Paul Tassin  |  May 22, 2015

Category: Labor & Employment

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Target class action lawsuitA federal judge has given the plaintiff in a California employee rights lawsuit a second chance to establish her wage and hour claim as a class action lawsuit.

The plaintiff, Fatima G., is a former employee of Target stores in Carson and Manhattan Beach, Calif. She filed this California employee rights lawsuit alleging that Target made a practice of forcing employees working closing-time shifts to wait for a supervisor’s permission to leave the store after clocking out, an alleged violation of California labor laws.

Background on Target California Employee Rights Class Action Lawsuit

According to her proposed California employee rights class action lawsuit, Fatima claims Target had a company-wide policy of requiring employees to use a designated exit. The exit, she says, was fitted with an alarm that was armed one hour before closing time. Any employee leaving the store after the door is armed would need a team leader to disarm the alarm and give the employee permission to leave. She alleged this practice resulted in about 90,000 Target employees in California waiting off the clock for 10 to 15 minutes per shift.

Fatima asked the court for Class certification in January 2015 for this wage and hour class action lawsuit. In May 2015, Judge Dolly M. Gee postponed a decision on that motion, citing a lack of evidence supporting the claim. The only deposition the plaintiff’s attorneys submitted to support the motion was that of the plaintiff herself. Fatima had not submitted any depositions of the approximately 400 current and former Target employees who had made declarations used in the opposing motion submitted by Target.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys had also commissioned a survey that might have supported their motion for Class certification. However, the survey administrator had made errors in the survey that the attorneys did not discover until it was too late for this California employee rights class action lawsuit.

Perhaps most significant to the issue of Class certification for this wage and hour class action lawsuit, according to Judge Gee, is a general lack of evidence that the allegedly unfair closing shift practice was going on in any Target store other than the one California location where Fatima was employed. Had the Class been certified as requested, it would have covered Target employees at all 270 Target stores in California from February 2010 through the date this California employee rights lawsuit was filed.

Leave to Amend California Employee Class Action Lawsuit

Judge Gee granted plaintiff’s counsel a second chance at deposing a select few of Target’s declarants, on the grounds that those declarants had not been named on a privilege log that Target had provided the plaintiff with earlier. The parties will have a chance to file supplemental briefs, after which Judge Gee will issue a final decision on Class certification for this California employee rights class action lawsuit.

Class certification is a pivotal issue in employee rights lawsuits. If granted, it allows the case to proceed as a class action lawsuit, with an entire Class seeking compensation all at once instead of just a few named plaintiffs. In this way, certification raises the stakes in litigation.

As a practical matter, once certification is granted, the defendant is very likely to agree to a class action settlement. With a multitude of claimants on the plaintiffs’ side, the defendant is faced with the possibility of an enormous loss. That gives the plaintiff Class substantial bargaining leverage, or “settlement pressure.” Research shows that 69 percent of California cases certified as class action lawsuits through a litigated motion end in settlement.

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