Martin v. Sysco Corp., 1:16-cv-00990-DAD-SAB

• Decision Date: 19 April 2018
• Docket Number: No. 1:16-cv-00990-DAD-SAB,1:16-cv-00990-DAD-SAB
• Parties: JOHN MARTIN, on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated, Plaintiff, v. SYSCO CORPORATION and SYSCO CENTRAL CALIFORNIA, INC., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of California

JOHN MARTIN, on behalf of himself andall others similarly situated, Plaintiff, v. SYSCO CORPORATION and SYSCO CENTRAL CALIFORNIA, INC., Defendants.

No. 1:16-cv-00990-DAD-SAB

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

April 19, 2018

ORDER GRANTING IN PART MOTION FOR CLASS CERTIFICATION

(Doc. No. 37)

This is an employment class action brought by plaintiff on behalf of himself and the putative class members—all of whom are employed as truck drivers for defendants—alleging that they were not provided meal and rest breaks in accordance with California law. Plaintiff filed a motion for class certification on December 18, 2017. (Doc. No. 37.) Defendants opposed the motion on January 15, 2018 and plaintiff filed a reply on January 29, 2018. (Doc. Nos. 38, 40.) The court heard oral argument on this matter on February 6, 2018. Attorney David Mara appeared on behalf of plaintiff and the putative class while attorneys Sabrina Shadi and Nicholas Poper appeared on behalf of defendants. For the reasons discussed below, the court will grant plaintiff's motion in part.

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BACKGROUND

Plaintiff and the putative class members here are non-exempt, hourly truck drivers employed by defendants in California. (Doc. No. 1-1 at 2.) Plaintiff alleges a number of claims against defendants, including that they: (1) required class members to work for more than five hours without a meal period; (2) failed to provide a second meal period to class members whose shifts lasted more than ten hours; (3) required class members to work more than four hours without a rest period; and (4) failed to provide accurate itemized wage statements.¹ (Id. at 1-46.)

The class claims pursued by plaintiff in this matter follow two distinct theories. First, plaintiff claims that defendants' policies facially violate California law. Second, plaintiff asserts that class members were given a daily, preset route which dictated the order of the deliveries they were to make and, more importantly, set the number of stops that each driver needed to complete prior to taking a meal or rest break. Under this theory, plaintiff argues that class members were required to abide by this schedule and could not take breaks prior to the completion of a certain number of deliveries. Because the length of time required to complete these deliveries varied, class members were frequently unable to take meal and rest breaks as required by California law.

Plaintiff seeks certification of one main class and four subclasses in order to pursue claims related to the alleged rest break and meal period violations under state labor law:

Main Class: All hourly drivers who are or were employed by Sysco at any time from June 7, 2012, to the date the Court issues an order granting class certification.

Rest Break Subclass: All hourly drivers who are or were employed by Sysco and worked a shift over ten (10) hours at any time from June 7, 2012, to the date the Court issues an order granting class certification.

First Meal Period Subclass: All hourly drivers who are or were employed by Sysco who worked a shift over five (5) hours at any time from June 7, 2012, to the date the Court issues an order granting class certification, where the corresponding e-time records show no 30-minute meal period or show a 30-minute meal period after the 5th hour.

Second Meal Period Subclass: All hourly drivers who are or were employed by Sysco who worked a shift over ten (10) hours at any time from June 7, 2012, to the date the Court issues an order granting class certification, where the corresponding e-time records show a second 30-minute meal period after the tenth hour, if at all.

Waiting Time Penalties Subclass: All hourly drivers who ended their employment with Sysco at any time from June 7, 2013, to the date the Court issues an order granting class certification.

(Doc. No. 37-1 at 7-8.)

LEGAL STANDARD

The class action is a procedural mechanism whereby the "usual rule that litigation be conducted by and on behalf of the named parties only" is swept aside so that multiple parties—unwieldy in number but possessing similar or identical claims—may pursue common redress in an efficient and economical manner. Comcast v. Behrend, 569 U.S. 27, 33 (2013) (quoting Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. 338, 348 (2011)); see also Abdullah v. U.S. Sec. Assocs., 731 F.3d 952, 963-64 (9th Cir. 2013). Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 controls class certification and imposes a two-step process in deciding whether a class may be certified.

Rule 23(a) requires the moving party to demonstrate the existence of four prerequisites in order for the court to consider whether certification is proper. These prerequisites are often described as: (1) numerosity, (2) commonality, (3) typicality, and (4) adequacy. If—and only if—a putative class satisfies these four requirements may it then proceed to show it also satisfies one of the three subsections of Rule 23(b). The party seeking class certification bears the burden of establishing conformity with these requirements, and must do so by producing facts "affirmatively demonstrat[ing]" that certification is warranted. Comcast, 569 U.S. at 33; Dukes, 564 U.S. at 350. A court must review the merits of a party's substantive claim to the extent that they overlap with issues touching on class certification. Ellis v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 657 F.3d 970, 981 (9th Cir. 2011) (citing Dukes, 564 U.S. at 350-51 and Hanon v. Dataproducts Corp., 976 F.2d 497, 509 (9th Cir. 1992)); see also Blair v. The CBE Grp., Inc., 309 F.R.D. 621, 625 (S.D. Cal. 2015). Only after it has conducted a "rigorous analysis" of these facts and determined they show "actual, [and] not presumed, conformance" with Rule 23(a) and (b), may a district court certify a class. Ellis, 657 F.3d at 981 (quoting Gen. Tel. Co. of Sw. v. Falcon, 457U.S. 147, 160, 161, (1982)); see also Comcast, 569 U.S. at 33-34 (extending the "rigorous analysis" requirement to Rule 23(b)); Patel v. Nike Retail Servs., Inc., Case No. 14-cv-4781-RS, 2016 WL 1241777, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 29, 2016) ("This 'rigorous' analysis applies both to Rule 23(a) and Rule 23(b)."). If a court does decide to certify a class, it must define the class claims and issues and appoint class counsel. Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(c)(1), (g). Finally, "[w]hen appropriate, a class may be divided into subclasses that are each treated as a class under this rule." Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(c)(5).

A. Rule 23(a) Requirements

In order for a class member to sue as a representative of all class members, the class member must establish the following prerequisites: (1) the class must be "so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable"; (2) there must be "questions of law or fact common to the class"; (3) "the claims or defenses of the representative parties are typical of the claims or defenses of the class"; and (4) "the representative parties will fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class." Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a).

1. Numerosity

A proposed class must be "so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable." Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(1). While there is no strict number requirement for numerosity, courts have routinely held that classes comprised of more than forty members will satisfy this prerequisite. See Ikonen v. Hartz Mt. Corp., 122 F.R.D. 258, 262 (S.D. Cal. 1988) ("As a general rule, classes of 20 are too small, classes of 20-40 may or may not be big enough depending on the circumstances of each case, and classes of 40 or more are numerous enough."); see also Dunakin v. Quigley, 99 F. Supp. 3d 1297, 1327 (W.D. Wash. 2015) ("Generally, 40 or more members will satisfy the numerosity requirement.") (quoting Garrison v. Asotin County, 251 F.R.D. 566, 569 (E.D. Wash. 2008); McMillon v. Hawaii, 261 F.R.D. 536, 542 (D. Haw. 2009).

2. Commonality

Rule 23 requires there be "questions of law or fact common to the class." Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(2). To satisfy Rule 23(a)'s commonality requirement, a class claim "must depend upon a common contention . . . of such a nature that it is capable of class[-]wide resolution—whichmeans that determination of its truth or falsity will resolve an issue that is central to the validity of each one of the claims in one stroke." Dukes, 564 U.S. at 350. As the Supreme Court further explained, this frequently necessitates an inquiry that "overlap[s] with the merits of plaintiff's underlying claim." Id. at 351.

3. Typicality

"[T]he claims or defenses of the representative parties [must be] typical of the claims and defenses of the class." Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(3). They need not be clones; rather, all that is required is that the claims or defenses be "reasonably co-extensive." Hanlon, 150 F.3d at 1020 (noting that this standard is a "permissive" one and requires only that the claims of the class representatives be "reasonably co-extensive with those of absent class members; they need not be substantially identical"). Typicality is satisfied if the representative's claims arise from the same course of conduct as the class claims and are based on the same legal theory. See, e.g., Kayes v. Pac. Lumber Co., 51 F.3d 1449, 1463 (9th Cir. 1995) (claims are typical where named plaintiffs have the same claims as other members of the class and are not subject to unique defenses). "The test of typicality is whether other members have the same or similar injury, whether the action is based on conduct which is not unique to the named plaintiffs, and whether other class members have been injured by the same course of conduct." Hanon, 976 F.2d at 508.

4. Adequacy of Representation

Plaintiffs seeking class certification must show that they "will fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class." Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(4). "To determine whether named plaintiffs will adequately represent a class, courts must resolve two questions: '(1) do the named plaintiffs and their counsel have any conflicts of interest with other class members and (...