A group of personal bankers at Bank of America recently reached a settlement with the bank of around $6 million in a missed meals class action lawsuit.
The California meal breaks lawsuit includes a class of over 7,000 current and former Bank of America employees. In this case over California missed meal breaks, the plaintiffs allege that Bank of America failed to provide the meal breaks that California wage and hour law requires.
According to lead plaintiff Anton B., a former Bank of America employee, the bank failed to provide the one hour of meal break pay on the days when he was unable to start his lunch break before their fifth hour of work was over. He also claims that other personal bankers were in this same position, and thus began a class action California meal breaks lawsuit.
The settlement motion noted that ending the California meal breaks lawsuit with the settlement agreement would “yield a prompt, certain, and very substantial recovery for the settlement class members,” and would also avoid drawn-out inquiry into each class member’s individual circumstances.
In total, the California meal breaks lawsuit settlement includes around 7,310 personal bankers from Bank of America, later referred to as “relationship managers” after a change in title. Those qualified for this California meal breaks lawsuit include such employees who worked for a California branch of the bank between September 21, 2011 and December 31, 2016.
The settlement covers attorneys’ fees of about 25 percent of the total settlement cost, and the lead plaintiff will receive around $10,000 for his part.
The settlement proposal noted that the personal bankers involved in the class action lawsuit collectively took more than 381,000 meal breaks after the fifth hour of their shifts during this period, at an hourly rate of $199.97; the bank could actually owe over $7.6 million. This is not, however, the first such wage and hour settlement with similar claims.
Previous settlements have amounted to more around $5.4 million. This settlement of $6 million sits somewhere in between the two. “The result is well within the reasonable standard when considering the difficulty and risks presented by pursuing further litigation,” the settlement proposal said.
Earlier this year, Bank of America agreed to a $6.6 million settlement on other wage and hour claims.
California Meal Breaks
One of the main factors in this California meal breaks lawsuit is the California law that requires employers to provide a 30-minute meal break to employees, off-duty, within the first five hours of the employee’s work shift. If this is not complied with, employers are required by law to alternatively provide one hour of premium pay.
Filing a California Wage and Hour Lawsuit
Some employees may be nervous when speaking up about violations of California wage and hour laws, but there are laws in place to protect employees from retaliation. If your employer reacts negatively to you filing a wage claim over meal breaks, overtime, or another issue, you may have grounds to file a lawsuit. You may also be able to file a discrimination/retaliation complaint with the Labor Commissioner’s Office.
Other common California wage and hour violations include underpayment or unpaid wages, paying wages with insufficient funds, failure to provide meal or rest breaks, failure to provide one day’s rest in seven, failure to pay wages timely upon termination, and unlawful deduction of wages.
If you have suffered from violations of California meal break or overtime laws or other wage and hour violations, you may be able to file a California wage and hour lawsuit.
The California Meal Breaks Lawsuit is Belevich v. Bank of America, et al., Case No. 2:15-cv-9171-PSG-JPR, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
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