A surprisingly favorable decision for employers by the normally employee-friendly U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld a federal trial court’s order decertifying a wage and hour class action lawsuit.
A three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled in Stiller v. Costco Wholesale Corp., No. 15-55361 (9th Cir. Jan. 20, 2017), that the company’s alleged unwritten “lockdown” store closing procedures — which the plaintiffs claimed resulted in their working uncompensated time off the clock — could not be challenged on a classwide basis, because “whether class members actually performed unpaid work was not a common question capable of classwide resolution.”
The Stiller plaintiffs were hourly workers who claimed they were required to remain on premises after clocking out to enable supervisors to perform security and other closing activities. They sued under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and California state wage and hour law, alleging they should have been paid for the time they were required to hang around during the lockdown procedures. The trial court concluded, and the Ninth Circuit agreed, that because there was no “viable method” to assess liability and damages on a classwide basis, class certification was improper.
The Ninth Circuit’s five-page unpublished decision affirming the trial court is available here.
Members of the Equal Employment Advisory Council (EEAC) can read more here.