Exempt Employees

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Martinez v. Joe’s Crab Shack Holdings, 231 Cal. App. 4th 362 (2014)

Roberto Martinez and three other current or former employees of Joe’s Crab Shack (“JCS”) filed this putative class action asserting that they and similarly situated salaried managerial employees had been misclassified as exempt employees and were entitled to unpaid overtime and related wages. Plaintiffs alleged they worked more than 55 hours per…

Duran v. U.S. Bank Nat’l Ass’n, 59 Cal. 4th 1 (2014)

Plaintiffs in this case are loan officers for U.S. Bank (“USB”) who claim they were misclassified as exempt employees under the outside salesperson exemption. After certifying a class of 260 plaintiffs, the trial court devised a plan to determine the extent of USB’s liability to all class members by extrapolating from a random…

Commentators have quipped that class certification is so easy in California that with little effort a group of plaintiffs could certify even a ham sandwich.  In fact, as we have discussed here, we have seen a proliferation of recent appellate decisions hinging class certification on the mere existence of an employer’s uniform policy – no matter how facially lawful that policy may be or

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Harris v. Superior Court, 207 Cal. App. 4th 1225 (2012)

Plaintiffs in this case are insurance claims adjusters who claim they were misclassified as exempt from overtime under the administrative exemption. The Court of Appeal held that because the adjusters’ primary work duties are the day-to-day tasks of adjusting individual claims and are not directly related to management policies or general business operations, the…

Cash v. Winn, 205 Cal. App. 4th 1285 (2012) 

Joy Cash, who is not a licensed or trained nurse, cared for Iola Winn, who is in her 90’s, in Winn’s home. After she left her employment, Cash sued Winn for failure to pay her overtime wages. Winn claimed that Cash was a personal attendant within the meaning of Wage Order No. 15 and thus…

Duran v. U.S. Bank Nat’l Ass’n, No. A125557, 2012 WL 366590 (Feb. 6, 2012)

In a decision destined to have significant statewide ramifications, the California Court of Appeal for the First District reversed a trial court’s certification of a wage-hour class and determination of liability, concluding that the trial court had failed to follow “established statistical procedures” in adopting the trial management plan under which class-wide liability was determined by the testimony of only a relative handful of the class members.

Four current and former U.S. Bank Business Banking Officers (BBO) filed suit on behalf of themselves and all current and former BBOs within the relevant period, alleging that they had been misclassified as exempt outside sales people and therefore illegally deprived of overtime pay. After certifying the class, the trial court, over U.S. Bank’s strenuous objections, adopted a trial management plan in which a random sample of 20 (out of 260) class members would testify as representatives of the class, and the court would use this testimony to determine class-wide liability. After bench trials, the court awarded the class members $15 million in unpaid overtime and prejudgment interest, as well as $18 million in attorney’s fees.

Duran v. U.S. Bank Nat’l Ass’n, 203 Cal. App. 4th 212 (2012)

U.S. Bank (“USB”) appealed a $15 million judgment that was entered against it following a bifurcated bench trial. The plaintiffs are 260 current and former business banking officers who claimed they were misclassified by USB as outside sales personnel exempt from overtime pay. The Court of Appeal agreed with USB that the…

Harris v. Superior Court, 53 Cal.4th 170 (2011)

Plaintiffs in this case are claims adjusters employed by two insurance companies. They filed four putative class actions, claiming they had been erroneously classified as exempt administrative employees and seeking damages based upon unpaid overtime. The court of appeal held as a matter of law that plaintiffs were non-exempt employees who were entitled to overtime pay.…

California Labor Code § 515.5 exempts computer software professionals from the overtime pay requirements imposed by Labor Code § 510, provided they meet certain requirements. To qualify as exempt, these professionals must perform the functions enumerated in the statute and receive a minimum hourly rate of pay. The California Department of Labor Standards Enforcement (“DLSE”) has announced that effective January 1, 2012, the minimum rate for qualifying computer software professionals will be $38.89 per hour (up from $37.94 per hour in 2011), with commensurate increases in the monthly and annual minimum rates. Certain licensed physicians and surgeons are similarly exempt from state overtime requirements, so long as they are compensated at a minimum pay rate; effective January 1st, this minimum rate increases from $69.13 to $70.86 per hour.

Solis v. State of Washington, 656 F.3d 1079 (9th Cir. 2011)

The U.S. Secretary of Labor filed a complaint against the State of Washington’s Department of Social and Health Services (“DSHS”), alleging a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (“FLSA”) based upon the DSHS’s classification of its social workers as “learned professionals” exempt from the FLSA’s overtime pay requirements. The district…