Lubin v. The Wackenhut Corp., 5 Cal. App. 5th 926 (2016)

Nivida Lubin, et al., filed this class action lawsuit against their employer for its alleged failure to provide Lubin and similarly situated employees (private security guards) with off-duty meal and rest breaks and for providing inadequate wage statements. The trial court initially certified a class of all non-exempt security officers employed by Wackenhut in California during the class period.  Following the opinions in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. 338 (2011) and Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior Court, 53 Cal. 4th 1004 (2012), the trial court granted Wackenhut’s motion to decertify the class. The Court of Appeal reversed the decertification order, holding that “the only explanation articulated for providing an on-duty meal period was a staffing decision – a client’s preference for continuous coverage,” which did not mean that individual issues predominated. The Court further held that the alleged invalidity of the on-duty meal agreements could be evaluated by statistical sampling or inspection of the agreements themselves and that the rest break and wage statement claims also were susceptible to class treatment.