Facts

Angela Conti and Justine Mora worked as non-exempt employees for L'Oreal USA. a cosmetics company. On March 6, 2018, they filed suit asserting violations of California wage and hour laws including failure to pay overtime wages, failure to provide required meal periods, failure to provide required rest periods, failure to provide itemized wage statements, and failure to provide wages when due. On May 30, 2019, a second amended complaint was filed adding Private Attorney General Act claims and a separate Fair Labor Standards Act claim for failure to pay overtime.

PLAINTIFFS' CONTENTIONS: Plaintiffs contended that defendant required plaintiffs to work off the clock without paying them for all the time they were under defendant's control. Plaintiffs would clock out of defendant's timekeeping system in order to perform additional work that was required to meet certain job requirements. Specifically, defendant required plaintiffs to wait for loss prevention inspections after clocking for meal breaks and at the end of their scheduled shift. During this time, plaintiffs were not compensated and forfeited overtime wages. Moreover, due to plaintiffs' rigorous work schedules, plaintiffs were unable to take off duty meal breaks and were not fully relieved of duty for meal periods. The same situation would occur as to the required ten minute rest periods. On days plaintiffs were required to work for ten hours, defendants also failed to provide the required second off-duty meal period, and plaintiffs forfeited meal and rest breaks without additional compensation.

DEFENDANT'S CONTENTIONS: Defendant denied all contentions, generally alleging in part that it acted in good faith to comply with all applicable laws and that plaintiffs, to the extent they did not take the meal or rest period, did so on their own volition and chose not to take the breaks that were authorized and permitted.

Result

The case settled for $425,000.