Brumble v. Andrew M. Jordan, Inc.

Background

This putative class action concerns wage-and-hour claims brought by Kerwyn Brumble on behalf of non-exempt employees of Andrew M. Jordan, Inc. Brumble began working for Jordan in 2019 as a laborer. His state-court complaint asserted claims for minimum wages, overtime, meal breaks, rest breaks, sick-time compensation, wage statements, waiting penalties, and unfair competition.

Jordan removed the case from Alameda County Superior Court to federal court. Jordan argued that Brumble’s employment was governed by a collective bargaining agreement and that the Labor Management Relations Act preempted some of the state-law claims. Jordan moved for summary judgment on the allegedly preempted claims and asked the court to compel arbitration of the remaining claims. Brumble moved to remand the entire case to state court.

Motion to Remand

The court held that removal was proper because the overtime claim was preempted by Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act. Applying the Ninth Circuit’s preemption framework, the court determined that Brumble’s employment was governed by a qualifying collective bargaining agreement. Under the cited California statutes, the ordinary state-law overtime right did not apply to an employee covered by such an agreement; the overtime right therefore existed solely because of the agreement and was preempted.

The court also explained that the same basic analysis applied to the meal-period, rest-period, and sick-time claims, as well as the portion of the unfair-competition claim based on those alleged violations. The court therefore denied Brumble’s motion to remand for lack of jurisdiction.

Summary Judgment

The court granted Jordan’s motion for summary judgment on Brumble’s overtime, meal-period, rest-period, and sick-time claims, and on the portion of the unfair-competition claim arising from those claims. The court found that Jordan had provided adequate evidence that the collective bargaining agreement applied to Brumble’s employment and that Brumble offered no contrary declaration or other evidence creating a material factual dispute.

The court rejected Brumble’s arguments that the agreement did not satisfy the requirements for exemptions from the state-law meal and rest-break rules. It concluded that the agreement adequately addressed the employees’ working conditions and included a final and binding mechanism for resolving meal-period disputes. The court held that Brumble’s claims under the relevant statutes failed as a matter of law.

Remaining Claims and Disposition

Jordan did not argue that the minimum-wage, wage-statement, waiting-penalty, and related unfair-competition claims were preempted. Instead, Jordan asked the court to compel arbitration of those claims under the collective bargaining agreement. Brumble opposed arbitration, arguing that Jordan waived the right to seek it by asking the court to decide some claims through summary judgment.

The court declined to decide whether the remaining claims were subject to arbitration. It declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over those state-law claims because the federal claims had been resolved, deciding the remaining issues in state court would be more appropriate, and resolving some claims in federal court had already prevented the claims from being adjudicated together. The court denied Jordan’s motion to compel arbitration, without prejudice to refiling it in state court after remand, and remanded the action to Alameda County Superior Court.