Court of Appeal Denies Class Certification of Unpaid Wages Class

Partners Jeffrey Fuchsman and Linda Miller Savitt, and associate Rami Yomtov were successful in persuading the Court of Appeal to deny class certification in a wage and hour class action. The plaintiff alleged the company did not properly compensate employees who clocked in early prior to the scheduled start of their shift. The company asserted that employees were allowed to clock in up to 10 minutes early, but were not allowed to actually start working until the bell rang announcing the start of the shift. In September 2015, the trial court granted the plaintiff class certification of his unpaid wages claim based on alleged pre-shift work, but denied class certification of the claim for waiting time penalties. Both sides filed a petition for writ of mandate with the Court of Appeal challenging the trial court ruling. The Court of Appeal summarily denied the plaintiff’s petition and affirmed the trial court’s denial of class certification of the waiting time penalty claim. The Court of Appeal granted the defendant’s petition, and ordered the trial court to deny class certification of the unpaid wages class. The Court agreed with our arguments that the company’s policy prohibited off-the-clock work, and whether employees performed pre-shift work was too individualized to be decided on a class action basis.