Hakeem v. Transdev Services, Inc.

Background

Chauenga M. Hakeem brought claims under California wage-and-hour law against Transdev Services, Inc., and other defendants. One claim alleges that the defendants failed to compensate employees for time spent taking mandatory pre-employment drug tests. The other alleges that the defendants failed to provide accurate, itemized pay statements for periods when employees received a raise and were paid through a “blended” paycheck.

Class Certification

The court granted Hakeem’s motion for class certification. It certified a class of all current and former employees who took a mandatory pre-employment drug test during the class period. It also certified a class of all current and former employees who received a “blended” paycheck during the class period.

The court held that both claims satisfied the requirements for a damages class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a) and (b)(3). The defendants raised concerns about “ascertainability,” meaning whether class members could be identified, but the court said that requirement does not exist in the Ninth Circuit and would not meaningfully matter here. The court also rejected the argument that individualized damages from the drug-testing claim would outweigh the common issues shared by the class.

Merits Arguments

The defendants primarily argued that the claims themselves lacked merit. The court said the defendants might be correct “on a first look,” but explained that those merits arguments were not a reason to deny class certification. Whether pre-employment drug testing must be compensated and whether blended pay rates were lawful were issues common to all members of the respective classes. The court therefore did not decide those underlying claims in this order.

Further Proceedings

The court scheduled a further case-management conference by videoconference for July 15, 2020, and required a joint case-management statement by July 8, 2020. Judge Vince Chhabria entered the order.