Joint Employment Overtime Lawsuit Filed in U.S. District Court

A new joint employment overtime lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Nov. 7, 2018.

The joint employment overtime lawsuit was initiated by plaintiff Jose A., who alleges his employer used two business entities to avoid paying its workers overtime wages. Jose proposes to represent Class Members on the payrolls of both Sequoia Services Inc., and Statewide Roofing Inc., both headquartered in Santa Clara County, Calif.

According to the joint employment overtime lawsuit narrative, Sequoia is state licensed as a demolition contractor and Statewide is state licensed as a roofing and demolition contractor.

Both of the businesses operate with separate business license numbers, but jointly employ non-exempt truck drivers, demolitionists, roofers, and other miscellaneous employees. Jose says he was a non-exempt truck driver employed from May 6, 2015, to April 17, 2017, with the two companies.

In his joint employment overtime lawsuit, Jose indicated that he received two paychecks each payday—one from Sequoia and one from Statewide. He says there was one supervisor for the duties he undertook for the two companies and one person with whom he was to report emergencies to while on the job.

The latter was allegedly a Board member for Sequoia and a Secretary for Statewide. The plaintiff also indicated in the lawsuit that during his first year of employment, the truck that he drove to accomplish his duties was marked “Statewide.” The second year of his employment, he drove a truck marked “Sequoia.”

The plaintiff paints a picture in the joint employment overtime lawsuit that showed how little separation there was between the two entities. Jose claims that he regularly worked over eight hours in a day and over 40 hours in a seven-day period.

This schedule more than qualified him for overtime pay at one-and-one-half times his regular rate of pay. In addition to never being paid the overtime rate, additional hours were often thrown over onto the paycheck of the alternate company—to avoid paying the higher rate.

The plaintiff indicates that in addition to never being paid overtime, he usually worked throughout his shift without being offered a meal break or rest break as required by law. He was purportedly pressured to mark on a time card that he had taken such a break regardless of the truth by the supervisor for both companies.

In addition to seeking legal redress for himself, Jose hopes to represent a Class of all non-exempt current and former employees of both defendant companies. In particular, he hopes to assist roofers, demolitionists, truck drivers and miscellaneous employees retroactive to Nov. 7, 2014, to the final disposition of the legal action if they were not paid overtime or for all hours worked or at least minimum wages under the law.

Non-exempt employees within this class period that were not given or offered late meal breaks and not given or offered fraudulent or inaccurate pay stubs may also be included as Class Members.

The Joint Employment Overtime Lawsuit is Case No. 5:18-cv-06762-SVK in U.S. District Court for Northern California.

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