Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_17-cv-04151/USCOURTS-cand-4_17-cv-04151-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 790
Nature of Suit: Other Labor Litigation
Cause of Action: 28:1332 Diversity-Other Contract

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

JESSE BLACK,

Plaintiff,

v.

T-MOBILE USA, INC,

Defendant.

Case No. 17-cv-04151-HSG 

ORDER DENYING MOTION TO 

REMAND

Re: Dkt. No. 15

Pending before the Court is Plaintiff’s motion to remand. Dkt. No. 15. For the reasons 

detailed below, the Court DENIES the motion.

I. BACKGROUND

On January 31, 2017, Plaintiff filed this putative labor and employment class action in 

Alameda Superior Court. See Dkt. No. 1, Ex. A (“Compl.”). Plaintiff alleges that he worked for 

Defendant as a Senior Field Technician and was denied adequate overtime compensation as well 

as meal and rest periods from approximately 2008 through 2015. See id. ¶ 4.

According to Plaintiff, Defendant had “a company-wide” policy of scheduling technicians 

for rotating “on-call” weeks in which they “had to be available 24/7 to respond to service calls” 

and “could not use that time freely for their own purpose.” Id. ¶ 46; see also id. ¶ 56. An on-call 

week would run from Monday at 5:00 p.m. through the following Monday at 7:59 a.m. Id. ¶ 46. 

Defendant paid technicians $22.47 per day during these on-call weeks, but “failed to pay Plaintiff 

and class members for the remainder of the time during which they were not free to use their time 

for their own purposes.” Id. Plaintiff further alleges that Defendant did not have a policy 

permitting its employees to take a second 30-minute meal period on days they worked in excess of 

10 hours. Id. ¶ 48.

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On the basis of these facts, Plaintiff asserts nine causes of action on behalf of himself and 

the putative class for: (1) unpaid overtime; (2) unpaid minimum wage; (3) failure to provide meal 

periods; (4) failure to provide rest periods; (5) failure to provide accurate wage statements and 

maintain payroll records; (6) failure to pay wages upon termination; (7) failure to provide 

reporting time pay; (8) unlawful business practices; and (9) unfair business practices. See id.

¶¶ 39–115.

On July 21, 2017, Defendant removed the action to federal court under the Class Action 

Fairness Act (“CAFA”), 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d). See Dkt. No. 1. Defendant explains the delay by 

stating that Plaintiff’s discovery responses, received on July 13, 2017, indicated that Plaintiff was 

seeking compensation for every minute class members spent “on call.” See id. at 3–13. Given the 

small class size, Defendant asserts this information was essential to establishing that the putative 

class action would reach CAFA’s $5 million threshold. Dkt. No. 19 at 2–5.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

A. Removal Jurisdiction

A defendant may remove any civil action to federal court where the district court would 

have original jurisdiction over the action. 28 U.S.C. § 1441; see also Caterpillar, Inc. v. Williams, 

482 U.S. 286, 392 (1987). To do so, a party seeking removal must file a notice of removal within 

30 days of receiving the initial pleading or within 30 days of receiving “an amended pleading, 

motion, order or other paper from which it may first be ascertained that the case is one which is or 

has become removable.” 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b)(1), (3). The notice must contain a “short and plain 

statement of the grounds for removal.” Id. § 1446(a); see also Ibarra v. Manheim Investments, 

Inc., 775 F.3d 1193, 1195 (9th Cir. 2015).

The removing party bears the burden of establishing removal jurisdiction. Abrego Abrego 

v. Dow Chem. Co., 443 F.3d 676, 683–85 (9th Cir. 2006). A plaintiff may seek to remand a case 

to the state court from which it was removed if the district court lacks jurisdiction or if there was a 

defect in the removal procedure. 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c).

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B. Class Action Fairness Act

CAFA vests the district courts with original jurisdiction over civil actions in which the 

amount in controversy exceeds $5 million, there is minimal diversity of citizenship between the 

parties, and the action involves at least 100 class members. 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d). Under CAFA, 

“the claims of the individual class members shall be aggregated to determine whether the matter in 

controversy exceeds the sum or value of $5,000,000.” 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(6).

III. ANALYSIS

Here, Plaintiff challenges Defendant’s removal procedure, contending that the notice is 

both untimely and fails to establish CAFA jurisdiction. Plaintiff does not dispute that the number 

of putative class members exceeds the jurisdictional requirement, or that the minimal diversity 

requirement is met. Rather, Plaintiff contends that Defendant failed to satisfy its burden of 

demonstrating that the amount in controversy exceeds $5 million. See Dkt. No. 15. The Court 

first addresses the timeliness of removal and then turns to the amount-in-controversy requirement.

A. Timeliness

Plaintiff contends that the basis for CAFA jurisdiction was apparent from the face of the 

complaint, including the now-disputed amount in controversy. See Dkt. No. 15 at 4–6. 

“[R]emovability under § 1446(b) is determined through examination of the four corners of the 

applicable pleadings, not through subjective knowledge or a duty to make further inquiry.” Harris 

v. Bankers Life & Cas. Co., 425 F.3d 689, 694 (9th Cir. 2005); cf. Durham v. Lockheed Martin 

Corp., 445 F.3d 1247, 1251 (9th Cir. 2006) (“[W]e don’t charge defendants with notice of 

removability until they’ve received a paper that gives them enough information to remove.”).

Here, the complaint states that Plaintiff seeks “damages, unpaid wages, penalties, 

injunctive relief, and attorneys’ fees in excess of [] $25,000.” Compl., Prayer for Relief ¶ 1. He 

also states that his own “share of damages, penalties and other relief sought in this action does not 

exceed $75,000.” Id. ¶ 1. In the motion to remand, Plaintiff suggests that Defendant could have 

applied “simple math” to these allegations in order to determine that the amount in controversy is 

over $5 million. See Dkt. No. 15 at 6, n.2. Plaintiff states that the complaint indicates the 

damages “incurred by him” ranged from $25,000 to $75,000, and this could be extrapolated to the 

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approximately 100 putative class members. Id. Accordingly, Plaintiff argues, “the amount in 

controversy could be calculated at $7.5 million (i.e., $75,000 times 100 potential plaintiffs).” Id.

The Court agrees with Defendant that the amount in controversy was ambiguous from the 

face of the complaint. First, the “simple math” that Plaintiff suggests Defendant should have 

applied assumes that Plaintiff is seeking individual damages in excess of $25,000. Yet it is 

equally plausible to interpret the Prayer for Relief as seeking total damages for the putative class

in excess of $25,000. The only other indication of the amount in controversy in the complaint is 

the allegation that Plaintiff’s share of any damages is less than $75,000. See Compl. ¶ 1. 

However, the complaint does not provide a floor on Plaintiff’s individual damages. Defendant, 

therefore, could not simply multiply the requested damages by the number of putative class 

members to determine the amount in controversy.

Defendant also did not have an affirmative duty to investigate the removability of the

action. See Harris, 425 F.3d at 694. Yet even if Defendant had attempted to do so, the complaint 

does not unambiguously identify the scope of the alleged Labor Code violations. Plaintiff’s 

primary allegation against Defendant involves technicians’ uncompensated “on-call” time. See 

Compl. ¶¶ 25, 28, 45–47. Under California law, whether on call time is compensable turns on the 

level of control the employer exerts on employees. Courts look to a variety of factors to analyze 

this level of control, including whether employees actually engaged in personal activities while on 

call and whether the on-call time was “primarily for the benefit of the employer and its business.” 

See Mendiola v. CPS Sec. Sols., Inc., 60 Cal. 4th 833, 840–41 (Cal. 2015). Because the complaint

does not define the level of control Defendant allegedly had over on-call technicians’ time, it was 

reasonable for Defendant to clarify whether Plaintiff was seeking compensation for every minute 

during a technician’s on-call week. As discussed in more detail below, this clarification was 

especially necessary because compensation for this on-call time is the primary driver of the 

amount in controversy. See Section III.B.

Plaintiff would have the Court penalize Defendant for conducting some discovery before 

filing its notice of removal. The Court declines to do so. As the Ninth Circuit has stated, CAFA 

grants parties “time to develop in state court the facts necessary to support federal jurisdiction.” 

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Abrego, 443 F.3d at 691. That is precisely what Defendant did here and the Court finds that 

removability of the action under CAFA was not apparent until at least the parties’ meet and confer 

call on July 10, 2017. See Dkt. No. 1-1, Ex. E. Only at that time did Plaintiff confirm that he is 

“alleging that he was under [D]efendant’s control for the entire time that he was on-call (24/7) and 

is seeking unpaid wages for that entire time.” Id. Accordingly, the Court finds that Defendant 

timely filed for removal on July 21, 2017.

B. Amount in Controversy

Plaintiff next challenges whether Defendant has established by a preponderance of the 

evidence that the amount in controversy exceeds CAFA’s $5 million jurisdictional threshold.

When evaluating the amount in controversy, the Court must determine whether it is “more likely 

than not” that the amount in controversy exceeds $5 million. See Bryan v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 

No. C 08-5221 SI, 2009 WL 440485, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 23, 2009). The Court must assume the 

truth of the allegations in the complaint and that a jury will return a verdict for the plaintiff on all

the alleged claims. Id.

A defendant may not establish federal jurisdiction “by mere speculation and conjecture, 

[or] with unreasonable assumptions.” Ibarra, 775 F.3d at 1197–98. Instead it must rely on “real 

evidence and the reality of what is at stake in the litigation.” Id. Nevertheless, “a defendant’s 

notice of removal need include only a plausible allegation that the amount in controversy exceeds 

the jurisdictional threshold.” Dart Cherokee Basin Operating Co., LLC v. Owens, 135 S. Ct. 547, 

554 (2014). Courts have found that declarations or affidavits may be sufficient to satisfy this 

burden. See, e.g., Lewis v. Verizon, 627 F.3d 395, 397 (9th Cir. 2010) (finding an affidavit 

showing that “potential damages could exceed the jurisdictional amount” sufficient to satisfy the 

removing defendant’s burden). A defendant is only required to submit evidence establishing the 

amount in controversy “when the plaintiff contests, or the court questions, the defendant’s 

allegation.” Id. The Ninth Circuit has not determined whether the plaintiff must also submit 

evidence, and instead has held that the district court should “set a reasonable procedure . . . so that 

each side has a fair opportunity to submit proof.” See id. at 1199–1200. 

Here, Plaintiff contends that Defendant did not meet its initial burden of proof. The Court 

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begins with Plaintiff’s first claim for unpaid overtime compensation as it constitutes the majority 

of Defendant’s proffered amount in controversy. See Dkt. No. 19 at 14–17, 25. 

As an initial matter, to the extent Plaintiff is challenging Defendant’s declarations filed in 

support of removal, the Court finds that Ms. Moss, as one of Defendant’s human resources 

employees, established a sufficient foundation for her statements, particularly given the early stage 

of the litigation. Ms. Moss explained that her knowledge was based on her normal business 

responsibilities and her personal review of Defendant’s business records. There is no need, under 

the circumstances presented, for Defendant to provide the business records themselves. See Lewis, 

627 F.3d at 397; see also Altamirano v. Shaw Indus., Inc., No. C-13-0939 EMC, 2013 WL 

2950600, at *10 (N.D. Cal. June 14, 2013) (rejecting argument that the defendants have to 

produce records for precise calculations because “requiring Defendants to produce this 

information would amount to requiring them to prove up Plaintiff’s case on the merits”).

Based on these declarations and the allegations in the complaint, Defendant calculates that 

Plaintiff is seeking over $6 million in unpaid overtime for technicians’ on-call time alone. In 

reaching this figure, Defendant relies on several assumptions about technicians’ work schedule 

and compensation. See Dkt. No. 19 at 14–15, & n.5–7. Plaintiff challenges just two of these

underlying assumptions. First, Defendant assumes that while on call, technicians responded to —

and were compensated for — an average of 10.68 hours responding to on-call work (i.e., “call out”

hours). Second, Defendant assumes technicians worked — and again were compensated for — 15 

hours of overtime a week. Defendant then included this compensation in its calculations for the 

class members’ regular rate of pay. Id. Plaintiff states that in doing so, Defendant erroneously 

extrapolated from information about the named Plaintiff to the class a whole because Defendant 

based its assumption that technicians were compensated for 10.68 call out hours on Plaintiff’s own 

payroll records. See Dkt. No. 1-2 ¶ 4. And Defendant based its assumption that class members 

worked 15 hours of overtime a week on the allegation that the named Plaintiff “typically” worked 

40–55 hours a week and that his claims are typical of the other putative class members. See 

Compl. ¶¶ 4, 18(b).

A defendant may “rel[y] on a chain of reasoning that includes assumptions to satisfy its 

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burden” so long as “the chain of reasoning and its underlying assumptions [are] reasonable.” 

LaCross v. Knight Transp. Inc., 775 F.3d 1200, 1201 (9th Cir. 2015). Moreover, CAFA does not 

require Defendant to “conduct a fact-specific inquiry” into the schedule or exact compensation of 

each potential class member or “try the case themselves” before removing. See Bryan, 2009 WL 

440485, at *3; see also Korn v. Polo Ralph Lauren Corp., 536 F. Supp. 2d 1199, 1204–05 (E.D. 

Cal. 2008).

The Court finds that Defendant’s extrapolation from Plaintiff’s average work schedule is 

reasonable here in light of the other evidence in the record that indicates Plaintiff and the putative 

class worked similar schedules. Cf. Bryant v. Serv. Corp. Int’l, No. C 08-01190SI, 2008 WL 

2002515, at *4, n.3 (N.D. Cal. May 7, 2008) (finding use of plaintiff’s average hourly wage “an 

appropriate substitute” for the class for purposes of removal jurisdiction); Campbell v. Vitran 

Exp., Inc., 471 F. App’x 646, 649 (9th Cir. 2012) (finding removal proper where the defendant 

relied on the named plaintiffs’ schedules in calculating the amount in controversy).1Putative class 

members were all scheduled to work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, Dkt. No. 19-1 ¶ 3, and had the 

same on-call schedule from Monday at 5:00 p.m. to the following Monday at 7:59 a.m., see 

Compl. ¶ 46. All putative class members are current or former “Field Technicians or other 

functionally equivalent position[s] in California,” id. ¶ 13, and there are no allegations from which 

Defendant or the Court should assume that they performed substantially different work — either 

in volume or substance. Plaintiff further alleges that Defendant would pay technicians for the 

“hours they spent responding to service calls,” indicating that class members responded to at least 

some calls during the on-call week. Id. 

Unlike Plaintiff’s cited cases, Defendant’s assumptions here are not about the “violation 

rate” for unpaid overtime or missed meal and rest breaks. See, e.g., Ibarra, 775 F.3d at 1195. 

Rather, Defendant uses the compensated call out and overtime hours to determine class members’ 

“regular rate of pay.” Cf. Cal. Labor Code § 510 (setting overtime compensation as 1.5 times an 

employee’s “regular rate of pay” and double overtime as 2 times his “regular rate of pay”); DLSE 

 

1 As an unpublished Ninth Circuit decision, Campbell v. Vitran Exp., Inc. is not precedent, but 

may be considered for its persuasive value. See Fed. R. App. P. 32.1; CTA9 Rule 36-3.

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2002 Enforcement Policies & Interpretations Manual (Revised), § 49.2.5 (calculating “regular rate 

of pay” by dividing the employee’s total earnings for the week by the number of hours worked). 

Total earnings, in turn, include “all amounts [paid] for labor performed by employees.” Cal. Lab. 

Code § 200 (defining “wages”); see also DLSE § 49.1. This approach, which factors in all weekly 

compensation, is in keeping with the Labor Code and the complaint, which accuses Defendant of 

failing to incorporate all earnings in its actual overtime payments. See Compl. ¶¶ 51–53. The 

violation rate, on the other hand, is supplied by the complaint and Plaintiff’s discovery responses, 

which confirm that Plaintiff is seeking compensation for “every minute” that technicians spent on 

call and that Defendant only paid employees a flat per diem rate for this time. See id. ¶ 46.

Finally, even if the Court agreed that Defendant’s two assumptions are flawed, Plaintiff’s

claim for unpaid overtime still exceeds the $5 million amount in controversy. Assuming Plaintiff 

was not compensated for any call out or overtime hours, Plaintiff’s regular rate of pay would 

decrease from $20.01 in Defendant’s calculations, see Dkt. No. 19 at 15, n.6, to $16.07.

2

 Using 

this revised figure in Defendant’s calculations, Plaintiff is still conservatively seeking over $5

million in unpaid overtime for putative class members’ on-call time alone. The Court also notes 

that Defendant’s conservative calculations assume a minimum wage of $8.00, and do not account 

for the increase in minimum wage over time in 2014 ($9.00), 2016 ($10.00) and 2017 ($10.50). In 

short, the Court finds that Defendant has established by a preponderance of the evidence that the 

amount in controversy exceeds $5 million.

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2

[(40 hours in a workweek x $36.13 an hour) + (119 on-call hours x $8.00 an hour)]/ 159 hours 

worked in an on-call week = $16.07

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IV. CONCLUSION

Accordingly, the Court DENIES Plaintiff’s motion to remand. The Court further SETS 

the initial case management conference for November 28, 2017, at 2:00 p.m. The parties shall 

submit a revised joint statement by November 21, 2017.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated:

______________________________________

HAYWOOD S. GILLIAM, JR.

United States District Judge

11/2/2017

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