Facts

Mario Cortez, Maria Cisneros, Antonio Toscano, Francisco Javier Gonzalez, Cecilia Garcia, Jose Luis Raygoza, and Jose Guzman filed a class action lawsuit against Vieira Custom Chopping Inc., V&S Commodity Inc., Christina Vieira, and Matthew Sepeda in relation to defendants' employment and compensation practices.

PLAINTIFFS' CONTENTIONS: Plaintiffs alleged that they were employed by defendants in different positions for varying lengths of time, and were often required to work over 12 hours per day for at least 6 days per week during the corn and wheat season. Plaintiffs contended that the duties of shop workers, truck drivers, and weighers did not fall under the Fair Labor Standards Act's agricultural exemption, so defendants had misclassified them as agricultural employees. As such, plaintiffs argued they were provided insufficient or late meal periods, and inadequate rest periods. Plaintiffs also claimed defendants did not properly compensate them for overtime hours worked and did not provide proper accurate itemized wage statements. Plaintiffs asserted causes of action under the FLSA, California Labor Code, California Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Orders, and unfair competition law.

DEFENDANTS' CONTENTIONS: Defendants denied the allegations and alleged that plaintiffs merely chose not to take the legally sufficient meal and rest periods that were provided to them.

Result

The court granted preliminary approval of a settlement reached between the parties under which defendants agreed to pay a maximum of $450,000 in installments. Of that sum, defendants agreed to pay up to $18,500 to the claims administrator, $10,000 as a PAGA settlement, $7,500 to each named plaintiff as an incentive payment, $112,500 to class counsel in attorney fees, and up to $8,900 in litigation costs.