class action

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We invite you to review our newly-posted January 2012 California Employment Law Notes – a comprehensive review of the latest and most significant developments in California employment law. The highlights include:

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Sullivan v. Oracle Corp., 662 F.3d 1265 (2011)
Three Oracle instructors (all non-residents of California) filed this class action to recover allegedly unpaid overtime under California law for work they performed while in California. Two of the instructors were residents of Colorado and one was a resident of Arizona; all of them worked in their home states and, from time to time, in California.…

Arnold v. Mutual of Omaha Ins. Co., 202 Cal. App. 4th 580 (2011)

Kimbly Arnold filed a complaint against Mutual of Omaha on her behalf and on behalf of a putative class of similarly situated “licensed agents” and “sales representatives” of the company, alleging violations of the California Labor Code, including provisions governing expense reimbursement of employees and timely payment of final wages to…

Aleman v. AirTouch Cellular, 202 Cal. App. 4th 117 (2011)

Daniel Krofta and Mary Katz filed this putative class action against their employer, alleging reporting time pay violations and seeking additional compensation for working split shifts. Krofta sought reporting time pay for days he attended meetings at work even though he was furnished work (and was paid) for at least half of the scheduled…

Pirjada v. Superior Court, 201 Cal. App. 4th 1074 (2011)

Putative class representative Obaidul H. Pirjada filed a complaint on behalf of himself and a putative class of all security guards who had been employed in California by Pacific National Security, Inc. during the preceding four years. The complaint alleged a failure to provide meal-and-rest periods and various other wage-and-hour violations as well as…

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.…

Ellis v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 657 F.3d 970 (9th Cir. 2011)

In this appeal, Costco challenged the district court’s order granting class certification in an action in which Costco’s promotional practices were alleged to have discriminated against female employees. The district court’s order granting class certification preceded the United States Supreme Court’s opinion in Wal-Mart Stores v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2541 (2011).…

AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, 131 S. Ct. 1740 (2011)

In this landmark new opinion, the United States Supreme Court held that the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) prohibits states from conditioning the enforceability of an arbitration agreement on the availability of class action arbitration procedures. Although this case arose in the consumer context (it involved AT&T’s charging sales tax for “free phones”), it has far-reaching…

Parth v. Pomona Valley Hosp., 2010 WL 5064380 (9th Cir. 2010)

The Fair Labor Standards Act required Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center (“PVHMC”) to pay its employees 1-1/2 times the employees’ regular rate for any employment in excess of eight hours in any workday and in excess of 80 hours in a 14-day period. However, many of PVHMC’s nurses preferred working 12-hour shifts in…

On November 3, 2010, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to hear an appeal brought by a Harrah’s Las Vegas casino dealer challenging the District Court’s ruling that her proposed state wage-and-hour class action was preempted by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).  In so doing, the Ninth Circuit chose not to revisit the District Court’s ruling that the plaintiff could not assert parallel federal and state wage-and-hour class actions.  This ruling provides welcome relief to employers threatened by such a multiplicity of claims.