Duane Morris Class Action Review - 2023 - Report - Page 335
issues did not predominate as to the question of misclassification. Id. at *29. The
evidence instead demonstrated that the recruiters in the proposed class worked across
four different schools within Pepperdine, had largely varying job duties, and exercised
different degrees of autonomy and discretion in their respective roles. Id. at *31. As
such, the court determined that the question of misclassification was not susceptible to
common proof, finding there was no evidence to suggest that “class members worked
with sufficiently standardized or performed in a consistent manner enough to decide the
misclassification question.” Id. at *32. On this same basis, the court also declined to
certify the question of uncompensated work hours, since the claims necessarily hinged
on the issue of misclassification. Id. at *34. On the issue of meal and rest break
violations, which depended in part on the misclassification analysis, the court also
determined that the plaintiffs’ evidence did not, “on the whole, indicate common
treatment of putative class members or common issues of fact,” such as whether the
work was structured so breaks could not be taken, or that there was a policy of
prohibited employees from taking breaks. Id. at *35. Finding the claims for waiting time
penalties and inaccurate wage statements derivative of the plaintiffs’ misclassification
claims, the court similarly determined such questions were not amenable to common
proof. Id. at *35-36. In addition to the main class, the court also denied certification of
the plaintiff’s proposed sub-class of employees who had waived their rights to sue as
class members. The court found insufficient evidence of predominance where the
signed releases had not been presented into evidence, there was no indication the
releases were similar, and, the court would be required to perform an individualized
inquiry of the circumstances surrounding the execution of each agreement. Id. at *3637. The court further determined that, because the named plaintiffs did not execute
releases, their claims were not typical of the sub-class, who would need to establish the
invalidity of the releases in addition to the other elements of their causes of action. Id. at
*38. Pepperdine also mounted a challenge to the adequacy of representation by one of
the named plaintiffs, who had allegedly made false statements and engaged in other
questionable conduct, calling her credibility into question. Id. at *45. Finding that the
“credibility issues threaten[ed] to overshadow the interests of the main class,” the court
agreed that this particular named plaintiff was an inadequate representative of the main
class, and that both of the plaintiffs were inadequate representatives of the sub-class.
Id. at *46-47.
In Obraza, et al. v. Dignity Health, 2022 Cal. Super. LEXIS 46111 (Cal. Super. Ct. June
21, 2022), is an example, however, of how wage and hour claims are often susceptible
to class-wide treatment in California at least in part. The plaintiffs, a group of registered
and licensed nurses, brought a wage and hour class action suit against the defendant
hospitals alleging violations of state labor laws stemming from claims of off-the-clock
work. Id. at *1. The complaint alleged failure to pay regular, overtime, and/or double
time wages, failure to pay all wages upon termination, failure to provide accurate,
itemized wage statements, and unfair business practices under the California Labor
Code and the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA). Id. at *2. The defendants’ motion
for summary judgment on the defendants’ “rounding policy” was denied because the
court was not persuaded that this claim had separate and distinct theories from the
overtime claim. Id. at *3. The court then analyzed the plaintiffs’ motion for class
certification. The plaintiffs argued that they could establish off-the-clock work on a class334
© Duane Morris LLP 2023
Duane Morris Class Action Review – 2023
