Labor & Employment Law Blog

Claims asserting violations of California's wage and hour laws are frequently if not predominantly brought as class actions. One of the most hotly litigated issues in such cases is the issue of whether the case should or should not be certified as a class, which nearly always turns on whether common issues of law and fact predominate over individual issues. Two recent Court of Appeal decisions emphasizing that plaintiffs seeking class certification carry the burden of showing that liability can be established based on common proof (i.e., proof applicable to all of the class members) may be helpful to employers opposing class certification.

Today, by a unanimous decision in Martinez v. Corky N. Combs, the California Supreme Court clarified the standard courts must use to determine who is liable as an "employer" for violations of wage and hour laws embodied in Industrial Welfare Commission ("IWC") Wage Orders, including claims for unpaid or underpaid wages.We think the decision is generally favorable for employers because the Supreme Court expressly rejected on the facts before it a number of theories of liability plaintiffs sometimes assert when attempting to hold liable for wage and hour claims persons or entities other than the obvious "employer."

As we previously reported here, in Jaimez v. DAIOHS USA, Inc., a decision we think is wrongly decided in many ways, the California Court of Appeal might have made it significantly easier for plaintiffs to obtain class certification in wage and hour cases.

On April 26, 2010, in Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., a divided Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided 6-5 en banc to affirm the decision of the trial court to grant class certification in a discrimination lawsuit alleging Wal-Mart Stores discriminates against its women employees. The nationwide class is reputed by the Los Angeles Daily Journal to number upward of 1.6 million women employees, which would make the class the largest class in United States history.

As we previously reported here, on February 8, 2010, the California Court of Appeal published its decision in Jaimez v. DAIOHS USA, Inc., a decision we think is wrongly decided in many ways and that might make it significantly easier for plaintiffs to obtain class certification in wage and hour cases.

For a number of years, California employers have been besieged by costly, time consuming class action lawsuits, which frequently take the form of suits alleging violation of California's wage and hour laws. Welcome reform may on the horizon.

On February 23, 2010, in Cumbie v. Woody Woo, Inc., the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal held that an employer that pays its wait staff a wage greater than the minimum wages does not violate the Fair Labor Standards Act("FLSA") by requiring its wait staff to participate in a tip pool that redistributes approximately 55% to 70% of their tips to employees who are not customarily tipped, such as dishwashers and cooks.

This morning, in Hertz Corp. v. Friend, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court vacated the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and held that a corporation’s "principal place of business” under the federal diversity-jurisdiction statute and the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA):

As we previously reported here, shortly after Republican Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts to fill the Senate Seat Edward Kennedy held for 46 years, Senate Republicans joined by a number of Democrats successfully used the filibuster to block President Obama's controversial nomination of attorney Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. One Wall Street Journal commentator has referred to Mr. Becker as "Labor's Secret Weapon."