Hale v. Brinker International, Inc.

Background

Amanda Hale and Jesus Gomez, former Chili’s Bar and Grill employees, sued Brinker International, Inc. They alleged that Brinker violated California labor law by failing to provide reasonable opportunities for unpaid 30-minute meal breaks, failing to provide rest periods, and failing to reimburse employees for work-related cell-phone expenses. They sought to bring the claims as a class action covering employees at Brinker’s 108 Chili’s restaurants in California.

The proposed class included front-of-house workers, such as servers, hosts, bartenders, and bussers, and back-of-house workers, such as cooks and dishwashers. The proposed class included 1,289 workers. The record showed no meal break recorded for 96.2% of 779,422 shifts worked by proposed class members. Rest breaks were not recorded.

The plaintiffs presented evidence that restaurants were busy and leanly staffed, employees had to ask managers for breaks, and management discouraged breaks. Brinker presented evidence that employees often voluntarily skipped unpaid meal breaks to avoid extending their shifts or leaving tables and risking tips. Brinker also presented evidence that restaurant activity varied by location, time of day, and shift, and that employees generally had opportunities to take rest breaks.

The plaintiffs also alleged that employees used personal phones for work-related communications and were required to purchase and use the HotSchedules application. Brinker responded that employees could use the HotSchedules website or iPads at work and that downloading the application was a personal choice.

Meal-Break Class Certification

The court explained that California law requires an employer to provide employees with a reasonable opportunity to take an uninterrupted 30-minute unpaid meal break for shifts longer than five hours, and a second such break for shifts longer than ten hours. Employees may voluntarily choose to keep working if the employer provided a reasonable opportunity to take the break.

Under the California Supreme Court’s decision in Donohue, missing or incomplete meal-break records can create a rebuttable presumption that the employer violated the meal-break rules. The employer may attempt to rebut that presumption by showing that employees had an opportunity to take a break but voluntarily chose to work instead.

The court emphasized that the Donohue presumption does not itself establish that a class should be certified. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, the named plaintiffs had to show that common questions would predominate at trial. The court said that the relevant question was not merely whether the presumption would apply, but whether the evidence about Brinker’s rebuttal would support a common answer for the entire class.

The court concluded that the plaintiffs did not meet that burden. Although the time records could present a common question about whether the presumption applied, the evidence suggested that the rebuttal issues would vary among restaurants, types of workers, individual workers, and particular shifts. Some employees may have been unable to take breaks because of staffing or business conditions, while others may have voluntarily chosen to work through breaks to protect tips, avoid prolonging their shifts, or because they were not hungry.

The court also found that the plaintiffs had not shown a companywide practice that affected employees’ ability to take meal breaks in substantially the same way. The need to coordinate breaks with managers was not inherently coercive in the restaurant setting, and the evidence did not show that all employees experienced that process similarly. The employee attestations about meal and rest breaks also raised individualized questions about whether particular employees felt pressured to say they voluntarily skipped breaks.

The court further found that the plaintiffs’ proposed verdict form illustrated the manageability problem. It would have required a trial addressing which meal periods for individual workers and shifts involved a denial of a reasonable opportunity to take a break. The court held that this would cause individualized questions to predominate.

Rest-Break Class Certification

California law provides a ten-minute rest period for each four-hour block, or major portion of a four-hour block, for employees working more than three and a half hours. Employers must provide a reasonable opportunity for the rest period, but employees may choose to work through it.

The court held that the proposed rest-break class could not be certified because the plaintiffs had not shown that common questions would predominate over individual questions concerning Brinker’s liability. The court noted that the plaintiffs had not established a uniform policy tending to deny employees the ability to take rest breaks. Unlike meal breaks, the Donohue presumption did not apply because employers are not required to record rest breaks.

Cell-Phone Expense Class Certification

California Labor Code section 2802 requires reimbursement when employees must use personal cell phones for work-related calls. The court held that the plaintiffs had not provided enough evidence to show common questions about whether Brinker violated that law.

For the HotSchedules expenses, the plaintiffs did not establish that Brinker had a policy requiring employees to purchase the application. The application was also accessible through a website, and employees could use iPads at the restaurants. The plaintiffs likewise did not show a uniform Brinker policy or practice requiring employees to use personal phones to arrange schedule changes. The court therefore concluded that any liability would likely depend on the actions of individual managers and the choices of individual employees.

Disposition

Judge Vince Chhabria denied the motion for class certification as to the meal-break, rest-break, and cell-phone-expense claims. The court denied the motion without leave to file a renewed motion because it found that the evidence was so strong that common issues would not predominate.