Justia Class Action Opinion Summaries

Montano filed a putative class action against Wet Seal, alleging that it failed to offer all required meal and rest periods to its California non-exempt retail employees; failed to provide all regular and overtime pay when due or when employment terminated; and failed to provide accurate semi-monthly itemized wage statements, in violation of the Labor and Business and Professions Codes, Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Order No. 7, and Title 8 of the California Code of Regulations. She included a representative claim under the Private Attorneys General Act. Montano propounded discovery requests and Wet Seal responded with objections but no substantive information. Montano moved to compel discovery responses. Before the hearing, Wet Seal moved to compel arbitration of Montano’s individual claims and to stay the action pending completion of arbitration, based on a “Mutual Agreement to Arbitrate Claims." The trial court ultimately denied the motion for arbitration and granted the discovery motion. The court of appeal affirmed. View "Montano v. Wet Seal Retail, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit against their employer, Pacific Bell, claiming that Pacific Bell violated California law (Lab. Code, 226.7, 512) by failing to relinquish control over their activities during meal and rest break periods, and moved for class certification. Plaintiffs asserted that the company’s guidelines converted them into “de facto security guards for their company vehicles during their breaks,” thereby failing to relieve them of all work-related duties. The trial court concluded plaintiffs failed to show Pacific Bell’s allegedly restrictive policies had been consistently applied to the putative class members. The court denied class certification on the ground that common questions do not predominate over individual questions, making the class action procedure an inappropriate method for resolving this dispute. The court of appeal affirmed, agreeing that it would be impractical to consider each possible combination and interpretation of the six rules at issue, have the trier of fact determine which combinations rise to the level of control so as to amount to a failure to relieve of all duties, and then have each class member show whether he was subject to one of the offending combinations of rules. View "Koval v. Pac. Bell Tel. Co." on Justia Law

Bower was hired by Inter-Con in 2007 and executed an arbitration agreement, covering claims for compensation and wages. In 2008, Bower executed a second arbitration agreement that added clauses prohibiting claims on behalf of a class or in a representative capacity and covering claims for breaks and rest periods. After his 2011 termination, Bower filed a putative class action, claiming failure to: provide meal and rest periods, pay wages, provide accurate itemized wage statements, pay wages upon termination, with claims under the Unfair Competition Act and the Private Attorneys General Act. Instead of moving to compel arbitration, Inter-Con answered, asserting, as an affirmative defense, that Bower’s claims were subject to arbitration. Inter-Con responded to discovery, but objected based on the arbitration agreement, and agreed to provide responses only to Bower in his individual capacity. Inter-Con did respond to an interrogatory concerning the number of class members employed during the class period and propounded its own discovery. Bower moved for leave to file an amended complaint to allege a broader class and additional theories and to compel further discovery responses. Inter-Con then moved to compel arbitration. The court held that “Defendant waived the right to arbitrate by propounding and responding to class discovery.” The court of appeal affirmed. View "Bower v. Inter-Con Sec. Sys., Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Lilly, alleging that Lilly did not make certain incentive payments due to plaintiff and other similarly situated individuals who had been employed at the company. Lilly removed to district court under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), 28 U.S.C. 1332(d), but the district court remanded to state court. The court concluded that the district court did not clearly err in finding that Lilly had not met its burden of establishing by a preponderance of the evidence that the amount in controversy exceeded $5,000,000, as required by federal subject matter jurisdiction under CAFA. Lilly failed to provide estimates of incentive payments that correspond to the categories of incentive payments identified in the complaint; failed to recognize and build into the calculus that not all of the Fixed Duration Employees were alleged to have been denied all of the incentive payments; and failed to provide any meaningful guidepost for the payment estimates it had provided. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Dudley v. Eli Lilly and Co." on Justia Law

In July 2012, plaintiff-respondent Ernesto Ruiz filed a putative class action complaint alleging defendant-appellant Moss Bros. Auto Group, Inc. failed to pay Ruiz and other employees overtime and other wages for all hours worked, provide required meal and rest breaks, provide accurate and complete wage statements, reimburse business expenses, and pay final wages in a timely manner. Moss Bros. appealed an order denying its petition to compel arbitration of the employment-related and putative class action, representative, and Ruiz's individual claims. The trial court denied the petition on the ground Moss Bros. did not meet its burden of proving the parties had an agreement to arbitrate the controversy. No statement of decision was requested or issued, but the court implicitly found Moss Bros. did not present sufficient evidence to support a finding that an electronic signature on its proffered arbitration agreement was "the act of Ruiz." After its review, the Court of Appeal concluded Moss Bros. did not present sufficient evidence to support a finding that Ruiz electronically signed the 2011 agreement. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the order denying the petition. View "Ruiz v. Moss Bros. Auto" on Justia Law

EEOC sued CRST in its own name, under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. 2000e, alleging that CRST subjected Starke and 270 similarly situated female employees to a hostile work environment, in its Driver Training Program. For two years, EEOC failed to identify the women comprising the putative class; the court ordered EEOC to make all class members available for deposition or risk a discovery sanction. EEOC filed updated lists of allegedly aggrieved individuals, but failed to make all of them available for deposition before the deadline. The court barred EEOC from pursuing relief for any individual not made available for deposition before the deadline. EEOC then listed 155 individuals for whom it was still pursuing relief and 99 individuals, allegedly sexually harassed, but for whom EEOC was not pursuing relief based on the order. Following remand, the court dismissed, but for one claim, which settled for $50,000, and awarded CRST $92,842.21 in costs, $4,004,371.65 in attorneys' fees, and $463,071.25 in out-of-pocket expenses. The Eighth Circuit held that CRST is not entitled to attorneys' fees for claims dismissed based on EEOC's failure to satisfy pre-suit obligations and a purported pattern-or-practice claim. On remand, the court must individually assess each claim for which it granted summary judgment on the merits and explain why it deems each to be frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless. View "Equal Emp't Opportunity Comm'n v. CRST Van Expedited, Inc." on Justia Law

The issue this discretionary appeal presented for the Supreme Court's review centered on whether the class action proceedings in this case improperly subjected Appellants to a “trial by formula.” The trial court certified the class, a jury rendered a divided verdict, and the Superior Court affirmed in part and reversed in part. Appellees brought various class action claims against their former employers, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., and Sam’s Club (collectively, “Wal-Mart”), based on policies and conduct pertaining to rest breaks and meal breaks. Appellees alleged Wal-Mart promised them paid rest and meal breaks, but then had forced them, in whole or in part, to miss breaks or work through breaks, and also to work “off-the-clock.” The trial court certified a class consisting of "all [then] current and former hourly employees of Wal-Mart in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from March 19, 1998 to the present December 27, 2005.” The class ultimately consisted of 187,979 members. Ultimately, the jury rendered a verdict in favor of Wal-Mart on all claims relating to meal breaks but in favor of Appellees on all claims relating to rest breaks and off-the-clock work. The amount of the judgment ultimately entered on the verdict was $187,648,589. After Wal-Mart appealed, the Superior Court affirmed in part and reversed in part in a published unanimous per curiam opinion, which corrected a patent mathematical error committed by the trial court, reversed the award of attorneys’ fees, and remanded to the trial court to recalculate the lodestar it had employed to determine the amount of attorneys’ fees. The issues Wall-Mart's appeal raised for the Supreme Court's review were: (1) whether Wal-Mart was subjected to a “trial by formula,” (suggesting that the class claims could only be properly proven by an individual examination of the 187,979 class members to determine their claims); and (2) whether Appellees were thereby improperly relieved of their burden to produce class-wide common evidence on key elements of their claims. The Supreme Court found there was a single, central, common issue of liability here: whether Wal-Mart failed to compensate its employees in accordance with its own written policies. On that question, both parties presented evidence. Wal-Mart’s liability was proven on a classwide basis. Damages were assessed based on a computation of the average rate of an employee’s pay (about eight dollars per hour) multiplied by the number of hours for which pay should have been received but was not. In the Court's view, "this was not a case of 'trial by formula' or of a class action 'run amok.'" Accordingly, the judgment of the Superior Court was affirmed. View "Hummel v. Walmart Stores, Inc" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a class action against Walgreens, alleging that Walgreens violated employees' rights to meal breaks. The trial court denied plaintiff's motion for class certification. The court concluded that the trail court used the right analysis to analyze plaintiff's motion where the trial court correctly applied the Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior court holding. Brinker adopted the "make available" standard and rejected the "ensure" standard where the employer merely must make meal breaks available, rather than ensure employees take breaks. The trial court said that Walgreens must make breaks available for its employees, but the employer need not ensure employees actually take the meal breaks. In this case, plaintiff failed to provide sufficient evidence to support his motions through an expert opinion, emails, and declarations. The evidence was too weak to convince the trial court and the trial court's evaluations were valid. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "In re Walgreen Co. Overtime Cases" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs Brett Woods and Kathleen Valdes were state employees and representatives of a class of New Mexico state and local government employees who alleged they paid for insurance coverage through payroll deductions and premiums pursuant to a policy issued by Standard Insurance Company (Standard), but did not receive the coverage for which they paid and, in some cases, were denied coverage entirely. Plaintiffs filed suit in New Mexico state court against three defendants: Standard, an Oregon company that agreed to provide the subject insurance coverage; the Risk Management Division of the New Mexico General Services Department (the Division), the state agency that contracted with Standard and was responsible for administering benefits under the policy; and Standard employee Martha Quintana, who Plaintiffs allege was responsible for managing the Division’s account with Standard and for providing account management and customer service to the Division and state employees. Plaintiffs' ninety-one-paragraph complaint, stated causes of action against Standard and the Division for breach of contract and unjust enrichment; against Standard for breach of fiduciary duty, breach of the implied duty of good faith and fair dealing, and Unfair Practices Act violations; and against Standard and Ms. Quintana for breach of the New Mexico Trade Practices and Fraud Act. The issue this appeal presented for the Tenth Circuit's review centered on whether remand to the state court pursuant to the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) was required under either of two CAFA provisions: the state action provision, which excludes from federal jurisdiction cases in which the primary defendants are states; or the local controversy exception, which requires federal courts to decline jurisdiction where, among other things, there is a local defendant whose alleged conduct forms a significant basis for the claims asserted by plaintiffs and from whom plaintiffs seek significant relief. The Court concluded that neither provision provided a basis for remand, and therefore reversed the decision of the magistrate judge remanding the case to state court. But because the Tenth Circuit could not determine whether Defendants have established the amount in controversy required to confer federal jurisdiction, the case was remanded to the district court for the resolution of that issue. View "Woods v. Standard Insurance Co." on Justia Law

This case arose when plaintiff filed suit seeking to represent a class of salaried managerial employees who worked at JCS restaurants in California on claims they had been misclassified as exempt employees and were entitled to overtime pay. The trial court subsequently permitted additional plaintiffs to join the lawsuit. The trial court denied class certification based on the ground that plaintiffs failed to establish that their claims were typical of the class, they could represent the class, common questions predominated the claims, and a class action is the superior means of resolving the litigation. The court concluded, however, that the class is adequately represented by plaintiffs and these claims are typical of the class; the trial court failed to adequately assess the means by which plaintiffs' theory of recovery could be proved through resolution of common questions of fact and law; the trial court must reconsider whether class certification provides a superior method of resolving plaintiffs' claim, and therefore, the court reversed the order denying class certification and remanded for further proceedings. View "Martinez v. Joe's Crab Shack Holdings" on Justia Law