.3d at 969-70. That is especially true because Regan’s
formula for calculating damages stands ready to accommodate any evidence the Bank
might ultimately muster as to any class members it can establish are ineligible
fraudsters.1
II.
Regan’s Testimony Concerning Consequential Damages is
Admissible.
The Bank asserts that Regan’s compound-interest-rate-based methodology is
inadmissible because Regan “is not claiming that every class member (or even any
class member)” actually “had to borrow money” at the specific interest rates Regan
identifies. Regan Mot. at 14. According to the Bank, because Regan relies on
“generalizations” without “validating them by reference to the specific facts and
circumstances of even a single…proposed class member,” the factfinder must be
precluded from considering his testimony. Regan Mot. at 16; see also id. at 20-22.
This argument misstates the law. It is commonplace for experts to rely on data and
draw conclusions that are not specific to any particular party. Courts routinely reject
attempts to exclude expert testimony on the grounds that the testimony is
1 The Bank has not yet identified any such evidence. See RSUF 9, 134-35; PSAF 95.
Although it now asserts that Regan “acknowledge[d]” in his deposition testimony the
“existence” of “hundreds of likely fraudsters ” Regan Mot. at 12, in fact, Regan
conceded only that
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“speculative” or “not sufficiently corroborated,” as such “concerns go to the weight
of the testimony and its credibility, not its admissibility.” Elosu v. Middlefork Ranch
Inc., 26 F.4th 1017, 1025-28 (9th Cir. 2022) (citations omitted).
The Bank’s argument also ignores the Court’s previous ruling as to Regan’s
Methodology 1. An interest rate—any interest rate—necessarily reflects a
generalization about the time value of money that is not strictly tied to the specific
economic circumstances of each individual to whom it is paid. In Van, for example,
the economic circumstances of the class members who were deprived for different
lengths of time of the sales taxes they were unlawfully required to pay surely varied.
Some may have had more “liquid savings”; others perhaps “could have borrowed
funds from family members” or could more readily have “reduced consumption”; and
so forth. Regan Mot. at 15. Like the Bank here, the defendant in Van argued that
plaintiffs’ failure to make “specific allegations regarding how [each class member]
would have earned interest on the money but for the defendant’s wrongful conduct”
defeated their claims. Van I, 962 F.3d at 1164. The Ninth Circuit rejected that
argument, holding that it “misstate[d] Van’s claimed injury,” explaining:
Van does not assert that she is injured because she lost interest income.
She asserts that she is injured because she lost the use of her money…
Interest is simply a way of measuring and remedying Van’s injury, not
the injury itself.
Id. at 1164-65. In Van, then, the inevitable individual variations in the class members’
economic situations did not preclude the use of a uniformly applied interest rate to
approximate the lost time value of money on a classwide basis. Van II, 61 F.4th at
1061, 1063-68. The Bank offers no reason why this Court should reconsider its
previous reliance on that binding precedent. ECF 494 at 86-87.2
2 For the same reasons, the Bank’s reliance on class representatives’ interrogatory
responses indicating that they did not actually borrow at the particular interest rates
proposed by Regan misses the point. No class representative in Van claimed to have
actually experienced a loss of interest income at precisely the classwide interest rate
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The Bank’s argument is also contrary to the established case law holding that
expert opinions—particularly the opinions of economic and accounting experts—are
admissible even when based on “generalizations” rather than on adding together the
precise amount of damages suffered by each individual class member (a requirement
that would eliminate classwide relief in a broad swath of circumstances). Regan Mot.
at 16. In Briseno v. ConAgra Foods, Inc., for example, the Ninth Circuit held that it
was consistent with due process for plaintiffs to measure, on a classwide basis, the
aggregate liability attributable to an allegedly false representation that certain cooking
oils were “100% natural” by “(1) calculating the price premium attributable to the
allegedly false statement…and (2) multiplying that premium by the total number of
units sold during the class period.” 844 F.3d 1121, 1123, 1132 (9th Cir. 2017); accord,
Nguyen, 932 F.3d at 821. In ConAgra, too, the individual circumstances of class
members surely varied. After all, not everyone could be expected to attach precisely
the same value to a representation that a cooking oil is “100% natural.” The court
nonetheless concluded that the injury arising from such classwide misrepresentations
may be determined on a classwide basis, regardless of each class member’s individual
experiences and belief system, based on generalizations about the economic behavior
of the relevant population. 844 F.3d at 1123, 1132.3 Notably, ConAgra had attempted
ultimately embraced by the court either. As the Ninth Circuit explained, “[i]nterest is
simply a way of measuring and remedying[the] injury, not the injury itself.” Van I,
962 F.3d at 1165.
3 See also, e.g., Fitzhenry-Russell v. Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Inc., 326 F.R.D. 592
(N.D. Cal 2018) (certifying a 23(b)(3) class and approving the use of market data to
calculate a “price premium” approximating the value to consumers of Dr. Pepper’s
false representation that a beverage was “made from real ginger”); McMorrow v.
Mondelez International, Inc., 2021 WL 859137 (S.D. Cal. March 8, 2021) (approving
a class-wide damages model approximating the value to consumers of the
representation that a product was “nutritious.”); Belyea v. GreenSky, Inc., 2025 WL
589037 at *6 (N.D. Cal., 2025) (denying motion to exclude damages expert and
finding that, although individualized questions as to damages may be relevant to the
appropriateness of class certification, “they are not a basis for challenging the
reliability of [the expert’s] assessment of classwide damages”).
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in the district court to exclude a damages expert on the ground that her proposed
analysis would impermissibly seek to approximate the value to consumers of the
allegedly false representation by relying in part on “future data” to estimate the
“historical” price premium—that is, by relying on data concerning the market
behavior of persons outside the class to make classwide generalizations untethered
from the specific circumstances of any particular class member. In re ConAgra Foods,
Inc., 90 F.Supp.3d 919, 1028 (C.D. Cal. 2015). The district court held that the expert’s
generalizations based on market data “d[id] not make her methodology unreliable,”
even though neither the data nor the generalizations were class member-specific. Id.
Similarly, in Hartley v. Dillard’s, Inc., the defendant attempted to exclude an
expert economist’s proffered testimony—consisting of economic generalizations
about national trends affecting “mall and retail store sales”—because it did not
address the “specific financial conditions” of the defendant’s retail store. 310 F.3d
1054, 1060-61 (8th Cir. 2002). The Eighth Circuit nonetheless held that “the jury
could consider” such economic generalizations, and that “it [was] up to the opposing
party to examine the factual basis for the opinion in cross-examination”—not through
a Daubert motion. Id. (citing Bonner, 259 F.3d at 929-30).
Here, the Bank has not identified any authority that so much as suggests that
Regan’s “generalizations” about the financial circumstances of class members—
which the Bank does not dispute are supported by the “reports and studies” he cites,
Regan Mot. at 15—are so unreliable as to be inadmissible. The factfinder should
therefore be permitted to “consider” such generalizations and to give them whatever
persuasive weight is appropriate, even though they are not—and realistically, could
not be—based on the “specific financial conditions” of each of the approximately
109,000 individual class members. Hartley, 310 F.3d at 1061. At trial, the Bank may
challenge Regan’s testimony through cross-examination or through the presentation
of its own experts’ testimony (testimony which includes those experts’ own economic
generalizations about class members, which are also not rooted in any class member’s
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specific financial situation). Bonner, 259 F.3d at 929-30.4 Such arguments necessarily
go to the weight the factfinder should give the experts’ testimony—not to
admissibility. City of Pomona, 750 F.3d at 1044. After all, even if the trier of fact
ultimately determines that a lower interest rate than those Regan proposes should be
used, the formula he offers for calculating the lost time value of money will still
“assist the trier of fact,” because whatever interest rate the factfinder adopts can be
inserted into that three-variable formula (amount, time, rate). See Daubert, 509 U.S.
at 591.
III.
Regan’s Testimony as to Disgorgement Based on “Float Revenue”
Is Admissible.
Regan has explained that disgorgement damages for the Claim Denial, Credit
Rescission, and Account Freeze classes may be calculated based on the “float
revenue” earned by the Bank on the balance of funds to which class members lost
access as a result of the Bank’s wrongdoing, for the period of time in which those
funds were wrongfully withheld. Baltzer Dec. Ex. A ¶¶60-62, 72, 87.5 In stating this
opinion, Regan noted the deposition testimony of the Bank’s Rule 30(b)(6) designee
Robert Chestnut, who testified that
Id. ¶40 & n. 34.
4 See, e.g.
5 The Bank does not challenge Regan’s proposed disgorgement methodologies for the
Customer Service and EMV Chip classes.
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The Bank seeks to exclude Regan’s testimony about disgorgement of float
revenue on the theory that he needed to cite evidence establishing that every member
of those three classes would have immediately withdrawn the Bank’s provisional
credit payments had the Bank timely complied with its obligation to make those
payments rather than wrongfully withholding them in reliance on CFF-1. Regan Mot.
at 23-25. That, too, is a repackaging of the same argument the Bank presented and
lost on class certification through its economic expert Victor Stango. Baltzer Dec. Ex.
C ¶81 (asserting that “not all proposed class members [immediately] withdrew all
available funds from their EDD accounts”). Plaintiffs countered that the assertion was
“legally irrelevant,” because the object of the disgorgement remedy in California is to
“eliminate” even the “possibility of profit from conscious wrongdoing.” ECF 392 at
20-21 (quoting Meister v. Mensinger, 230 Cal.App.4th 381, 398 (2014)) (emphasis
added). Because Plaintiffs had an “ownership interest” in the wrongfully withheld
funds on which the Bank earned float revenue, they had the right to withdraw those
funds at any time. See Korea Supply Co. v. Lockheed Martin Corp., 29 Cal.4th 1134,
1148 (2003). By unlawfully withholding those funds, the Bank converted them from
a potential source of Bank revenue (with respect to those class members who had
chosen not to withdraw their provisional credit payments) into a certain source of
revenue (because the Bank, by its unlawful conduct, thereby ensured that no class
members could exercise their ownership rights). Under California law, all revenue
thereby generated is fairly “attributable to the underlying wrong.” Mensinger, 230
Cal.App.4th at 398; see also Lambert v. Nutraceutical Corp., 870 F.3d 1170, 1183
(9th Cir. 2017) (classwide calculations under the UCL are “particularly forgiving”).
This Court agreed, holding that Regan’s disgorgement damages model for float
revenue satisfied predominance. ECF 494 at 93. The Bank offers no basis for this
Court to reconsider that ruling.
The Bank also contends that Regan’s disgorgement calculation should be
excluded because, according to the Bank, it “fails to deduct BANA’s operational
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costs” and thus does not measure “net profits.” Regan Mot. at 25. The Bank further
asserts, remarkably, that the float revenue it might have earned on funds that would
have been deposited if not for the Bank’s own misconduct (depending on when those
funds would have been withdrawn) must be deducted from any damages. But in the
disgorgement context, any “risk of uncertainty should fall on the wrongdoer whose
illegal conduct created that uncertainty.” SEC v. Platforms Wireless Int’l Corp., 617
F.3d 1072, 1096 (9th Cir. 2010) (quoting SEC v. First City Fin. Corp., 890 F.2d 1215,
1232 (D.C. Cir. 1989)); see also Restatement (Third) of Restitution § 51 (explaining
that the burden of dispelling any uncertainty in disgorgement calculations is assigned
to the wrongdoer). Any lost profits the Bank would have earned but-for its misconduct
are “attributable to the underlying wrong.” Mensinger, 230 Cal.App.4th at 398. In any
event, even if such costs were relevant, Regan’s methodology would still be helpful
to the factfinder and therefore admissible, because such costs could simply be
deducted from the damages figures Regan’s methodology produces. Alaska Rent-A-
Car, Inc., 738 F.3d at 969-70; Primiano, 598 F.3d at 565.6
IV.
The Bank’s Challenges to Regan’s Customer-Service Class
Methodology Also Fail
Regan has proposed to calculate damages for the Customer Service Class by
taking the average length of excess hold time caused by the Bank’s failure adequately
to staff its call centers and multiplying that figure by “the applicable minimum wage
or other reasonable metric.” Baltzer Dec. Ex. A ¶¶ 92-93. On class certification, this
Court held that Regan’s proposed methodology satisfied the predominance
requirement, because the Plaintiffs’ damages theory concerns “not just time lost but
6 The only case identified by the Bank that so much as suggests that an expert’s failure
to measure “net profits” could render his testimony inadmissible does not even
involve disgorgement. Regan Mot. at 25 (citing Duncan v. Blackbird Prods. Grp.,
LLC,, 2021 WL 7708670 at *4 (W.D. Mo. Mar. 4, 2021)). That holding was instead
specific to “Missouri law” concerning the elements of claims for lost profits, not
disgorgement. Duncan, 2021 WL 7708670 at *2.
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an excessive amount of lost time” and because the use of “the applicable minimum
wage or other reasonable metric,” as applied to the average length of excess hold time,
offers a legally permissible mechanism for approximating the harm inflicted on a
classwide basis. ECF 494 at 89-91. Again, the alternative would be no damages at all,
even though the evidence of liability and fact of damages is compelling.
Despite this Court’s prior ruling, the Bank again asserts that damages cannot
be measured on a classwide basis because “Regan’s methodology assumes that ‘lost
time’ resulted in the same ‘economic harm’ to each class member.” Regan Mot. at 22.
It assumes no such thing. Neither Plaintiffs nor Regan contend that every class
member would have spent the excess hold time wasted by the Bank by working a job
that paid precisely the minimum wage. As with the interest-rate-based approach
approved by the Ninth Circuit in Van and similar cases, “[Plaintiffs] do[] not assert
that [they are] injured because [they] lost…income. [The reasonable metric proposed
by Regan] is simply a way of measuring and remedying [the] injury, not the injury
itself.” Van I, 962 F.3d at 1164-65; see also Van II, 61 F.4th at 1063. The law fully
tolerates such classwide approximations of aggregate damages. Supra at 2, 9-13. As
Plaintiffs’ expert Prof. Levine has explained, economists routinely “use wage data to
represent the value of time,” even for the unemployed, and unemployed persons
whose time was wrongfully denied to them by the Bank likely faced higher costs.
Baltzer Dec. Ex. E (Levine Report) ¶¶14-30. Should the Bank argue at trial that a
lower reasonable metric for approximating the value of excess hold time should be
used, it must do so through cross-examination or through the introduction of its own
evidence or expert testimony—not by repackaging its rejected class certification
arguments as a Daubert challenge. Supra at 12-13.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, the Bank’s motion to exclude the expert testimony
of Regan should be denied in its entirety.
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Case No.: 3:21-md-02992-GPC-MSB
Respectfully submitted,
Dated: January 7, 2026
COTCHETT, PITRE & McCARTHY, LLP
By: /s/ Brian Danitz
JOSEPH W. COTCHETT
BRIAN DANITZ
KARIN B. SWOPE
VASTI S. MONTIEL
CAROLINE A YUEN
Dated: January 7, 2026
ALTSHULER BERZON LLP
By: /s/ Michael Rubin
MICHAEL RUBIN
CONNIE K. CHAN
JAMES BALTZER
KATHERINE G. BASS
Co-Lead Counsel for Plaintiffs and the
Proposed Class
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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I hereby certify that I electronically filed the foregoing with the clerk of the
court for the United States District Court for the Southern District of California by
using the CM/ECF system on January 8, 2026. I further certify that all participants in
the case are registered CM/ECF users and that service will be accomplished by the
CM/ECF system. I certify under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and
correct.
Executed: January 8, 2026
/s/ Brian Danitz
Brian Danitz
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