Facts

Carlos Moreno worked for Pretium Packaging, Inc. as a warehouse associate in its Anaheim facility from approximately April 2017 to 2020 and was classified as a non-exempt hourly worker. Moreno brought a lawsuit individually and on behalf of all current and former employees of Pretium, alleging various violations of the Labor Code, claims under the Private Attorney General Act (PAGA), and unfair business practices.

PLAINTIFF'S CONTENTIONS: Plaintiff contended that defendants maintained a systematic, company-wide policy of failing to pay employees proper wages for overtime worked, failing to provide employees timely duty-free meal periods, failing to authorize employees to take timely duty-free rest periods, and failing to provide employees with accurate, itemized wage statements. As such, defendant regularly failed to provide plaintiff and the members of the aggrieved class of employees legally complaint meal periods and rest breaks. Further, plaintiff maintained that defendant was on actual and constructive notice of the unlawful policies and alleged improprieties.

DEFENDANT'S CONTENTIONS: Defendant denied all of plaintiff's contentions. More specifically, among other contentions, defendant contended that evidence showed that putative class members (1) received all meal periods or premium payments for those meal periods; (2) received appropriate double-time overtime compensation for all hours worked in excess of 12 hours per day; and (3) received appropriate rest breaks. Additionally, many putative class members had no legitimate reason to miss a rest break or take an untimely meal break. Defendant also contended that class certification would have been improper because, among other things, jobs in the putative class varied significantly and the proposed class definition, which would have included over 700 people, was overly broad. Based on these defenses, defendant contended that the putative class members' damages estimate of roughly $5 million dollars was significantly overstated.

Result

$1.6 million settlement