18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

446 Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition disclosing his private credit card information to Defendant’s credit card processor, and that the unauthorized disclosure of his personal information to a third-party violated the CPA and the UCL. Id . at *2. Plaintiff contended that after narrowing his proposed subclasses to include only customers who were charged for Defendant’s software and "communicated that they did not want, need, or use said software by requesting a refund and/or disputing the charges,” the amount-in-controversy no longer exceeded the $5 million threshold under the CAFA. Id. at *3. The Court, however, noted that it could not consider Plaintiff’s amended class definition when determining jurisdiction over a removed action. Id . at *4. The Court explained that allowing such amendment would permit "what CAFA was intended to prevent: an amendment changing the nature of the class to divest the federal court of jurisdiction." Id . at *5-6. Accordingly, the Court held that it could not consider Plaintiff’s amended class definition in determining whether remand was appropriate. The Court therefore denied Plaintiff’s motion to remand. Lopez, et al. v. Adidas America, Inc. , 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46029 (C.D. Cal. March 11, 2021). Plaintiff filed a state court class action alleging various violations of the California Labor Code in connection with their employment practices. Defendant removed the action, and Plaintiff filed a motion to remand on the basis that the amount-in-controversy was not over the $5 million jurisdictional threshold of the CAFA. The Court denied the motion. Defendant alleged that the amount-in-controversy was at least $12,977,964. In support of its contention, Defendant provided estimates based on Plaintiff’s alleged violations. First, Defendant contended that the amount-in-controversy for the alleged waiting time penalties was at least $4,591,836 based on the broad allegations inferring that every non-exempt terminated employee could have suffered at least one violation. Id . at *4-5. Specifically, Defendant assumed a 4.5-hour day for the 30-day statutory maximum, and an average hourly rate of $13.94, to provide the estimated amount of waiting time penalties. The Court noted that going by Plaintiff’s allegations in the complaint, Defendant’s assumptions and the resulting estimated amount-in- controversy for waiting time penalties were reasonable. Defendant further calculated an amount-in-controversy for wage statement penalties of $1,746,250, based on the number of pay periods for each class member, assuming a 100% violation rate based on the allegation that Defendant violated § 226 in every pay period. Id . at *6. The Court found Defendant’s estimate reasonable because it was supported by sufficient evidence, the complaint’s allegations, and because Plaintiff failed to persuasively challenge Defendant’s methodology. Id . at *7. Defendant also estimated amounts of $1,557,343 for meal break violations and $1,912,989 for rest break violations. The Court determined that Defendant’s estimate of a 40% violation rate was reasonable given the allegations in the complaint. In addition, the Court found that Defendant’s employment evidence showing that roughly 61% of the 457,434 shifts were eligible for at least one meal period and that at least 75% were eligible for one rest period, resulting in 111,717 meal period violations and 137,230 rest period violations, was also reasonable. Defendant also calculated reasonable attorneys’ fees of $2.5 million, which Plaintiff did not dispute. Accordingly, since Plaintiff’s waiting time, wage statement, meal period, rest period, and attorneys’ fees claims support an amount-in-controversy well over $5 million, the Court denied Plaintiff’s motion to remand. Id . at *10- 11. Marano, et al. v. Liberty Mutual Group, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7708 (C.D. Cal. Jan. 14, 2021). Plaintiff, a non-exempt sales representative, filed a state court class action alleging that Defendant violated various provisions of the California Labor Code. Defendant removed the action to the District Court pursuant to the CAFA on the basis that there was minimum diversity, over there 100 class members, and the amount-in- controversy exceeded $5 million. Plaintiff filed a motion to remand, and the Court denied the motion. Plaintiff contended that the case should be remanded because Defendant failed to establish the requisite amount-in- controversy for jurisdiction under the CAFA. Defendant argued that the amount-in-controversy was over $7 million. Plaintiff asserted that: (i) Defendant had a practice "of not paying employees based on their actual hours worked and instead unlawfully altered employee time records to reflect hours worked in half-hour intervals;" (ii) class members "periodically worked more than eight hours in a workday, all seven days in a workweek, and/or more than 40 hours in a workweek, but were not paid all appropriate overtime and double time wages for such hours worked;" (iii) class members "were required to remain on-duty and/or charged with various tasks during rest periods;" (iv) class members "were regularly required to take late, on-duty, or interrupted meal periods or forego them entirely," (v) class members "were never reimbursed" for "expenditures or losses including the use of their personal cell phones and vehicles for work purposes," and (vi) Defendant’s "wage statements failed to state the correct amount of gross wages earned" and other required information. Id . at *6. In its notice of