An employer-friendly decision rings in the New Year in California. In Koval v. Pacific Bell Telephone Co., plaintiffs alleged “systematic company guidelines” restricted employee activities during meal and rest breaks and “prevented employees from fully realizing the [meal and rest] breaks to which they were entitled.” Following Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior Court, 53 Cal.4th 1004 (2012), the trial court held the mere existence of a uniform policy does not mandate class certification, concluding that variations in the employer’s application of policy created “serious doubt as to whether the rules were consistently applied so as to allow adjudication of the liability issues on a class-wide basis.” The California Court of Appeal affirmed, in a published decision.
The plaintiffs in the case sought to certify a class of approximately 6,700 current and former field technicians employed at company locations throughout California. Plaintiffs alleged the company failed to relinquish control over their activities during meal and rest breaks and thus violated California law. They argued that, collectively, an array of more than a dozen employer manuals contained “systematic company guidelines” prohibiting employees from doing any of the following during breaks: meeting up with their colleagues; going home; leaving their work vehicles; riding in other vehicles; sleeping in their work vehicles, or driving their work vehicles outside normal work routes to get a meal. Further, a company representative had testified that employees were “expected to adhere to the expectations” contained in a number of the manuals and that failure to do so could result in disciplinary action.
Opposing certification, the company submitted evidence that the manner in which supervisors enforced and/or orally conveyed the information in the written policies was highly variable, and therefore “determining whether the policies were so restrictive as to have transformed break time into work time would necessitate individualized inquires.”
The trial court denied certification, reasoning: “What is important, and ultimately fatal to Plaintiffs’ bid for class certification, is the manner in which the six rules reflected in the written materials were applied, and that in turn begins with the question of how the rules were communicated.”
On appeal, the court first recognized that, under Brinker, an employer is only obligated to make uninterrupted meal periods and rest breaks available to its employees, “but is not obligated to ensure they are taken.” The court then emphasized Brinker’s recognition that claims may be suitable for class treatment where (i) a uniform policy (ii) is consistently applied to a group of employees.
On this basis, the appellate court rejected plaintiffs’ argument that, under Brinker, plaintiffs did not need to “introduce facts showing both uniform policies and consistent application of those policies.” The court also rejected plaintiffs’ argument that the trial court had committed legal error by assessing “how the allegedly unlawful policies were implemented.” The failure of plaintiffs to demonstrate that the allegedly unlawful policies were consistently applied, the appellate court reasoned, “create[d] a shifting kaleidoscope of liability determinations that render this case unsuitable for class action treatment.”
Koval joins post-Brinker state court decisions such as Dailey v. Sears, Roebuck & Co. 214 Cal. App. 4th 974, 1002 (2013)(“the absence of a formal written policy explaining [employees’] rights to meal and rest periods does not necessarily imply the existence of a uniform policy or widespread practice of either depriving these employees of meal and rest periods or requiring them to work during those periods”) and In re Walgreen Co. Overtime Cases 231 Cal. App. 4th 437, 443(2014) (“under the [Brinker] make available standard you additionally must ask why the worker missed the break before you can determine whether the employer is liable”) in requiring more than a uniform policy to support class certification. These cases strengthen employers’ hand in opposing class certification where the plaintiff cannot establish both (i) the existence of a uniform unlawful policy and (ii) the consistent application of that policy to a putative class.
