Robinson v. The Chefs' Warehouse

Background

Shaon Robinson originally filed this proposed class action on behalf of delivery drivers employed by The Chefs’ Warehouse West Coast, LLC. Sean Clark later joined as a named plaintiff, but an earlier class-certification motion was denied because Robinson and Clark had signed declarations in a prior related proceeding stating that they understood the company’s break and timekeeping policies and had received and taken their breaks.

The new proposed class representatives were James Roberts, a former Northern California driver, and Saul Prado, a Southern California driver. The company had a written policy providing meal and rest breaks, requiring accurate time records, prohibiting off-the-clock work, and providing for discipline for violations. The plaintiffs’ theory was that delivery deadlines and time pressures prevented or strongly discouraged drivers from taking the breaks in practice.

Summary judgment concerning Roberts

The company sought partial summary judgment on all of Roberts’s claims except his claim for reimbursement of expenses related to cell-phone use. The company argued that Roberts could not identify specific dates when he missed meal or rest breaks and that his signed timesheets stated that he had taken the required breaks.

The court denied that motion. It held that Roberts did not have to remember and identify every specific date to survive summary judgment. His testimony that he was forced to miss breaks, his estimates of how often that occurred, and timesheets that appeared to show he worked enough hours to qualify for a second meal break but did not take one created a triable issue of fact. The court also found that a manager’s instruction to “just put something in there” could support an inference that Roberts was directed to submit inaccurate timesheets. The evidence could be used to challenge Roberts’s credibility, but it did not establish the company’s entitlement to judgment as a matter of law.

Summary judgment concerning Prado

The company sought partial summary judgment on Prado’s meal-and-rest-period claims and claims derived from them. It argued that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Act and related federal hours-of-service regulations preempted California’s meal-and-rest-break laws for drivers in Prado’s circumstances.

The court held that the company had shown Prado’s claims were preempted. It relied on a December 2018 Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration order concluding that California Labor Code sections 226.7 and 512, as applied to property-carrying commercial vehicle drivers, were preempted by federal hours-of-service regulations. The court stated that challenges to that federal preemption determination must be brought in a federal court of appeals. It rejected the plaintiffs’ arguments that Prado might qualify as a short-haul driver and that he could still pursue equitable or contract theories based on the same alleged break violations. The court granted the motion for partial summary judgment against Prado.

Class certification

The plaintiffs sought certification under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, which governs when a case may proceed as a class action. The court denied class certification.

The court explained that Prado’s preempted claims eliminated him as a viable representative and suggested that other drivers’ claims might also be preempted. The company showed that only seventeen Southern California drivers and five Northern California drivers had not encountered one or more potential barriers, including individual settlements, class-action waivers, declarations supporting the company’s break practices, or declarations stating that they had received breaks and pay for all hours worked. The court also noted that twelve of the remaining Southern California drivers had commercial licenses and might be subject to the federal preemption order.

The court further found that questions about the enforceability of class-action waivers could require individual inquiries. Although Roberts had enough evidence to create factual disputes about his own claims, the plaintiffs had not explained how they could prove the claims on a class-wide basis using the evidence available.

Disposition

The court denied the motion for partial summary judgment against James Roberts, granted the motion for partial summary judgment against Saul Prado, and denied the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification. It scheduled a further case-management conference for October 10, 2019.