Justia Class Action Opinion Summaries

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of class certification in an action alleging minimum wage, overtime, and expense reimbursement claims against Grubhub. Plaintiff contends that he was misclassified as an independent contractor rather than an employee when he worked for Grubhub as a food delivery driver.The panel concluded that the district court properly denied certification to plaintiff's proposed class of delivery drivers in California where all members of plaintiff's putative class—except plaintiff and one other—signed agreements waiving their right to participate in a class action. The panel explained that the district court correctly held plaintiff did not satisfy the requirements in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a) because he is neither typical of the class nor an adequate representative, and because the proceedings would be unlikely to generate common answers. The panel rejected Grubhub's claim that California Proposition 22 abated the application of the ABC test to plaintiff's pending class claim. In this case, there is no dispute that plaintiff’s minimum wage and overtime claims are rooted in wage orders. The panel concluded that, because the district court rendered its judgment before the California Supreme Court decided Dynamex Operations W., Inc. v. Superior Court, 416 P.3d 1, 33–40 (Cal. 2018), it had no occasion to apply the ABC test to plaintiff's claims. The panel remanded for the district court to apply the ABC test in the first instance to plaintiff's expense reimbursement claim. View "Lawson v. Grubhub, Inc." on Justia Law

The Supreme Court accepted a question certified to it by the United States District Court for the District of Nevada asking to decide whether Nev. Rev. Stat. 41.031(1) constitutes a waiver of Nevada's sovereign immunity from damages liability under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), holding that Nevada has waived the defense of sovereign immunity to liability under the FLSA.Appellant and several other employees of the Nevada Department of Corrections (NDOC) filed a putative class and collective action complaint alleging that the State and NDOC violated the FLSA and the state Minimum Wage Amendment (MWA) and breached their contract under state law. The State removed the action to federal district court, where at issue was whether the State possessed sovereign immunity. The district court concluded that the State waived its Eleventh Amendment immunity by removing the case to federal court. The Ninth Circuit affirmed and left open the question of whether the State retained its sovereign immunity from liability. The court then certified the question to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court answered that, by enacting Nev. Rev. Stat. 41.031(1), Nevada consented to damages liability for a State agency's violation of the minimum wage or overtime provisions of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. View "Echeverria v. State" on Justia Law

Anthem provides health insurance and hires nurses to review insurance claims. The company pays those nurses a salary but does not pay them overtime. Canaday, an Anthem nurse who lives in Tennessee, filed a proposed collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 206. claiming that the company misclassified her and others as exempt from the Act’s overtime pay provisions. A number of Anthem nurses in other states opted into the collective action.The Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the out-of-state plaintiffs on personal jurisdiction grounds. In an FLSA collective action, as in the mass action under California law, each opt-in plaintiff becomes a real party in interest, who must meet her burden for obtaining relief and satisfy the other requirements of party status. Anthem is based in Indiana, not Tennessee. General jurisdiction is not an option for out-of-state claims. Specific jurisdiction requires a connection between the forum and the specific claims at issue. The out-of-state plaintiffs have not brought claims arising out of or relating to Anthem’s conduct in Tennessee. View "Canaday v. The Anthem Companies, Inc." on Justia Law

The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the circuit court ruling that Baltimore City had breached its contract with two out of three sub-classes of police officers and firefighters and finding that Ordinance 10-306 retrospectively divested the members of those sub-classes of benefits they had earned, holding that there were no factual or legal errors in the circuit court's rulings.Baltimore City maintained a Fire and Police Employees' Retirement System (the Plan) to provide pension benefits to members of the City's police and fire departments. In 2010, the City enacted Ordinance 10-306, under which the City changed some of the key terms of the Plan. Plaintiffs commenced a class action lawsuit alleging claims for declaratory relief and breach of contract. The circuit court certified a class of plaintiffs and three sub-classes: a retired sub-class, a retirement-eligible sub-class, and an active sub-class. The circuit court granted judgment for all but the active sub-class, ruling that, as to currently employed members who had not yet reached retirement eligibility, Ordinance 10-306 did not affect vested benefits. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the Ordinance retrospectively divested retired and retirement-eligible members of the benefits they had earned. View "Cherry v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore" on Justia Law

Smith worked for PTI, a company that transports railroad crews to and from their workplaces. Believing that her position was misclassified under the Fair Labor Standards Act and that she was not receiving proper overtime wages, she filed a collective action 29 U.S.C. 216(b). Unlike a class action under FRCP 23(b)(3), an FLSA collective action requires group members to affirmatively opt-in to participate. Her suit was within the two-year limitation period. The district court’s docket sheet shows numerous putative group members consenting to opt-in.PTI noted that Smith had not filed anything except her complaint indicating that she herself wished to participate in the group action. The court held that Smith’s group action could not “commence” until such consent was filed, 29 U.S.C. 256, but the limitations periods had run. The court concluded that Smith’s complaint also failed to allege timely individual claims, and dismissed the case. Smith’s appeal concerned only her individual action. The Seventh Circuit vacated. The court erred by refusing to allow Smith to proceed on her individual claims. Read in the light most favorable to Smith, the complaint contained sufficient factual allegations related to her individual claims to put PTI on notice that she intended to sue it both in an individual and a representative capacity. She explicitly stated as much in the caption. View "Smith v. Professional Transportation,Inc." on Justia Law

The Court of Appeal previously issued an opinion in this case on September 18, 2018, in which it affirmed the judgment. The California Supreme Court granted review in January 2019, deferring consideration and disposition until it decided a related issue in Oman v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 9 Cal.5th 762 (2020). In September 2020, the Supreme Court transferred this matter to the Court of Appeal with directions to vacate the September 18, 2018 opinion and to reconsider this appeal in light of Oman. This case arose from a certified wage and hour class action following a judgment after a bench trial in favor of defendants Certified Tire and Service Centers, Inc. (Certified Tire) and Barrett Business Services, Inc. (collectively defendants). Plaintiffs contended that Certified Tire violated the applicable minimum wage and rest period requirements by implementing a compensation program, which guaranteed its automotive technicians a specific hourly wage above the minimum wage for all hours worked during each pay period, but also gave them the possibility of earning a higher hourly wage for all hours worked during each pay period based on certain productivity measures. After considering the parties’ supplemental briefing on the applicability of Oman to the issues presented in this matter, the Court of Appeal concluded that that plaintiffs’ appeal lacked merit, and accordingly affirmed the judgment. View "Certified Tire & Service Centers Wage & Hour Cases" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs were employees of Buffalo Wild Wings Restaurants owned and/or operated by defendants. In their lawsuit against defendants, plaintiffs asserted individual and class claims under various provisions of the Labor Code and the California Unfair Competition Law, and claims for violations of the Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act of 2004. The trial court certified eight classes and two subclasses, but later decertified all classes except for a subclass of dual rate employees who allegedly were underpaid by defendants for overtime hours worked. We refer to this subclass as the dual rate overtime subclass. The issue presented by this appeal was whether defendant employers violated California law in their method of calculating the regular rate of pay for purposes of compensating overtime hours of employees who worked at different rates of pay within a single pay period (dual rate employees). Defendants used the rate-in-effect method, by which dual rate employees were paid for overtime hours based on the rate in effect when the overtime hours began. Plaintiffs contended California law required defendants to use the weighted average method, by which dual rate employees were paid for overtime based on an hourly rate calculated by adding all hours worked in one pay period and dividing that number into the employee’s total compensation for the pay period. The trial court found, among other things, that defendants did not violate California employment law by using the rate-in-effect method for calculating the overtime rate of pay. Based on the ruling in the bench trial, the trial court decertified the dual rate overtime subclass and dismissed the PAGA claims. Plaintiffs appealed the order decertifying the dual rate overtime subclass and the order dismissing the PAGA claims. The Court of Appeal affirmed: California law did not mandate the use of the weighted average method, and defendants’ dual rate employees, including plaintiffs, overall received net greater overtime pay under the rate-in-effect method than they would have received under the weighted average method. View "Levanoff v. Dragas" on Justia Law

The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's denial of plaintiff's motion to certify a class of employees of See's. Plaintiff alleges that See's did not provide required second meal breaks to shop employees who worked shifts longer than 10 hours.The court concluded that the trial court properly exercised its discretion in denying class certification where substantial evidence supports the trial court's conclusion that individual issues would predominate at trial. The court explained that the trial court carefully analyzed the evidence that plaintiff presented in support of her claim that she could establish liability through common proof. In light of evidence including time records showing that 24 percent of shifts longer than 10 hours actually included a second meal period, the trial court reasonably determined that at least some class members were offered a second meal period in accordance with the law. Therefore, the court explained that individual testimony would be necessary to show that See's consistently applied an unlawful practice. The court also concluded that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in deciding that plaintiff's trial plan was inadequate to manage individual issues. View "Salazar v. See's Candy Shops, Inc." on Justia Law

Guivini Gomez was a former employee of the Regents of the University of California (Regents) who sued the Regents, as the named plaintiff in a purported class action, claiming the Regents failed to pay her the required minimum wage for all hours she worked. However, she did not allege the Regents set her hourly wage below the minimum wage as established by California law. Instead, she contended the Regents’ time-keeping procedures of rounding hours and automatically deducting 30 minute meal breaks resulted in her not receiving the minimum wage for all hours she actually worked. In addition to claiming the Regents did not pay her the minimum wage, Gomez also sought penalties under the Private Attorneys General Act. The superior court sustained the Regents’ demurrer without leave to amend and entered judgment in their favor. Gomez appealed, but finding no reversible error in the trial court's decision, the Court of Appeal affirmed. View "Gomez v. Regents of the University of Cal." on Justia Law

Members of the plaintiff class were former Alaska State employees. When they enrolled in the State employee retirement system, a statute provided that if they left eligible employment, withdrew their contributions to the system, and later returned to eligible employment, they could repay their withdrawn contributions, be reinstated to their original benefits level, and have their credited service time restored. The statute was later repealed. The superior court ruled on summary judgment that this repeal did not diminish or impair the former employees’ accrued benefits and was therefore constitutional. The Alaska Supreme Court concluded the statutory reinstatement right was an accrued benefit of the retirement system protected against diminishment or impairment by article XII, section 7 of the Alaska Constitution. The Court therefore reversed the superior court’s judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Metcalfe v. Alaska" on Justia Law