California Court of Appeal

In this class action, the lead plaintiff asserts that defendant Walgreens violated employees' rights to meal breaks. Denial of plaintiff's motion for class certification is affirmed, where: 1) the trial court properly analyzed the motion under the "make available" meal break standard of Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior Court; 2) the expert opinion incorrectly assumed that defendant must ensure that employees took their meal breaks, which is legally unsound under Brinker's "make available" standard; 3) emails from Walgreens to store managers pressuring the managers to ensure that employees took meal breaks cut against plaintiff's motion; and 4) the form declarations were unreliable, given the prevalence of falsity in the declarations and the fact that most deposition witnesses recanted their declarations to some degree.

Appellate Information

• Decided 11/13/2014
• Published 11/13/2014

Judges

• Wiley

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel