18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

48 Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition by Assistant Principals. Id . Plaintiffs also provided affidavits from three Elementary School Assistant Principals and one Field Technology Specialist. Id . The Court ruled that Plaintiffs made the requisite factual showing to demonstrate that Defendant had a common policy of crediting education, experience, and tenure differently when making salary placement determinations, depending on the sex of the applicant or employee, which uniformly resulted in female Elementary School Assistant Principals and Technology Specialists being paid less than male counterparts. Id . at *9-10. The Court thereby found that Plaintiffs’ sufficiently established that they were similarly-situated to other Assistant Principals and Technology Specialists for purposes of conditional certification. However, the Court determined that Plaintiffs failed to made the requisite showing with respect to the Teachers, because they failed to offer any affidavits or other evidence showing personal knowledge, identifiable facts, or a legal connection between Plaintiffs and Teachers. Id . at *10-11. Accordingly, the Court granted in part and denied in part Plaintiffs’ motion for conditional certification of a collective action. (ix) Ninth Circuit Fleming, et al. v. Matco Tools Corp., 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 33513 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 21, 2021). Plaintiff, a Matco Tools franchisee, filed a class action alleging that Defendant improperly classified its franchisees as independent contractors in violation of the California Labor Code and the Industrial Welfare Commission wage orders. According to Plaintiff, by misclassifying its franchisees, Defendant avoided its legal duties to reimburse expenses, pay overtime compensation, provide for required meal and rest periods, and deliver accurate wage statements. Plaintiff further claimed that Defendant improperly deducted wages from its franchisees. Plaintiff filed a motion for class certification, which the Court granted in part and denied in part. In terms of Rule 23(a)’s requirements for class certification, the Court noted that Plaintiffs satisfied the numerosity requirement given that Defendant maintained 288 distributors during the relevant time period, most of which were franchisees. The parties also agreed that Plaintiff met the commonality requirement since the core issue as to all putative class members concerned whether Defendant misclassified franchisees as independent contractors. Defendant contended that Plaintiff was not a typical or adequate representative of the class because he was a former franchisee and not all current franchisees supported the litigation. The Court rejected this argument because it found Plaintiff’s claims were “reasonably co-extensive” with those of other class members. Id. at *11-12. The Court also held that it could not render Plaintiff an atypical or inadequate representative merely because some putative class members did not support the case. As to the Rule 23(b)(3) predominance requirement, the Court found that the “ABC” test was the appropriate mechanism to determine whether common questions predominated over individualized issues with respect to Plaintiff’s claims. Here, the Court held that predominance under prong A of the test was met by all franchisees being subject to the same distributorship agreement (“DA”). The Court further opined that prong B was satisfied “[b]ecause the type of work franchisees engage in – selling tools and providing service to retail customers – is common across the class.” Id. at *27. Moreover, because the DAs required all franchisees to sell only Matco-approved products and services, the Court ruled that common questions predominated as to prong C as well. After considering Plaintiff’s motion under the ABC test, the Court assessed Plaintiff’s individual causes of action. On these claims, the Court reasoned that California’s outside sales exemption made class certification inappropriate for Plaintiff’s overtime, meal break, and rest break claims. Namely, for these allegations, the Court opined that it would have to engage in individualized inquiries into how the franchisees divided their time between sales and non-sales work. Id. at *34. The Court similarly held that Plaintiff’s wage deduction claim could not be certified because Plaintiff failed to support this claim with any evidence that Defendant paid wages or withheld deductions from franchisees. Finally, Defendant argued that Plaintiff’s expense reimbursement claim could not be certified because a determination of damages on this count would require individualized questions, but the Court disagreed. It reasoned that “[i]ndividual questions going to damages generally do not justify denying class certification . . .” Id. at *43. Accordingly, the Court granted in part and denied in part Plaintiff’s motion for class certification. Huntsman, et al. v. Southwest Airlines, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20856 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 3, 2021). Plaintiff, a commercial airline pilot, brought a putative class action alleging that Defendant violated the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (“USERRA”) with its policy of failing to pay its employees when they took short-term military leave, while paying workers when they took comparable forms of leave, such as for jury duty leave, bereavement leave, and sick leave. Plaintiff moved for class certification pursuant to Rule 23(b)(3), and the Court granted the motion. As Rule 23(a)’s requirement of numerosity, the Court found that this requirement was easily met as there were over 6,700 class members. While Defendant contested commonality,