Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_18-cv-04182/USCOURTS-cand-3_18-cv-04182-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 790
Nature of Suit: Other Labor Litigation
Cause of Action: 05:704 Labor Litigation

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

CODY MEEK,

Plaintiff,

v.

SKYWEST, INC., et al.,

Defendants.

Case No. 17-cv-01012-JD 

ORDER RE MOTION TO DISMISS

AND MOTION FOR CLARIFICATION

Re: Dkt. Nos. 91, 94

This is a wage-and-hour putative class action brought by plaintiff Cody Meek, a former 

ramp agent at San Francisco International Airport, against his former employers, defendants

SkyWest, Inc., and SkyWest Airlines, Inc. (“SkyWest”). In a prior order, the Court found that 

plaintiff and defendants were parties to a collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) under the 

Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. (“RLA”). Dkt. No. 90. The Court now resolves 

defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiff’s amended complaint, Dkt. No. 94, and plaintiff’s motion 

for clarification, Dkt. No. 91, which asks for guidance on the scope of the partial summary 

judgment order against him in light of the CBA. 

DISCUSSION

I. COUNTS I & II: MINIMUM WAGES AND MEAL BREAK CLAIMS

Meek’s first and second claims allege a failure to pay minimum wages in violation of 

California law, and missed or shorter meal breaks. Dkt. No. 41 ¶¶ 86-104. Meek asserts that 

SkyWest paid its employees as they were scheduled to work rather than according to the times 

they actually worked (i.e., they paid “to the schedule”) and SkyWest thus failed to “pay working 

hours from punch-in to punch-out, pay for meal breaks that were either not actually able to be 

taken or shorter than required, and pay for working beyond the scheduled shift when required by 

the airline’s needs.” Id. ¶¶ 91, 93. Meek alleges that these practices violated several different 

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sections of the California Labor Code. Meek also alleges that “SkyWest violated Labor Code 

§§ 226.7 and 512 by automatically deducting exactly 30 minute meal breaks when plaintiff and 

class members were unable to be relieved of their duties for a full 30-minute meal break during a 

shift in excess of 5 hours.” Id. ¶ 100.

SkyWest says that these claims are preempted by the RLA. Dkt. No. 94 at 4-8. The point 

is not well taken. SkyWest relies heavily on Blackwell v. SkyWest Airlines, Inc., No. 06-cv-0307 

DMS (AJB), 2008 WL 5103195 (S.D. Cal. Dec. 3, 2008), and Fitz-Gerald v. SkyWest Airlines, 

Inc., 155 Cal. App. 4th 411 (2007). This is odd because those decisions pre-date by approximately 

a decade the controlling opinion in Alaska Airlines Inc. v. Schurke, 898 F.3d 904 (9th Cir. 2018) 

(en banc). Schurke provides a rule on RLA preemption that is adverse to Sky West’s position in 

this case. That may be why SkyWest mentions it only once in a reply brief, with little meaningful 

discussion or analysis. The apparently intentional neglect of an on-point circuit decision is 

troubling and borders on a mischaracterization of governing law. This is all the more true because 

Schurke and the circuit cases that have followed demonstrate that there is no RLA preemption of 

plaintiff’s first and second claims here. SkyWest and its counsel at the Jones Day law firm are 

advised not to engage in such unprofessional conduct in the future, or sanctions may be imposed. 

In Schurke, the circuit determined, en banc, that a state law labor claim is preempted by the 

RLA in only two circumstances. The first is when the claim seeks purely to vindicate a right or 

duty created by a collective bargaining agreement itself, that is, when “the CBA is the ‘only 

source’ of the right the plaintiff seeks to vindicate.” 898 F.3d at 920-21. The second is when the 

state law claim is not “grounded in a CBA in the sense just explained,” but nonetheless “requires 

interpretation of a CBA, such that resolving the entire claim in court threatens the proper role of 

grievance and arbitration.” Id. at 921. “Interpretation” is to be “construed narrowly; it means 

something more than ‘consider,’ ‘refer to,’ or ‘apply.’” Id. (quotation omitted). If a state law 

claim “depends on a dispute over the meaning of a CBA, it is only ‘to that degree preempted.’” 

Id. at 922. The circuit emphasized that RLA §301 preemption is driven not by substantive 

conflicts in law, but is instead “grounded in the need to protect the proper forum for resolving 

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certain kinds of disputes (and, by extension, the substantive law applied thereto),” and so is, in 

effect, “a kind of ‘forum’ preemption.” Id. (emphasis in original).

SkyWest says that “plaintiff’s claim essentially challenges the legality of the reporting and 

pay mechanism negotiated and set forth in the CBA,” and so “requires interpretation of the CBA.” 

Dkt. No. 94 at 5. That is the wrong approach. “The plaintiff’s claim is the touchstone of the § 301 

preemption analysis; the need to interpret the CBA must inhere in the nature of the plaintiff’s 

claim. Therefore, a defense based on a CBA does not give rise to preemption.” Dent v. Nat’l 

Football League, 902 F.3d 1109, 1116 (9th Cir. 2018) (quotations omitted). When plaintiff’s 

“pay-to-the-schedule” claim is examined as pled, as it must be, it does not seek to “vindicate a 

right or duty created by the CBA itself,” Schurke, 898 F.3d at 921, and the need to interpret the 

CBA does not “inhere in the nature of the plaintiff’s claim.” Dent, 902 F.3d at 1116.

Nor are plaintiff’s claims preempted “because determining the ‘regular rate of pay’ 

requires interpretation of the CBA.” Dkt. No. 94 at 6. SkyWest says that determining “what any 

frontline agent’s regular rate of pay was at any point in time when he or she purportedly worked 

‘off-schedule’ or through a meal period without pay is far from obvious,” id., and would require a 

slog through mountains of data about pay categories, steps and overrides, inter-department 

transfers, and other details, id. at 6-7. But SkyWest misses the point. It has still established only 

that the Court will have to “refer to” or “apply” the CBA, not “interpret” it. Schurke, 898 F.3d at 

921. SkyWest’s RLA preemption arguments are consequently denied.

SkyWest’s theories for dismissal of Meek’s first claim under Federal Rule of Civil 

Procedure 12(b)(6) also fall short. Dkt. No. 94 at 9-10. SkyWest says that the complaint 

“conspicuously lack[s] allegations that he reported and sought approval for any of his allegedly 

uncompensated work, let alone that he did so and was refused payment.” Id. at 10. But this again 

fails to take on the claim as it is actually pleaded. Meek has alleged, among other things, that he 

“frequently worked time which was wholly uncompensated, including punching in early (to avoid 

being even a minute late), ‘unapproved’ missed meal breaks when he was unable to be completely 

relieved of his work duties due [to] incoming or outgoing flights, and times when he was not able 

to leave as scheduled due to the Frontline Employees being short-staffed at the end of his 

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workday.” Dkt. No. 41 ¶ 68. He has also alleged that, “[l]ike all SkyWest Frontline Employees, 

[he] was required to review and authorize that all of his time records were correct and accurate in 

DayForce. Any early check-in, lunch break not taken, late clock-out or additional time not 

originally [scheduled] required a written explanation to his supervisor. As was common with 

other employees, Mr. Meek’s additional working time was often not approved by the supervisor 

for wages.” Id. ¶ 73. These non-conclusory allegations of fact are sufficiently detailed and 

plausible to push plaintiff’s first claim over the threshold set in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 

550 U.S. 544 (2007), and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 678 (2009).

II. COUNT III: OVERTIME CLAIM

After finding the existence of a CBA, the Court granted summary judgment to SkyWest on 

Meek’s third claim for overtime, based on the exemption in California Industrial Welfare 

Commission Order No. 9-2001 § 1(E). Dkt. No. 90 at 4-5. Meek now asks “whether [the]

summary judgment of his Third Claim is limited to claims made under Wage Order 9, and whether 

his overtime claims under the Labor Code are still to be litigated.” Dkt. No. 91 at 4. SkyWest 

filed no response to Meek’s motion. It mentioned it in a footnote in its motion to dismiss reply 

brief, Dkt. No. 96 at 1 n.1, but that footnote does not explain why or how the Wage Order 

exemption disposes of Meek’s overtime claim to the extent it is asserted under the California 

Labor Code. SkyWest suggests only that the industry-specific Wage Orders “supplement the 

California Labor Code,” and that “there is no ‘conflict’ between Wage Order 9 and the Labor 

Code that needs to be harmonized.” Id. 

The actual language of the exemption in Wage Order 9 states that “this order shall not be 

deemed to cover those employees who have entered into a collective bargaining agreement under 

and in accordance with the provisions of the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. Sections 151 et seq.” 

California Industrial Welfare Commission Order No. 9-2001 § 1(E) (emphasis added). As such, 

while it exempts SkyWest from having to comply with any obligations imposed by Wage Order 9, 

it simply does not speak to employer’s obligations or employees’ rights under California Labor 

Code Sections 510, 511, 514 and 1194, which Meek has invoked in his third claim for relief. 

Consequently, the partial summary judgment on Meek’s third claim is limited to overtime wages

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under Wage Order 9. SkyWest has not presented a good reason to preclude Meek’s claims for 

overtime under the state Labor Code. 

III. COUNTS IV, V AND VI: INACCURATE WAGE STATEMENT, UNFAIR 

COMPETITION AND WAITING TIME PENALTIES CLAIMS

Meek’s fourth, fifth and sixth claims for inaccurate wage statements, unfair competition 

and waiting time penalties are derivative of his other claims. Curtis v. Irwin Indus., Inc., 913 F.3d 

1146, 1150 n.3 (9th Cir. 2019). To the extent SkyWest argues they must be dismissed because the

claims on which they are based are deficient, dismissal is denied. 

For Meek’s wage statement claim, SkyWest says that any claim for statutory penalties is 

time-barred because Meek did not file his complaint until after the one-year statute of limitations 

under California Code of Civil Procedure §340 had already expired. Dkt. No. 94 at 11. Meek 

clarifies in his opposition brief that he “only seeks actual damages and no penalties.” Dkt. No. 95 

at 12. Any claim for statutory penalties for inaccurate wage statements has consequently been 

disclaimed and is dismissed on that basis. To the extent SkyWest worries that awarding actual 

damages will result in a double recovery, that is of no moment at this stage of the case. The Court 

will not, of course, allow any windfalls in the form of double recoveries prohibited by law, but the 

purely theoretical possibility of that problem is no basis for dismissing an otherwise plausible and 

sound claim.

IV. COUNT VII: CLAIM FOR MINIMUM WAGES SET BY SAN FRANCISCO 

MINIMUM COMPENSATION ORDINANCE

The parties trade multiple arguments about Meek’s seventh claim for relief for failure to 

pay minimum wages in violation of San Francisco’s Minimum Compensation Ordinance. Meek’s 

claim rests on San Francisco Administrative Code Chapter 12P (Minimum Compensation

Ordinance or “MCO”) and California Labor Code Sections 223, 225.5 and 1197, and his claim 

also references San Francisco International Airport’s Quality Standards Program (“QSP”). Dkt. 

No. 41 ¶¶ 130-43. SkyWest says that “the QSP impermissibly limits the collective bargaining 

process” and so is preempted by the RLA; that Meek has failed to exhaust his administrative 

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remedies as required by the MCO; that SAFA waived application of the MCO as a term in the 

CBA; and that the QSP does not provide for a private right of action. Dkt. No. 94 at 8, 12-15. 

These are novel and complex questions that are poorly suited to resolution on a motion to 

dismiss and without a well-developed record. This is especially true given that the parties do not 

even agree on basic issues such as whether the MCO and QSP are respectively laws, statutes or 

regulations; and whether they are “two separate rules,” as SkyWest contends, or “the QSP is a 

subsection of the MCO,” as Meek contends. Dkt. No. 94 at 12-13; Dkt. No. 95 at 13-15; Dkt. No. 

96 at 7-10. The parties’ arguments about whether the 2012 “Addendum to CBA” constitutes a 

waiver under the MCO also appear to present questions that go beyond a permissible motion to 

dismiss inquiry, which is appropriately defined here by the four corners of the complaint.

An additional reason to defer consideration of the MCO and QSP questions is that 

SkyWest has again misstated the claims in the complaint. All of SkyWest’s arguments are 

fashioned as though Meek had made a claim directly under the MCO or QSP (or MCO-QSP). He 

did not. As the complaint indicates, and as Meek made even clearer in his opposition brief, his 

seventh claim for relief is brought under California Labor Code § 1197. Dkt. No. 95 at 13-14 

(“local minimum wage laws (like the MCO-QSP) are enforceable as a private right of action under 

the plain language of Cal. Lab. Code §1197”). Section 1197 provides, “[t]he minimum wage for 

employees fixed by the commission or by any applicable state or local law, is the minimum wage 

to be paid to employees, and the payment of a lower wage than the minimum so fixed is 

unlawful.” SkyWest does not dispute Meek’s right to sue under this Labor Code section. Dkt. 

No. 96 at 10. Questions such as whether there is a private right of action under the QSP are 

consequently irrelevant. The question of whether the Court can look under Labor Code Section 

1197 to the Minimum Compensation Ordinance and the Quality Standards Program as an 

“applicable state or local law” was not squarely presented by SkyWest’s motion and is deferred

for resolution after more comprehensive briefing by both sides on the issues raised. 

CONCLUSION

For Meek’s fourth claim for relief for inaccurate wage statements, any claim for statutory 

penalties has been disclaimed and so is dismissed on that basis. SkyWest’s motion to dismiss is 

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denied in all other respects. For plaintiff’s motion for clarification, the Court clarifies that the 

previous summary judgment order on plaintiff’s third claim for relief was limited to any claim for 

overtime wages under Wage Order 9 only.

This case had been referred to Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D. Laporte for settlement 

purposes but in light of her retirement, the Court refers it to Magistrate Judge Thomas S. Hixson 

for a settlement conference to be held as his schedule permits. A further case management 

conference is set for January 16, 2020, at 10:00 a.m., with a jointly proposed case schedule due by 

January 9, 2020.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: December 16, 2019

JAMES DONATO

United States District Judge

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