Opinion ID: 6346803
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: california labor law class

Text: We first consider CoreCivic’s arguments that the members of the California Labor Law class have not presented “a fully formed damages model” and thus cannot be certified. Owino claims that CoreCivic misclassified the detainees participating in the Work Program as “volunteers” rather than “employees” and thus failed to pay them the minimum wage required in California for “employees,” in violation of California wage and hour law. The district court certified the class, holding that Owino had met the “evidentiary” burden of “present[ing] proof that damages are capable of being measured on a class-wide basis.” We agree with the district court that Owino did not need to present a fully formed damages model “when discovery was not yet complete and pertinent records may have been OWINO V. CORECIVIC 17 still within Defendant’s control.” Rather, “plaintiffs must show that ‘damages are capable of measurement on a classwide basis,’ in the sense that the whole class suffered damages traceable to the same injurious course of conduct underlying the plaintiffs’ legal theory.” Just Film, Inc. v. Buono, 847 F.3d 1108, 1120 (9th Cir. 2017) (quoting Comcast, 569 U.S. at 34). In other words, “plaintiffs must be able to show that their damages stemmed from the defendant’s actions that created the legal liability.” Vaquero v. Ashley Furniture Indus., Inc., 824 F.3d 1150, 1154 (9th Cir. 2016) (citation omitted). There is a clear line of causation between the alleged misclassification of detainee employees as “volunteers” and the deprivation of earnings they may have suffered as a consequence of the violation of California wage and hour laws. See id. at 1155 (holding that, “[i]n a wage and hour case . . . the employer-defendant’s actions necessarily caused the class members’ injury”). According to evidence from a CoreCivic manager, spreadsheets of wages paid, and CoreCivic’s corporate policy itself, ICE detainees participated in the Work Program across CoreCivic’s facilities, for which they were almost never paid more than $1.50 per day. If CoreCivic did indeed misclassify these participants as “volunteers” (e.g., because the detainees should have been considered “employees”), CoreCivic would necessarily have failed to pay the minimum hourly wage required by California law. Thus, any damages that the class members are owed necessarily “stemmed from [CoreCivic’s] actions.” Id. Owino presented sufficient evidence to show that damages are capable of measurement on a class-wide basis. This evidence includes documentation of “typical” shift lengths, the days worked by ICE detainees, the wages paid, 18 OWINO V. CORECIVIC and the job assignments. Additional testimony and CoreCivic records can establish details about which detainees participated in the Work Program, see Ridgeway v. Walmart Inc., 946 F.3d 1066, 1087 (9th Cir. 2020), and as the Supreme Court emphasized in Tyson Foods, sufficiently reliable representative or statistical evidence can be used to establish the hours that a class of employees had worked. 577 U.S. at 459.
In seeking certification of the California Labor Law class, Owino alleged that detainees’ participation in the Program violated a variety of state labor law provisions, as well as California’s Unfair Competition Law (“UCL”), Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200, et seq. CoreCivic notes, correctly: “Other than the California UCL claim [which has a four-year statute of limitations, id. § 17208], all other state law claims have a one-, two-, or three-year statute of limitations.” CoreCivic thus argues that Owino is barred from representing this class at all, because his last day in the Work Program was May 22, 2013, which is more than four years before he filed the May 31, 2017, complaint. (Owino disputes this date, claiming he worked until his release on March 9, 2015.) CoreCivic further argues that Gomez is time-barred from pursuing non-UCL claims, because his last day in the Work Program was September 7, 2013. The district court held that, for the purposes of the certification motion, even if the plaintiffs’ claims under the California Labor Code are time-barred, they could still recover for the majority of the alleged violations under the UCL because the UCL prohibits unfair competition, defined as “any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice,” Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200, and naturally this includes such violations of California’s wage and hour law. OWINO V. CORECIVIC 19 Under this characterization, the class period for all claims seeking remedies under the UCL begins May 31, 2013; the period for waiting-time and failure-to-pay claims begins May 31, 2014; and the period for claims as to the alleged failure to provide wage statements begins May 31, 2016 (for remedies pursuant to Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 340), or May 31, 2014 (for remedies pursuant to Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 338). As to the named plaintiffs, the district court ruled that neither Owino nor Gomez is typical of the members of the California Labor Law class seeking penalties under California Labor Code § 226 (which requires employers to provide wage statements to employees), and that Gomez is not typical of members of the California Labor Law Class seeking waiting-time penalties under California Labor Code § 203. Nonetheless, the court found that Owino is part of the California Labor Law class for the wage claims, for failure to pay compensation upon termination, and for waiting time penalties and actual damages for the failure to provide wage statements, while Gomez is part of the California Labor Law class for the wage claims. Due to CoreCivic’s “belated assertion of . . . factual disputes concerning whether Mr. Owino worked during the Class Period for the California Labor Law Class,” the district court stated it was “disinclined to resolve this issue at the class certification stage . . . particularly given that Mr. Gomez remains a viable class representative for the majority of the claims of the California Labor Law Class.” Because plaintiffs can recover for almost all of the alleged violations under the UCL, the district court properly rejected CoreCivic’s argument against certification as predicated on “a distinction without a difference.” The district court appropriately exercised its discretion by 20 OWINO V. CORECIVIC declining to resolve a factual matter that CoreCivic raised for the first time in its post-hearing supplemental brief, and which the district court concluded was not dispositive of certification. We agree with the district court that Owino and Gomez are typical of the class they are seeking to represent and their allegations, if true, fit within the statutes they invoke. Although they may run into statute of limitations issues— some disputed and unproven—narrowing the class based on statute of limitations is not required at the certification stage. Cf. Int’l Woodworkers of Am. v. Chesapeake Bay Plywood Corp., 659 F.2d 1259, 1270 (4th Cir. 1981) (“Courts passing upon motions for class certification have generally refused to consider the impact of such affirmative defenses as the statute of limitations on the potential representative’s case.”).
Finally, CoreCivic argues that because Owino and Gomez “did not reference their failure-to-pay/waiting-time claim ([Cal. Labor Code] §§ 201–203)” in their motion for class certification, the district court should not have certified that claim as one common to the California Labor Law class. Because the claims are affirmatively interwoven in Owino’s pleadings, the district court did not abuse its discretion in certifying this claim. To begin, the complaint included California Labor Code §§ 201–03 among the causes of action for the California Labor Law class: Plaintiffs and Class Members incorporate the above allegations by reference. OWINO V. CORECIVIC 21 California Labor Code §§ 201 and 202 require CoreCivic to pay all compensation due and owing to Plaintiffs and Class Members immediately upon discharge or within seventy-two hours of their termination of employment. Cal. Labor Code § 203 provides that if an employer willfully fails to pay compensation promptly upon discharge or resignation, as required by §§ 201 and 202, then the employer is liable for such “waiting time” penalties in the form of continued compensation up to thirty workdays. CoreCivic willfully failed to pay Plaintiffs and Class Members who are no longer employed by CoreCivic compensation due upon termination as required by Cal. Labor Code §§ 201 and 202. As a result, CoreCivic is liable to Plaintiffs and former employee Class Members waiting time penalties provided under Cal. Labor Code § 203, plus reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs of suit. Owino asserted that CoreCivic violated a dozen provisions of the California Labor Code with respect to the members of the California Labor Law class. The motion for class certification then stated, “Plaintiffs’ claims on behalf of the CA Labor Law Class for violations of the California Labor Code . . . all turn on a common legal question: whether ICE detainees that worked through the [Work Program] at CoreCivic’s facilities in California are employees of CoreCivic under California law . . . .” Owino then discussed this question in depth. 22 OWINO V. CORECIVIC CoreCivic has cited no precedent to suggest that Owino must specifically list the citation of each of the dozen provisions of the California Labor Code in the motion for class certification. Such an approach would exalt form over substance and ignore the fair notice Owino provided to CoreCivic throughout the certification proceeding. Rather, because Owino outlined these provisions substantively in the complaint, stated that “all” of the alleged violations of the Labor Code turn on a common question, and discussed the common question at length, Owino sufficiently referenced this matter before the district court.