18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition 367 substantially similar or equal work to Plaintiffs, or establish that any pay disparity between all of them was justified by a bona fide factor other than sex. Defendant further contended that Plaintiffs’ statistical analysis was so analytically deficient that it failed to create a material factual dispute to defeat Defendant’s bona fide factor defense. The Court opined that Defendant’s argument only offered a differing opinion or methodology that created a triable issue of fact to be examined at trial. Further, the Court held that Plaintiffs offered evidence that Defendant’s employees were organized in thousands of job codes that were highly specialized, and that the jobs within the codes required substantially similar work. Defendant also argued that Plaintiffs lacked standing to seek injunctive relief. The Court rejected that position, since Defendant advanced no material facts to demonstrate that there was no reasonable likelihood that current employees would not be harmed by Defendant’s alleged policy that caused unequal pay. Therefore, the Court determined that there were triable issues of material fact regarding whether the alleged wrongful conduct would continue. For these reasons, the Court denied Defendant’s motion for summary judgment. B. Wage & Hour Rulings (i) Arizona Redgrave, et al. v. Ducey , Case No. 20-CV-82 (Ariz. Aug. 19, 2020). Plaintiff, an in-home caretaker for an individual with cerebral palsy, filed a class action alleging that Defendant, a state agency, violated various stage wage & hour laws. During an appeal, the Ninth Circuit certified a question to the Arizona Supreme Court of whether Arizona has consented to damages liability for a State agency’s violation of the minimum wage or overtime provisions of the FLSA. The Arizona Supreme Court answered the question in the negative. Plaintiff worked for P.L., a beneficiary of the Arizona Long-Term Care System ("ALTCS"), a Medicaid program operated by the Arizona Department of Economic Security’s Division of Developmental Disabilities ("DDD"), which functioned as a managed care organization. Plaintiff asserted that she was only paid for 8-hours per day and 5 days a week, when in reality, she worked 24-hours a day for 7 days a week. Defendant asserted a sovereign immunity defense from such claims, and moved to dismiss the case. Plaintiff argued that Defendant waived its sovereign immunity by removing the case and that Arizona had waived its sovereign immunity from the FLSA claims as a matter of law. The District Court disagreed with the agency’s argument. It noted that the Public Entities Act identifies a range of circumstances in which Arizona maintains its sovereign immunity. Plaintiff argued that the Public Entities Act’s absolute immunity provision failed to assert immunity from FLSA claims. The District Court found that the Public Entities Act waived only Arizona’s sovereign immunity from tort liability. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit opined that it could also be that the Public Entities Act effects a waiver of Arizona’s state sovereign immunity from both tort claims and non-tort claims, but that such a waiver was limited to claims arising out of state law, and that it retains its immunity from federal law claims. The Ninth Circuit requested that the Arizona Supreme Court accept and decide the certified question. The Supreme Court held that the Arizona State Constitution gave the legislature the authority to waive Arizona’s sovereign immunity, and the legislature had not unequivocally assented to federal damages liability. Accordingly, the Supreme Court found that Arizona did not consent to such liability under the FLSA. Roberts, et al. v. State Of Arizona, Case No. 20-0060 (Ariz. App. March 3, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of Department of Corrections officers, filed a class action alleging that Defendant failed to pay overtime compensation for time spent undergoing mandatory security screening prior to each work shift. Defendant filed a motion to dismiss, and the trial court granted the motion. On appeal, the Arizona Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the trial court’s ruling. Defendant argued that the Arizona statute must be interpreted consistently with the FLA, as amended by the Portal-to-Portal Act and relevant federal regulation, which meant that the screenings were not compensable. Plaintiffs alleged that their state law claims were not preempted because Arizona had not adopted the Portal-to-Portal Act and time spent in mandatory security screenings was compensable under the state’s expansive definition of “work.” Id . at 2. The trial court had found that although federal law did not preempt the claims, the time spent undergoing screenings was not compensable. First, the Court of Appeals reasoned that the weight of authority established that the FLSA does not preempt a claim to enforce a more favorable state minimum wage or overtime claim. The Court of Appeals opined that, in considering whether the security screenings were integral to Plaintiffs’ principal activities, the pre-shift security screenings were inherently related the officers’ work of providing a secure prison and preventing the introduction of contraband into the facility. The Court of Appeals further ruled that if Defendant would eliminate the