Santos v. United Parcel Service Inc.

Background

Emilia Santos, a Preload Part-Time Supervisor at United Parcel Service Inc. (Ohio), brought a putative class action alleging violations of California wage laws and the Private Attorneys General Act. Her operative complaint asserted seven causes of action, including meal-break violations, rest-break violations, inaccurate wage statements, failure to pay wages at termination, an unfair-competition claim, and statutory representative claims.

The court previously granted in part and denied in part Santos’s motion for class certification. It rejected the proposed subclasses concerning unpaid time, meal breaks, meal-break waivers, rest breaks, and waiting time. It certified only a Wage Statement Subclass based on the theory that UPS wage statements were ambiguous because meal-premium payments appeared as a lump sum without separately listing the number of premiums, hours, or corresponding rate.

UPS moved for summary judgment on the certified Wage Statement Subclass. It also sought summary judgment on Santos’s Private Attorneys General Act claims for wage-statement violations and her individual rest-break claim.

Wage-statement claims

California Labor Code section 226(a) requires employers to provide accurate, itemized wage statements containing specified information, including gross wages, total hours worked, deductions, net wages, the pay period, employer information, and applicable hourly rates with corresponding hours. The issue was whether UPS violated that requirement by listing meal-premium payments as one lump-sum amount in a “Cal Meal” entry, without numbers in the adjacent rate and hours columns.

The court held that UPS’s wage statements complied with section 226(a). It reasoned that listing a meal-premium payment as an hourly rate and number of hours could confuse employees because the payment is an adjustment based on missed or inadequate meal periods, rather than ordinary pay for hours worked. The statements disclosed whether a meal premium was paid and the amount paid. An employee could divide that amount by the current pay rate to determine the credited meal-premium hours using figures appearing on the statement itself.

The court stated that it did not need to decide whether meal-premium payments must be treated as wages subject to section 226(a)’s reporting requirements. Even assuming that they must be reported, the court concluded that UPS satisfied the statute by listing the payments as a lump sum. The court therefore granted UPS’s motion for summary judgment as to the wage-statement claims under Labor Code section 226(a) and Wage Order 9 for the Wage Statement Subclass.

The court also granted UPS’s partial motion for summary judgment on Santos’s Private Attorneys General Act claim to the extent it sought penalties based on the wage statements.

Individual rest-break claim

California’s applicable wage order requires employers to authorize and permit paid rest periods, generally at a rate of 10 minutes for every four hours or major fraction worked. Santos testified that she was instructed to change a 15-minute rest break to a 30-minute meal period on her timecard, even though she had not taken a 30-minute meal break.

The court found that this testimony created a genuine dispute of material fact about whether Santos suffered an injury. If she had been instructed to record a paid rest break as an unpaid meal break, she may have been prevented from receiving wages for the rest break. The court therefore denied UPS’s motion for summary judgment as to Santos’s individual rest-break claim.

Disposition

The order granted UPS’s motion for summary judgment as to the fourth cause of action and the Wage Statement Subclass. It also granted the partial motion for summary judgment on the wage-statement-related Private Attorneys General Act penalties. The order denied the motion as to the second cause of action, Santos’s individual rest-break claim. The order disposed of Docket No. 123.