18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition 187 addressing potential defenses to liability for two of the claims pertaining to meal period waivers and wage statements. For these reasons, the Magistrate Judge recommended that the Court grant in part and deny in part Plaintiffs’ motion for class certification. Troyer, et al. v. Yerba Mate Co., 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 121259 (N.D. Cal. June 29, 2021). Plaintiff, a worker hired as a "hacedor” (a “doer” in Spanish), filed a class action alleging that Defendant failed to pay proper meal and rest breaks and failed to pay overtime compensation in violation of the California Labor Code. Plaintiff filed a motion for class certification pursuant to Rule 23, which the Court granted. Defendant argued that Plaintiff was exempt from the Labor Code under the outside salesperson exemption. As a hacedor, Plaintiff distributed Defendant’s drinks to retail customers using a company vehicle. Plaintiff’s daily activity was logged by Defendant’s mobile application. Plaintiff was paid a flat salary of about $1,346 every two weeks, which equated to $16.83 per hour. Plaintiff alleged that he frequently worked more than eight hours a day without meal or rest breaks and that he could not take breaks because he would otherwise not be able to finish his daily route. The Court determined that the class was sufficiently numerous as it consisted of at least 190 individuals. The Court further found that both commonality and typicality were present as the allegation that Plaintiff was improperly classified as an exempt employee applied to all hacedores. The Court reasoned that Plaintiff also established predominance because hacedores used the mobile app for virtually every task and the app recorded detailed data about every significant task they did, and the primary duties were the same for all hacedores. The Court opined that hacedores had identical work duties and experiences and because Defendant had a uniform policy controlling how the hacedores spent their time, class issues would predominate. For these reasons, the Court granted Plaintiff’s motion for class certification. Valenzuela, et al. v. Best-Line Shades, LLC, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 150162 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 10, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of manufacturing employees, filed a class and collective action alleging that Defendants violated various provisions of the FLSA and the California Labor Law. Plaintiffs filed a motion for class certification of the state law claims pursuant to Rule 23, and for conditional certification of the FLSA claims. The Court granted the motion. As to the state law claims, Plaintiffs sought certification of a class consisting of all exempt employees from November 5, 2015 to March 17, 2020 and for three subclasses, including: (i) a meal period auto-deduction subclass, (ii) a wage statement subclass, and (iii) final pay and wage statement subclass. As to the numerosity requirement, Plaintiffs estimated that there were approximately 30 class members based on Defendants’ payroll records, and the Court determined the class was sufficiently numerous. The Court found that Plaintiffs established that there were several questions common to the class, including: (i) whether Defendants compensated employees for all hours worked, (ii) whether as a result of the failure to pay timely final wages, Defendants were subject to waiting time penalties for failing to timely pay wages, (iii) whether Defendants violated wage statement requirement provisions, and (iv) whether Defendants maintained an unlawful auto-deduct meal period policy. Id . at *8. The Court also reasoned that Plaintiffs’ claims were typical of the class because all class members were subject to the same policies and practices of Defendants’ alleged failure to pay final wages, the meal period auto-deduct policy, and the failure to provide accurate wage statements or wage statements at all upon termination. Id . at *9-10. The Court also held that the adequacy requirement met as there were no conflicts between the named Plaintiffs and the other class members, and class counsel was highly experienced in class action wage & hour litigation. Id . at *11. Turning to the Rule 23(b) requirements, the Court opined that common questions of fact and law predominated as to Plaintiffs’ claims. The Court ruled that a class action was the superior method of adjudication because: (i) there was no indication that members of the proposed class or subclasses had a strong interest in individual litigation or an incentive to pursue their claims individually; (ii) a class action would achieve economies of time, effort and expense, and promote uniformity; and (iii) there was not a similar litigation already underway elsewhere. Accordingly, the Court granted Plaintiffs’ motion for class certification. Plaintiffs also sought conditional certification of a collective action consisting of all non-exempt employees who were employed Defendants in California at any time from March 4, 2020 to March 17, 2020, who performed work for Defendants prior to March 17, 2020 and who did not receive timely final payment of all overtime wages on their final check. Id . at *21. The Court determined that Plaintiffs made the requisite showing to demonstrate that members of the collective action were similarly- situated for purposes of conditional certification. For these reasons, the Court granted the motion for conditional certification of a collective action, and for class certification pursuant to Rule 23.