Former J&J Employees Allege Violations of California Overtime Laws

A group of former employees recently filed a wage and hour class action lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson, alleging that the company violated California overtime laws.

Five former employees allege Johnson & Johnson improperly calculated overtime rates in violation of California overtime laws.

According to the complaint, Johnson & Johnson allegedly pays their employees an hourly rate in addition to incentive pay when employees meet the company’s performance goals. California overtime laws say that incentive compensation must be included when calculating overtime rate of pay. However, Johnson & Johnson is accused of failing to follow these California overtime laws, calculating overtime rates of pay based only on regular rate of pay, not including consideration for incentive compensation.

“This uniform policy and practice of [Johnson & Johnson] is intended to purposefully avoid the payment of the correct overtime compensation as required by California law which allowed [Johnson & Johnson] to illegally profit and gain an unfair advantage over competitors who complied with the law,” the California overtime laws class action claims.

Other Violations of Labor Laws

The former employees have other claims of violations.  The plaintiffs claim that they were not given proper meal and rest periods, stating they were denied their ten minute rest periods after working four hours or two rest periods after working six to eight hours. Despite being allegedly denied their rest periods, employees were not properly compensated for their missed rest periods.

By denying properly calculated overtime rates and failing to provide rest periods, Johnson & Johnson allegedly provided inaccurate wage statements, another violation of labor law. The former employees say they received wage statements detailing the inaccurate overtime rate and not including compensation for denied break periods.

Another alleged issue found in the wage statements was the failure to list the correct legal entity that employed the plaintiffs.

All together, these violations are allegedly in violation of labor laws which require employers to provide accurate wage statements to their employees.

Johnson & Johnson also allegedly failed to reimburse business expenses submitted by their employees. California labor laws allegedly state that “an employer shall indemnify his or her employee for all necessary expenditures or losses incurred by the employee in direct consequence of the discharge of his or her duties, or of his or her obedience to the directions of the employer, even though unlawful, unless the employee, at the time of obeying the directions, believed them to be unlawful.”

The company’s alleged failure to compensate employees for business expenses directly violates this statute, the class action claims.

The group of former employees seek to represent a Class of individuals who were employed by Johnson & Johnson in California, were classified as non-exempt employees within the last four years, and were protected by California overtime laws. The group also seeks to represent a Subclass of similar individuals protected by California labor laws.

The class action seeks compensatory damages, actual damages, meal and rest period compensation, restitution, disgorgement, court costs, and attorneys’ fees.

The California Overtime Laws Lawsuit is Case No. 2:18-cv-05884, filed in the Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles.

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