In addition to the myriad labor and employment opinions, the courts of appeal also published opinions focusing on class actions in the labor and employment context. The opinions include discussions on class certification, employer-mandated travel requirements, first responders, and alleged wage statement violations.

Ninth Circuit reverses district court order denying of class certification on grounds there was evidence that employer’s official policy violated labor laws and was consistently enforced across all employees during the alleged class period

In Miles v. Kirkland's Stores Inc. Ariana Miles filed a class action lawsuit against her former employer, Kirkland’s Stores Inc. (“Kirkland”), alleging that two of the company’s employee policies violated California law. The first policy required employees to take rest breaks on store property, while the second necessitated employees to undergo bag checks when they finished their shifts. Miles sought class certification for subclasses of employees affected by these two policies from May 2014 to the present. The district court denied class certification for subclasses related to the Rest Break Claim. Plaintiff appealed.

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s denial of class certification for subclasses related to the Rest Break Claim due to the inaccuracy of the district court’s finding that the rest break policy was inconsistently applied. The Court held that there was overwhelming that the company consistently enforced its rest break policy across all employees. However, the Court upheld the district court’s denial of class certification for the Bag Check Claim, as the evidence suggested that the bag check policy was sporadically enforced, which would require individualized inquiries. The case was thus remanded for further proceedings concerning the Rest Break Claim.

California Supreme Court holds that time spent traveling between security gates and parking lots is compensable as “employer-mandated travel” under Wage Order No. 16 if the gate is the first place an employee's presence is required

In Huerta v. CSI Electrical Contractors plaintiff George Huerta and others were hired by subcontractor CSI Electrical Contractors (“CSI”) for work at a solar power facility in northern California. Huerta was told by CSI that an initial entry security gate (about a 10 to 15 minute drive from the employee parking lots), was the first place he had to be at the beginning of each workday. Every morning, employees’ vehicles formed a long line at the security gate, where guards scanned employee badges and occasionally inspected vehicles before they were allowed to proceed to the lots.

At lunch time, Huerta received an off-duty unpaid meal break but was prohibited from leaving the premises. At the end of each day, workers again formed a long line inside the security gate for a similar procedure to exit the property, which delayed workers’ leaving by anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes. Workers were not paid for waiting to pass through the security gate at the beginning or end of each workday.

Huerta filed a class action against CSI in federal court, seeking payment for unpaid hours worked. The case revolved around the interpretation of the Industrial Welfare Commission’s Wage Order No. 16 and the term “hours worked.”

The Supreme Court of California was asked by the Ninth Circuit to answer three questions related to Wage Order No. 16. The first question was whether time spent waiting to exit a security gate on the employer’s premises was compensable as “hours worked.” The Court concluded that it was, as the employer’s mandated exit procedure, including vehicle inspection, signified a level of control over the employee.

The second question was whether time spent driving between the security gate and employee parking lots while subject to employer-imposed rules was compensable. The Court held that it could be compensable as “employer-mandated travel” if the security gate was the first location where the employee’s presence was required for an employment-related reason other than accessing the worksite. However, this travel time was not considered “hours worked” as the employer’s rules did not imply a requisite level of control.

Lastly, the Court was asked whether time spent on the employer’s premises during an unpaid meal period, when workers were prohibited from leaving but not required to engage in employer-mandated activities, was compensable as “hours worked.” The Court held that it was, as the employer’s prohibition on leaving the premises prevented the employee from engaging in personal activities. The employee could bring an action to enforce the wage order and recover unpaid wages for that time.

Court of Appeal holds that Emergency Ambulance Employee Safety and Preparedness Act’s requirements regarding work shifts applied retroactively to ambulance worker’s class action

In Silva v. Medic Ambulance Service, Inc. an ambulance EMT filed a class action challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 11 (Lab. Code section 880 et seq.) which made ambulance employees remain reachable by a communication device during meal breaks and made that rule retroactive. After the Court of Appeal for the Fourth District upheld the measure in Calleros v. Rural Metro of San Diego, Inc. (2020) 58 Cal.App.5th 660, defendant Medic Ambulance Service filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings which the trial court granted. The trial court also imposed $2,000 in sanctions against plaintiff’s attorney for persisting in the prosecution of the case despite the ruling in Calleros. Believing that the Calleros decision was wrong, plaintiff appealed.

The Court of Appeal for the First District reached the same conclusion as Calleros and affirmed that Proposition 11 applied retroactively. The Court also affirmed the trial court’s imposition of $2,000 in sanctions against plaintiff’s attorneys, finding no reasonable attorney would think Calleros was wrongly decided.

California Supreme Court holds that employers are not subject to civil penalties for failure to comply with wage statement requirements when they have a “reasonable good faith belief” they complied with Labor Code section 226

In Naranjo v. Spectrum Security Services, Inc. Gustavo Naranjo and other plaintiffs worked as guards for Spectrum Security Services, Inc. (“Spectrum”). Plaintiffs filed a class action suit against Spectrum alleging that Spectrum violated state regulations governing meal breaks by not providing legally compliant meal breaks and failing to pay an additional hour of pay, known as “premium pay,” for each day on which this occurred. The plaintiffs also claimed that Spectrum violated Labor Code sections 201, 202, 203, and 226 by not timely paying owed meal break premiums as wages to employees once they were discharged or resigned, and by not reporting the premium pay it owed as wages on employees’ wage statements.

Initially, the trial court granted summary judgment for Spectrum, but this was reversed by the Court of Appeal. On remand, the trial court certified a class for the meal break and related timely payment and wage statement claims and held a trial in three phases. The trial court found that Spectrum had violated sections 203 and 226 by failing to pay and report the missed-break premium pay as wages. However, the trial court issued a split decision on the question of penalties. It ruled in Spectrum’s favor regarding section 203 penalties, finding that Spectrum’s defenses were presented in good faith and were not unreasonable or unsupported by the evidence. But it ruled against Spectrum regarding section 226 penalties, finding that Spectrum was liable for penalties because its failure to report premium pay for missed meal breaks in employees’ wage statements was “knowing and intentional and not inadvertent.” Both sides appealed.

The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s holding that Spectrum had violated meal break laws between June 2004 and September 2007. But it reversed the trial court’s holding that Spectrum had violated section 203 and section 226 by failing to timely pay and report the meal break premium pay owed as “wages,” reasoning that the premium pay was instead in the nature of a penalty rather than compensation for work performed.

The California Supreme Court granted review. First, it noted that “[u]nder long established law, an employer cannot incur civil or criminal penalties [under Labor Code section 203] for the willful nonpayment of wages when the employer reasonably and in good faith disputes that wages are due.” However, the Court noted that courts of appeal are divided over whether an employer’s good faith belief will also bar Labor Code section 226 penalties for a knowing and intentional failure to report the same unpaid wages, or any other required information, on a wage statement.” The Court then held: “We now conclude that if an employer reasonably and in good faith believed it was providing a complete and accurate wage statement in compliance with the requirements of section 226, then it has not knowingly and intentionally failed to comply with the wage statement law.” As such, the Court affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which reached the same conclusion.

In a class action, the Ninth Circuit holds that plaintiff was entitled to equitable tolling of the statute of limitations where it was ambiguous as to whether his colorblindness was a “reportable health event” under the class definition

In DeFries v. Union Pacific Railroad Company , Nicholas DeFries, a former conductor for Union Pacific Railroad Company (“Union Pacific”), was removed from his duties after failing color-vision testing. Prior to DeFries’ removal, a class action lawsuit had been filed against Union Pacific by a group of employees, alleging that the company’s “fitness-for-duty program” violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). DeFries qualified as a member of this class, but the class was later narrowed and then decertified by the Eighth Circuit.

DeFries subsequently filed an individual lawsuit in the District of Oregon, raising claims similar to those in the class action. The district court concluded that the commencement of the class action had tolled the statute of limitations under American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah, but that the tolling ended when the class definition was voluntarily narrowed, making DeFries’s claim untimely. DeFries appealed this decision.

The Ninth Circuit reversed finding ambiguity in whether the definition of the certified class included color-vision plaintiffs like DeFries. The Court concluded that this ambiguity should be resolved in favor of allowing DeFries to rely on American Pipe tolling. Therefore, the Ninth Circuit held that DeFries was entitled to equitable tolling as a member of the class until the Eighth Circuit issued the mandate for its decision reversing class certification, making his claim timely.