Ex-Employees Claim Company Records Support CVS Class Action Lawsuit

Nearly two years after filing a class action lawsuit against CVS, a group of former employees says they’ve found evidence that proves the company routinely overscheduled them — in violation of California law — and now the workers want a judge to rule in their favor to the tune of more than $47.5 million.

The ex-employees filed a request in federal court July 23 presenting their findings and asking the judge to issue a summary judgment in their favor, which would bring an end to the lawsuit and award damages to the plaintiffs. CVS will have an opportunity to respond before the judge makes a ruling.

In August 2018, a pharmacist and pharmacy technician from the Bay Area initiated the CVS class action lawsuit, claiming their former employer forced them to work longer hours and more days without time off in between than is allowed by California’s labor laws.

CVS Class Action Lawsuit Background

In filing the original class action lawsuit, one of the two lead plaintiffs, a CVS pharmacist from San Francisco, said he dispensed as many as 300 prescriptions a day and was routinely scheduled to work 12-hour shifts. Some days he worked even longer than 12 hours, the civil complaint said.

The other lead plaintiff was a Bay Area pharmacy technician and cashier who claims that she was so overworked she was unable to take any breaks during her shifts.

California’s labor laws governing pharmacies say no one selling or preparing prescriptions “shall perform any work in any store, dispensary, pharmacy, laboratory, or office for more than an average of nine hours per day, or for more than 108 hours in any two consecutive weeks or for more than 12 days in any two consecutive weeks.”

Pharmacists also won protection under the state Industrial Welfare Commission’s “wage order,” in 2000, when they were added to the list of employees covered by the rules for breaks. The wage order says employees are entitled to a “30-minute off-duty lunch break if they work more than 5 hours in a workday, and 10-minute breaks every 4 hours worked. A second 30-minute meal break must be provided if an employee works more than 10 hours,” according to the state’s Department of Industrial Relations.

Latest CVS Class Action Claims

Evidence gathered by the plaintiffs since filing the CVS class action lawsuit shows the company’s scheduling system recorded 148,000 instances of pharmacy employees working shifts longer than nine hours between July 2017 and December 2019, the new court filing states. Other store employees worked shifts longer than nine hours 100,800 times during the same period, the plaintiffs’ claim.

The scheduling system, called mySchedule, can be set up in such a way as to prevent labor law violations, but CVS did not use it that way, the plaintiffs’ claim. Instead, they say the pharmacy chain prioritized covering its staffing needs.

The plaintiffs also claim in the new petition that CVS revised its scheduling policies and practices in February 2020 to address the labor law issues raised by the lawsuit. That action, they claim, “is an admission that it has known that its practices were unlawful.”

As part of their request for summary judgment, the plaintiffs are asking for a total of more than $47.5 million. Most of that — $35.7 million — would be paid to California’s Labor and Workforce Development Agency as a penalty. The remaining $11.9 million would go to the plaintiffs and their legal team, the petition says.

The CVS Class Action Lawsuit is Case No. 4:18-cv-06278-HSG in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Oakland.

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