In Daar v. Yellow Cab Co. (1967) 67 Cal.2d 695, plaintiff sued on behalf of himself and all other persons similarly situated. The superior court entered an order sustaining defendant's demurrer to the complaint without leave to amend and transferring the matter to the municipal court. (Daar, supra, 67 Cal.2d at p. 698.) The order was based on the court's determination plaintiff could not maintain the action as a class action and his individual claim did not allege damages within the jurisdiction of the superior court. Plaintiff appealed, and the court determined the order was appealable. The court based its decision on the substance and legal effect of the order, rather than its form. (Id. at pp. 698-699.) "Although an order sustaining a demurrer with or without leave to amend is not the final judgment in the case and is nonappealable , here the order under examination not only sustains the demurrer, but also directs the transfer of the cause from the superior court, where it was commenced as a class action, to the municipal court.... The order determines the legal insufficiency of the complaint as a class suit and preserves for the plaintiff alone his cause of action for damages. In 'its legal effect' the order is tantamount to a dismissal of the action as to all members of the class other than plaintiff. It has virtually demolished the action as a class action. If the propriety of such disposition could not now be reviewed, it can never be reviewed. This court has observed that it 'has long been the rule in this state that an order of dismissal is to be treated as a judgment for the purposes of taking an appeal when it finally disposes of the particular action and prevents further proceedings as effectually as would any formal judgment.' We conclude that the order in the case at bench is in legal effect a final judgment from which an appeal lies." (Daar, supra, 67 Cal.2d at p. 699.) In short, the plaintiff challenged certain alleged taxicab overcharges. The trial court had sustained a demurrer to the plaintiff's class claims without leave to amend and transferred the plaintiff's individual claims to municipal court because it concluded that the individual claims could not satisfy the jurisdictional amount requirement for superior court. The Supreme Court described the effect of these rulings as "tantamount to a dismissal of the action as to all members of the class other than plaintiff." (Daar, supra, 67 Cal.2d at p. 699.) Thus, Daar approved a classwide recovery in which the amount of liability was known to the defendant and ascertainable from its records. In Daar v. Yellow Cab Co. (1967) 67 Cal. 2d 695, 706 63 Cal. Rptr. 724, 433 P.2d 732, the court acknowledged "applicable precedents indicate that in observing the ascertainable class requirement they are at the same time giving recognition to the principle that a group of individuals' rights to recover, each of which is based on a separate set of facts, cannot be determined by a judgment in a class action." (67 Cal. 2d at p. 704.)