Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-1_15-cv-00842/USCOURTS-caed-1_15-cv-00842-2/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Sun Maid Growers of California
Defendant
Jonathon Talavera
Plaintiff

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

JONATHON TALAVERA, on behalf of 

himself and on behalf of all other similarly 

situated individuals, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

SUN-MAID GROWERS OF 

CALIFORNIA, a California Corporation; 

and DOES 1-50, inclusive, 

Defendants. 

No. 1:15-cv-00842-DAD-SAB 

ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION 

FOR CONDITIONAL CERTIFICATION 

(Doc. No. 19) 

 

On June 3, 2015, Jonathon Talavera (“plaintiff”) filed a complaint against Sun-Maid 

Growers of California (“defendant”) alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act 

(“FLSA”), 29 U.S.C. § 216(b), various California labor code and wage orders, and the California 

Unfair Business Practices Act, codified at Business and Professions Code §§ 17200, et seq. (Doc. 

No. 1.) On January 25, 2016, plaintiff filed a motion seeking conditional certification of a class 

under the FLSA. (Doc. No. 19.) Defendant filed its opposition on February 16, 2016 (Doc. No. 

21), and plaintiff filed his reply on February 23, 2016 (Doc. No. 22). This court heard arguments 

on March 1, 2016. (Doc. No. 24.) Attorney Cory Lee appeared on behalf of the plaintiffs and 

attorney Sandra Rappaport appeared on behalf of the defendants. For the reasons stated below, 

the court will grant plaintiff’s motion for conditional certification. 

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I. Introduction 

Defendant is a food processor that prepares and packages raisins and other dried fruit 

before shipping them throughout the world. (Doc. No. 21-1, Declaration of Matt Babiarz 

(“Babiarz Decl.”) at ¶ 2.) Defendant is headquartered in Kingsburg, California, where it operates 

its main processing plant as well as a cold storage facility. (Id.) Defendant also operates three 

satellite processing plants in various cities across California. (Id.) 

Plaintiff is a temporary worker who was employed by defendant at its Kingsburg plant for 

a total of eighteen (18) days in August and September of 2014. (Doc. No. 21, Opp’n to Mot. for 

Conditional Certification (“Opp’n”) at 1; Babiarz Dec. at ¶ 6). In his complaint, plaintiff alleges 

that defendant required him to perform certain tasks—specifically, donning safety and sanitary 

gear, and washing hands—for which he was not properly compensated. (Doc. No. 1, Compl. at 

¶ 14.) Plaintiff claims that these practices constitute a violation of the FLSA because they 

resulted in him—and other similarly situated employees—working more than eight hours in a 

single day without receiving overtime compensation.1 (Doc. No. 19-5, Decl. of Talavera 

(“Talavera Decl.”) at ¶ 14.) Plaintiff is currently seeking conditional certification of a class of 

similarly situated employees pursuant to § 216(b) of the FLSA. Plaintiff defines the FLSA class 

as follows: 

All individuals who are currently employed, or have formerly been 

employed, as nonexempt hourly employees at [d]efendants’ food 

processing facilities in California, at any time within three years 

prior to the filing of the original complaint until resolution of this 

actions [sic]. 

(Doc. No. 19, Mot. for Conditional Certification (“MCC”), at 1.) In support of his motion, 

plaintiff filed two declarations: one from himself and one from Carlos Ochoa, a temporary 

employee staffed at one of defendant’s satellite facilities. (Babiarz Decl. at ¶ 7.) In their 

 

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 The FLSA requires an employer to pay an employee overtime wages only when that employee 

works in excess of forty hours per week. 29 U.S.C. § 207; 29 C.F.R. § 778.102. However, at the 

hearing on the pending motion, plaintiff argued and defendant agreed, that the allegations of 

paragraphs 91 and 92 of plaintiff’s complaint reasonably infer that plaintiff did work in excess of 

forty (40) hours a week. Thus, plaintiff does state a claim under the FLSA. 

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declarations both plaintiff and Ochoa state that they were required to wash their hands and don 

“sanitary gear.” (Talavera Decl. at ¶ 4; Doc. No. 19-6, Decl. of Ochoa (“Ochoa Decl.”) at ¶ 3.) 

These actions were performed before punching in, and required them to wait in line, resulting in 

uncompensated work time. (Talavera Decl. at ¶¶ 6, 8; Ochoa Decl. at ¶¶ 4, 7.) 

Plaintiff also have filed multiple exhibits discussing defendant’s Good Manufacturing 

Practices (“GMP”) and Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures (“SSOP”). (Doc. Nos. 19-1, 

19-2, 19-3, and 19-4.) Plaintiff cites to these exhibits to show that “[defendant], as a food 

producer, fully enforces [its] GMP practices as required by law” and that “[defendant’s] program 

applies to employees, temporary employees, contractors, visitors, growers, truck drivers and all 

other authorized personnel entering any of the production areas at any Sun-Maid facility.” (Doc. 

No. 19-1 at 1.) Plaintiff also cites to various excerpts of these documents to demonstrate that 

defendant mandated hand washing and the donning of sanitary gear in certain circumstances. 

(MCC at 2 - 5.) 

Defendant does not challenge the existence of these policies. Rather, it contends that its 

policies do not discuss the timing of the above-described practices or whether employees are 

separately compensated for them. This silence, combined with plaintiff’s failure to declare he has 

personal knowledge these practices resulted in other employees engaging in uncompensated work 

time, should be enough to deny plaintiff’s motion for conditional certification according to 

defendant. Defendant also argues that because plaintiff is a temporary worker, and not a full time 

employee, he cannot claim to be similarly situated to the other potential class members. 

According to defendant, temporary employees can be distinguished from full-time employees in 

two regards: (1) they do not follow the same punch-in/punch-out procedures used by full-time 

employees, Babiarz Decl. at ¶ 12, and (2) they are not union members, unlike the majority of 

defendant’s full-time employees, id. at ¶¶ 3 - 5. 

II. Legal Standard 

Pursuant to the FLSA, an employee may file a civil action against an employer that fails to 

adhere to federal minimum wage and overtime law. 29 U.S.C. § 216(b). Additionally, “an 

employee may bring a FLSA collective action on behalf of himself/herself and other employees 

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who are ‘similarly situated’ . . . .” Millan v. Cascade Water Services, Inc., 310 F.R.D. 593, 607 

(E.D. Cal. 2015). Unlike a Rule 23 class action, non-party employees can join an FLSA class 

action only if they opt-in by “fil[ing] written consents to join the action.” Id. (citing 29 U.S.C. 

§ 216(b) and Valladon v. City of Oakland, No. C 06-07478, 2009 WL 2591346, at *7 (N.D. Cal. 

Aug. 21, 2009)). 

“Neither the FLSA, nor the Ninth Circuit, nor the Supreme Court has defined the term 

‘similarly situated.’” Id. (citing Kellgren v. Petco Animal Supplies, Inc., No. 13CV644, 2015 WL 

5167144, at *2 (S.D. Cal. Sept. 3, 2015) and Velasquez v. HSBC Finance Corp., 266 F.R.D. 424, 

426-27 (N.D. Cal. 2010)). Accordingly, courts in the Ninth Circuit have used an ad hoc twotiered approach to decide if plaintiffs are similarly situated. Lewis v. Wells Fargo Co., 669 F. 

Supp. 2d 1124, 1127 (N.D. Cal. 2009) (citing Wynn v. National Broadcasting Co., 234 F. Supp. 

2d 1067, 1082 (C.D. Cal. 2002)). This process has been described by one court as follows: 

The first step under the two-tiered approach considers whether the 

proposed class should be given notice of the action. This decision 

is based on the pleadings and affidavits submitted by the parties. 

The court makes this determination under a fairly lenient standard 

due to the limited amount of evidence before it. The usual result is 

conditional class certification. In the second step, the party 

opposing the certification may move to decertify the class once 

discovery is complete and the case is ready to be tried. If the court 

finds that the plaintiffs are not similarly situated at that step, the 

court may decertify the class and dismiss opt-in plaintiffs without 

prejudice. 

Syed v. M-I, L.L.C., No. 1:12-CV-1718, 2014 WL 6685966, at *2 (E.D. Cal. Nov. 26, 2014). The 

first step—the notice stage—employs a “lenient standard.” Millan, 310 F.R.D. at 607. “For 

conditional certification at this notice stage, the court requires little more than substantial 

allegations, supported by declarations or discovery, that ‘the putative class members were 

together the victims of a single decision, policy, or plan.’” Lewis, 669 F. Supp. 2d at 1127 (citing 

Thiessen v. General Electric Capital Corp., 267 F.3d 1095, 1102 (10th Cir. 2001)). 

III. Analysis

 Courts in the Ninth Circuit universally recognize that the standard used in the first step of 

analysis is a lenient one. Edwards v. City of Long Beach, 467 F.Supp.2d 986, 990 (C.D. Cal 

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2006); see also Talavera v. Sun Maid Growers of California, No. 1:15-cv-00842, 2015 WL 

7187960, at *2 (E.D. Cal. Nov. 16 2015) (“. . . the first step in this analysis uses a very lenient 

standard . . .”) (citing Murillo v. Pac. Gas & Elec. Co., 266 F.R.D. 468, 471 (E.D. Cal. 2010)); 

Millan, 310 F.R.D. at 607 (noting that the notice-stage standard is a “lenient standard”); Misra v. 

Decision One Mortg. Co., LLC, 673 F. Supp. 2d 987, 993 (C.D. Cal. 2008) (same); Adams v. 

Inter-Con Sec. Systems, Inc., 242 F.R.D. 530, 536 (N.D. Cal. 2007 ) (same). A plaintiff’s 

“evidentiary burden at this stage is to make substantial allegations, supported by declarations or 

discovery, that ‘the putative class members were together the victims of a single decision, policy, 

or plan.’” Syed, 2014 WL 6685966, at *3 (quoting Lewis, 669 F. Supp. 2d at 1127). This lenient 

standard is employed because “this first determination is generally made before the close of 

discovery and based on a limited amount of evidence[.]” Misra, 673 F. Supp. 2d at 993. 

“However, unsupported assertions of widespread violations are not sufficient to meet [a 

plaintiff’s] burden.” Mitchell v. Acosta Sales, LLC, 841 F. Supp. 2d 1105, 1115 (C.D. Cal. 2011). 

Here, although the evidence presented by plaintiff is certainly minimal, he has satisfied 

the low burden imposed on him at the notice stage for conditional certification. Plaintiff’s 

primary task at this stage is merely to show that “putative class members were subject to a single 

illegal policy, plan or decision.” Murillo, 226 F.R.D. at 471. Plaintiff has accomplished this. He 

has submitted defendant’s guidelines concerning its GMP and SSOP requirements. These 

requirements unequivocally mandate that all employees in food processing centers don certain 

sanitary and safety gear and wash their hands. Plaintiff also states in his own declaration that 

these practices resulted in extra time worked for which he was not properly compensated under 

the FLSA. Ochoa, a temporary employee staffed at one of defendant’s satellite facilities, states 

the same in his declaration. See Benedict v. Hewlett-Packard Co., No:13-cv-00119, 2014 WL 

587135, at *6 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 13, 2014) (“A plaintiff need not submit a large number of 

declarations or affidavits to make the requisite factual showing that class members exist who are 

similarly situated to him.”). Combined, the two declarations and documents submitted by 

plaintiff constitute more than “unsupported assertions” and do show that plaintiff and potential 

class members “[may have been] together the victims of a single decision, policy, or plan.” Syed, 

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2014 WL 6685966, at *3. Thus, the notice-stage standard is satisfied in this instance. 

Defendant attacks plaintiff’s ability to satisfy the notice-stage standard by drawing 

attention to plaintiff’s status as a temporary worker. Defendant argues that plaintiff and its other 

employees cannot be together the victims of a single policy because the majority of defendant’s 

employees are union members and are thus susceptible to an exclusion under the FLSA. But this 

argument is putting the cart before the horse. The exception noted by defendant—section 203(o) 

of the FLSA—may prove fatal to plaintiff’s action, but it is an issue that, under the approach 

adopted by courts in this circuit, is reserved for a decertification motion.2 Syed, 2014 WL 

6685966 at *2. The same can fairly be said regarding any discrepancies between the punchin/punch-out procedures used by temporary and full-time employees. 

CONCLUSION

 For the above stated reasons: 

(1) plaintiff’s motion (Doc. No. 19) is GRANTED; 

 (2) the court ORDERS parties to meet and confer regarding the form and manner of 

 notice and to submit their proposal within 21 days of the date of this order; and 

(3) no notice or opt-in form shall be sent to the conditionally-certified class members 

until this court has approved the form, content, and method of notice. 

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

Dated: March 18, 2016 

 UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE 

 

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 As noted by the court in Syed, during the second step of the two-tiered approach, “the party 

opposing the certification may move to decertify the class once discovery is complete and the 

case is ready to be tried.” 2014 WL 6685966 at *2. Upon reaching this second step, a court will 

review several factors, including: “(1) disparate factual and employment settings of the 

individual plaintiffs; (2) the various defenses available to defendant which appear to be individual 

to each plaintiff; (3) fairness and procedural considerations; and (4) whether plaintiffs made the 

filings required by the ADEA before instituting suit.” Bishop v. Petro-Chemical Transport, 582 

F. Supp. 2d 1290, 1294 (E.D. Cal. 2008) (quoting Mooney v. Aramco, 54 F.3d 1207, 1213 (5th 

Cir. 1996)). See also Thiessen v. GE Capital Corp., 267 F.3d 1095, 1103 (10th Cir. 2001) cert. 

denied 563 U.S. 934 (2002). 

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