Nestlé Waters Faces Wage and Hour Class Action Lawsuit

A proposed wage and hour class action lawsuit was filed in California state court accusing Nestlé Waters North America Inc. of denying employees meal and rest breaks and not compensating them for overtime, vacation time and paying a minimum wage.

Plaintiffs Ricardo Ortega and Chris Davis were former employees of the company and filed their proposed wage and hour class action lawsuit against Nestlé on June 10 alleging it violated California labor laws.

Wage and Hour Class Action Lawsuit Alleges Meal Break, Overtime Violations

In addition to not correctly paying employees during their time of employment and providing them adequate meal and rest breaks, the pair of plaintiffs also allege that after their employment was terminated, Nestlé did not pay all wages due to the workers. They also accuse Nestlé of not providing accurate wage statements.

Ortega’s and Davis’ proposed wage and hour class action lawsuit seeks to represent all employees of Nestlé who were classified as nonexempt, who worked in California from June 10, 2010, to the present and who experienced the injuries alleged in the complaint.

“As a pattern and practice, defendants regularly did not provide employees with meal periods and rest breaks and did not provide proper compensation for this failure,” the proposed wage and hour class action lawsuit reads.

California labor law requires employers to give employees a 10 minute rest break for every four hours worked and an additional 30 minute meal break for every five hours worked, according to the complaint.

In addition to a general California Class, the proposed lawsuit also seeks to certify a meal period subclass, a rest break subclass, an overtime subclass and additional subclasses based on the allegations. These classes are all allegedly owed overtime for working more than eight hours in a day or 40 hours in a week.

The complaint also proposes a vacation pay subclass for those nonexempt workers who were not properly paid all wages for vacation time, floating holidays, flexible days, personal days and paid time off days once the workers terminated their employment with Nestlé Waters.

Of workers who were fired from Nestlé Waters, the claim alleges that these individuals were not paid the wages that they were owed within 72 hours of being terminated.

Although Ortega and Davis say they are unsure of how many members would make up the various classes of this wage and hour class action lawsuit, they say their identities would be easily accessed through the payroll records that Nestlé keeps.

On behalf of the proposed class, Ortega and Davis are seeking compensation for the time worked that they are allegedly owed from unpaid overtime, rest and meal breaks, vacation pay and minimum wage standards, reimbursement for work-related expenses and penalties, attorneys’ fees and costs and consequential damages.

The Nestle Waters Class Action Lawsuit is Ricardo Ortega et al. v. Nestle Waters North America Inc. et al., Case No. BC623610, in the Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles.

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