Gomez v. J. Jacobo Farm Labor Contractor, CASE NO. 1:15-cv-01489-AWI-BAM
| Court | United States District Courts. 9th Circuit. United States District Courts. 9th Circuit. Eastern District of California |
| Parties | MARISOL GOMEZ and IGNACIO OSORIO, Plaintiffs, v. J. JACOBO FARM LABOR CONTRACTOR, INC. Defendant. |
| Docket Number | CASE NO. 1:15-cv-01489-AWI-BAM |
| Decision Date | 05 November 2019 |
ORDER GRANTING, IN PART, AND DENYING, IN PART, PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR CLASS CERTIFICATION
In this lawsuit a farm labor contractor is being sued by two of its employees for violating California's wage-and-hour laws and the federal Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Workers Protection Act of 1983 ("MAWPA"). The two employees are Plaintiffs Marisol Gomez and Ignacio Osorio (collectively "Plaintiffs"). The farm labor contractor is Defendant J. Jacobo Farm Labor Contractor, Inc., which is not to be confused with Javier Jacobo, who is the president of J. Jacobo Farm Labor Contractor Inc. For clarity, the Court will refer to J. Jacobo Farm Labor Contractor, Inc. as "Defendant," whereas the Court will refer to Javier Jacobo by his full name.
Before the Court is Plaintiffs' motion for class certification pursuant to Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. See Doc. No. 108. For the reasons discussed herein, Plaintiffs' certification motion will be granted, in part, and denied, in part.
According to the Court's review of the parties' briefs, exhibits, and prior filings on the docket, the facts for purposes of adjudicating the certification motion are as follows. See In re Hydrogen Peroxide Antitrust Litigation, 552 F.3d 305, 313 (3d Cir. 2008) () (emphasis added).
Defendant is a farm labor contractor. This means that Defendant employs farm workers to work on farms that are owned by third-parties. The president of Defendant is Javier Jacobo.
At least 3,267 employees were employed by Defendant between December 20, 2011, and January 6, 2018. During that time, Defendant sent employees to work on seventy-seven different farms, although it is not clear to the Court which employees worked at each of the seventy-seven farms. On average, each of the 3,267 employees worked at 2.35 farms during the employee's course of employment with Defendant. The number of employees that worked at each of the farms varied from farm to farm. For example, two employees worked at the Bobby Salazars farm, eighty-four employees worked at the Hagopian Farms, one hundred seventy-seven employees worked at the Raghibir Bath farm, and four hundred ten employees worked at the Raymoles Dinuba Duke farm. Some of the employees worked as field workers. Some field workers did pruning, thinning, and picking; some picked grapes and olives; and some worked with blueberries.
Defendant placed each employee into one of its multiple work "crews." The work crews were led by a foreperson. Some forepersons took instructions from Defendant. Some employees worked with foreperson Baltazar Gonzalez, and some employees worked with Pedro Cisneros, and some employees do not remember which foreperson they worked with.1 Beyond that, it is unclear to the Court the number of crews used by Defendant, the number and identities of Defendant's other forepersons, and the number and (with a few exceptions) identities of employees assigned to each crew and foreperson. It is also unclear to the Court whether and to what extent the employees transferred from crew to crew during the course of their employment.
Some forepersons did not strictly regulate when or how often or for how long the employees could take breaks. These forepersons allowed the employees in their crew to decide when to take breaks and the length of the breaks. For example, Plaintiff Marisol Gomez testified in her deposition that her foreperson told her to take breaks whenever she felt heat exhaustion or sick, and her foreperson never told her to not take breaks. See Doc. Nos. 91-2, 109-1. Gomez affirmed in her deposition that she was permitted to take breaks at work "at any time." Doc. No.91-2 at 24. Similarly, Plaintiff Ignacio Osorio testified in his deposition that he knew that lunch breaks were available to him and he was permitted to take rest breaks. See Doc. No. 110-2. The testimony from Osorio and Gomez harmonizes with the testimony of Javier Jacobo, the president of Defendant, who declared that Defendant "instructs it employees that they may take rest breaks whenever they would like and that they may take meal breaks whenever they would like." Doc. No. 91-6.
It is not clear to the Court the number and identities of the forepersons who instructed their employees to take meal breaks and/or rest breaks whenever they wanted. Similarly, it is not clear to the Court the number and identities of the forepersons, if any, who precluded their employees from taking meal breaks and/or rest breaks whenever they wanted or, alternatively, precluded their employees from taking meal breaks and/or rest breaks altogether.
With respect to meal breaks, some employees — and likely most employees — were provided with thirty-minute lunch breaks. It is true that some employees declared — in boilerplate or "cookie-cutter" declarations2 — that they "do not recall" having a thirty-minute meal break "scheduled" into their shift, including during the first five hours of their shift. See, e.g., Doc. Nos. 108-7, 108-8, 108-9. Ignacio Osorio was one such employee who made such a declaration. See Doc. No. 108-6. But some employees, including Osorio himself and Marisol Gomez, knew that thirty-minute lunch breaks were available to them, and these employees regularly took the provided lunch breaks. For example, despite Osorio's declaration suggesting otherwise, Osorio testified in his deposition that he knew that thirty-minute lunch breaks wereavailable to him and his fellow employees. See Doc. No. 110-2. Osorio testified that the lunch breaks were available at "noon" or "noontime," and Osorio referred to these lunch breaks as "noontime breaks." Id. Osorio testified that "it was an obligation to take a lunch break" and "it is an order you have to take the 30 minutes." Id. More specifically, Osorio testified that the foreperson would tell the employees, "Everybody go out" to take the lunch break. Id. Similarly, Gomez testified in her deposition that thirty-minute lunch breaks were provided to her and her fellow employees. Gomez testified that her foreperson "always" told her to take lunch breaks. Doc. No. 109-1. Gomez testified that she would "always" take her lunch break at 10:00 a.m. Doc. No. 91-2 at 67. Gomez testified that all employees in her crew took lunch breaks every day. Id. at 70. Gomez testified that she could take lunch breaks if she wanted to. This testimony from Gomez and Osorio harmonizes with the declaration of Javier Jacobo, who declared that Defendant "instructs it employees that they may take rest breaks whenever they would like and that they may take meal breaks whenever they would like." Doc. No. 91-6.
Some employees believed that they could elect to take or not take their lunch break. Some — and likely most — employees always elected to take their lunch breaks, see Doc. No. 91-2 at 70 (), whereas other employees elected to not take their lunch breaks. Some employees could leave the farm during their lunch break to get food if they had enough time to do so. Some employees would use the entire thirty-minute allotment of time on their lunch break, whereas other employees would elect to spend only twenty or twenty-five minutes on their lunch break. For example, some employees would eat quickly so that they could get back to work and make more money, and some employees believed that it was their decision whether to cut their lunch break short to go back to work.
To the extent that an employee was not provided with or not permitted to take a thirty-minute lunch break, the failure to provide or permit the lunch break was due to the employee's particular foreperson or other unique variables, see, e.g., Doc. No. 110-2 (deposition of Ignacio Osorio) ( ), but the failure was not due to Defendant's company-wide policies. Similarly, the timing of the employee's lunch break — i.e., when the lunch break occurred during the shift — appears to have been determined to some extent by unique variables, including the particular foreperson. For example, Osorio testified in his deposition that the timing of the lunch break "depends" because "each crew leader has a different schedule." Id.
With respect to rest breaks, some employees were provided with and permitted to take rest breaks throughout their shift. It is true that one employee, Antonio Mejia, declared that "[i]t was the practice of [Defendant] to not permit workers to take 10 minute rest breaks," Doc. No. 108-14, but Mejia's declaration is contradicted by significant evidence showing that many employees were permitted to take rest breaks during their shifts and did, in fact, take rest breaks. For example, in Mejia's own declaration, Mejia admits that he and his fellow employees took rest breaks. Id. (). Similarly, Ignacio Osorio testified in his deposition that he was allowed to take breaks and, in fact, took ten-minute rest breaks, including a rest break at around 8:30 a.m. or 9:00 a.m. in the morning and a rest break after lunch at around 2:00 p.m. or 2:30 p.m. See Doc. No. 110-2. Additionally, as previously noted, Marisol Gomez testified in her deposition that her foreperson...
To continue reading
Request your trial