On Monday, July 10, 2023, a California federal judge certified a statewide class of O’Reilly Auto Enterprises LLC (“O’Reilly”) hourly workers over allegations that O’Reilly violated California wage statement laws. However, the judge declined to certify three other classes relating to claims that O’Reilly failed to provide lawful meal breaks.
California Labor Code Violations
Plaintiff Samantha Vvanti sued O’Reilly in 2019, accusing the company of violating several California Labor Code provisions related to wages and lawful meal breaks. Specifically, she claimed that she occasionally did not receive meal breaks during her employment from November 2016 to May 2018. Additionally, O’Reilly’s pay stubs allegedly violated Labor Code section 226(a)’s requirements as it combined all types of hours worked for the pay period instead of an itemized list.
Vvanti’s Motion for Class Certification
Vvanti sought class certification for four alleged violations: meal break violations, direct violation of wage statement laws, derivative violation of wage statement laws, and violation of waiting time laws. The derivative violation of the wage statement claim concerns whether listing an inaccurate meal break premium on itemized wage statements violated the Labor Code. The waiting time claim states that O’Reilly failed to pay out meal premiums after employees left the company.
In Monday’s order, His Honor Wesley L. Hsu certified a statewide class of workers who have received a wage statement since 2019. He stated that Vvanti sufficiently claimed that O’Reilly failed to provide accurate and itemized pay stubs in accordance with section 226(a) of the Labor Code. However, he found that Vvanti failed to predominance with respect to the three meal break-related claims.
The certified class is defined as all current and former non-exempt O’Reilly employees in California who received at least one pay stub from January 4, 2018, to the present. There are at least 100 putative members in each class. According to the order, O’Reilly has operated over 500 stores throughout California and has employed more than 25,000 workers since 2015.
MNK Law will continue to monitor developments with respect to the lawsuit against O’Reilly. For more information on class action wage and hour defense in California, please contact us at info@mnklawyers.com.
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