Mejia v. RXO Last Mile

Background

Maynor Mejia brought a proposed class action alleging that RXO Last Mile, Inc., also referred to in the opinion as XPO Last Mile, misclassified delivery workers as independent contractors or non-employees. The alleged class covered people who performed delivery services in California as Contract Carriers, Drivers, or Helpers during a proposed period beginning April 29, 2018. Mejia sought certification of nine claims under California wage orders, the California Labor Code, and California’s Unfair Business Practices Act. He also sought appointment as class representative and Boyamian Law as class counsel.

The proposed subclasses were Contract Carriers who signed RXO’s Delivery Service Agreement, Drivers engaged by Contract Carriers who did not sign that agreement, and Helpers. The proposed periods differed between the motion and supplemental briefing: the motion described a period extending to trial, while the supplemental briefing described periods ending at class certification.

Rulings on Evidence

The court overruled RXO’s 80 objections to declarations submitted in support of class certification. It held that evidence that might ultimately be inadmissible at trial could still be considered at the certification stage, with admissibility affecting the weight given to the evidence.

The court denied Mejia’s motion to strike the declaration of RXO’s expert, Stephen G. Bronars, Ph.D. Rather than conduct the full exclusion analysis requested by Mejia, the court considered the parties’ arguments about the reliability of the expert testimony in deciding what weight to give it for class-certification purposes.

Class-Certification Analysis

The court found that the proposed class was ascertainable, meaning that its members could be identified using an objective definition. RXO had identified 2,485 potential class members in discovery, including 652 Contract Carriers, 1,251 Drivers, and 582 Helpers. The court also found that the numerosity requirement was met, including separately for each proposed subclass.

The court nevertheless found that Mejia failed to establish commonality and predominance, at least for the proposed Driver and Helper subclasses. Commonality requires shared legal or factual questions, while predominance requires those shared questions to outweigh issues affecting individual members. The court concluded that determining whether Drivers and Helpers were employees of RXO, or whether RXO was their joint employer, could require individualized examination of the employment practices of the different Contract Carriers who engaged them.

The court also found that Mejia failed to explain how the wage-and-hour claims of Drivers and Helpers could be proved without examining each Contract Carrier’s employment practices. It rejected Mejia’s reliance on a common Delivery Service Agreement and RXO’s standardized policies as sufficient to resolve those individualized issues.

Typicality and Adequacy

The court found that Mejia did not satisfy the typicality and adequacy requirements for the Driver and Helper subclasses. Typicality asks whether the representative’s claims are sufficiently similar to those of the class, and adequacy asks whether the representative and counsel can fairly protect the class’s interests.

The court determined that Mejia’s interests conflicted with those of the Drivers and Helpers he sought to represent. Under the Delivery Service Agreement, Mejia had accepted responsibility for compliance with wage-and-hour laws concerning his workers. His testimony indicated that he treated Drivers and Helpers as his employees, paid them, determined their routes, and instructed them to take breaks. The court reasoned that proving those workers were denied employment protections could require Mejia to argue that he himself had denied them those protections.

The court declined Mejia’s suggestion that it appoint different representatives for the subclasses. It stated that selecting representatives was not the court’s role and noted that doing so at that stage could require an amended complaint, new motion practice, and additional discovery.

Disposition

The court denied plaintiff’s motion for class certification for failure to establish the requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. Because the motion failed on other grounds, the court did not decide whether the proposed Contract Carrier subclass independently met all Rule 23 requirements, whether class counsel was adequate, whether the class action would be the superior method of resolving the claims, or which class periods should apply.