Seyfarth Shaw LLP | www.seyfarth.com Litigating CA Wage & Hour Class and PAGA Actions (23rd Edition) 203 We have achieved dismissals of multiple defendants who were improperly joined as alleged joint employers in wage and hour class actions by using motions to attack the sufficiency of the pleadings977 and by summary judgment motions addressing the merits of such claims.978 977 See, e.g., Perez v. DNC Parks & Resorts at Sequoia, 2020 WL 4344911, * 3-5 (E.D. Cal. July 29, 2020 (dismissing multiple alleged joint employer defendants under state and federal law; “plaintiffs merely allege that defendants were their joint employers because certain combinations of defendants belong to the same corporate family, share the same headquarters location and/or use the same policies and practices for their employees. These allegations are disparate and indiscriminate in nature and fail to make out a joint employer claim [under California law] . . . Plaintiff’s joint employer claims under federal law fail for similar reasons . . . those claims will also be dismissed . . .”); Perez v. DNC Parks & Resorts at Asilomar, 2019 WL 5618169, *7-8 (E.D. Cal. Oct. 31, 2019)(dismissing multiple alleged joint employer defendants; “plaintiff's complaint falls far short . . . Other than the conclusory allegation that all seven defendants are his joint employer, plaintiff alleges no supporting facts . . . the court concludes that plaintiff's joint employer claims are insufficiently pled. Accordingly, they will be dismissed . . .”); Williams v. Nichols Demos, Inc., 2018 WL 11236757, * 3 (N.D. Cal. June 20, 2018) (granting motion to dismiss joint employer claims under California and federal law; “In the inquiries at hand, which necessarily involve an examination of the actions of each defendant with respect to [plaintiff’s] employment, the Court finds the FAC lacks the requisite specificity to allege [defendant] is a joint employer of [plaintiff] under California or federal law.”). 978 See e.g., Williams v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 2020 WL 13505060, * 4 (N.D. Cal. July 10, 2020) (granting defendant’s motion for summary judgment on joint employer claim; “Plaintiff's evidence does not raise a triable issue of fact as to whether [defendant] exercised the requisite control to qualify as a joint employer . . . At best, Plaintiff's evidence suggests that [defendant] imposed certain requirements on roadshow representatives while they were on [defendant’s] premises in order to maintain a consistent brand standard . . . This type of oversight, however, ‘does not represent control over wages, hours, or working conditions’ of the roadshow representatives where it is undisputed that [defendant] did not hire or fire the representatives or set their rate of pay.”); Rodriguez v. SGLC, Inc., 2012 WL 5705992, *11 (E.D. Cal. Nov. 15, 2012) (granting, in part, motion for summary judgment on the issue of defendant’s joint employment under the FLSA; “The Court is bound by the joint employer analysis of the Ninth Circuit, and the plain language of the FLSA. As such, the Court holds that when a plaintiff is not ‘suffered or permitted to work’ by the alleged employer-defendant, the plaintiff is not an ‘employee’ and the defendant is not an ‘employer’ within the meaning of the FLSA.”).
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