Avalos v. Amazon.Com LLC

JUAN C. AVALOS, Plaintiff, v. AMAZON.COM LLC and GOLDEN STATE FC LLC, Defendants.

No. 1:18-cv-00567-DAD-BAM

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

August 14, 2018

ORDER GRANTING MOTION TO DISMISS WITH LEAVE TO AMEND

(Doc. No. 27)

This matter comes before the court on defendants' May 10, 2018 motion to dismiss plaintiff's first amended complaint ("FAC") for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted. (Doc. No. 27.) Plaintiff filed an opposition to this motion on July 25, 2018, and defendants replied on July 31, 2018. (Doc. Nos. 31, 32.) The court heard argument on August 7, 2018, with attorney Isandra Fernandez appearing on behalf of plaintiff and attorney Roberta Kuehne appearing on behalf of defendants. For the reasons discussed below, the court will grant the motion to dismiss with leave to amend.

BACKGROUND

This case was originally filed in Riverside County Superior Court on January 12, 2018, and removed to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on March 6, 2018. (Doc. Nos. 1, 1-1.) Plaintiff filed the FAC on April 19, 2018. (Doc. No. 22.) The case was transferred to this court pursuant to the stipulation of the parties on April 26, 2018, and thereafter assigned to the undersigned. (Doc. Nos. 24, 25.)

Plaintiff's FAC alleges as follows. Defendant Amazon.com owns warehouses, commonly called "fulfillment centers," from which products bought online are shipped. (Doc. No. 22 at ¶ 13.) Defendant Golden State operates these fulfillment centers for Amazon.com in California. (Id. at ¶ 14.) Plaintiff worked at defendants' fulfillment center in Moreno Valley, California from July 2016 to May 2017, working in the "out bound" department, which processes packages slated for distribution. (Id. at ¶ 15.) According to plaintiff, defendants had a policy of "failing to pay all wages due under its bonus policies," and failing to "include bonus payments in the calculation of overtime wages." (Id. at ¶ 16.) Plaintiff was "frequently required to work in excess of five (5) hours without a minimum thirty (30) minute meal period due to the fact the numerous employees were required to wait in line waiting to exit the facility to take their scheduled thirty (30) minute meal break." (Id. at ¶ 18.) Additionally, plaintiff was "not provided with a second minimum 30 minute meal period when [he] worked in excess of ten (10) hours." (Id.) Furthermore, "[d]ue to the distance that Non Exempt Employees had to walk in order to take their rest breaks and the time spent waiting in line to exit for their breaks, Plaintiff and Class Members were frequently required to work without being permitted or authorized a minimum ten (10) minute rest period for every four hours or major fraction thereof." (Id. at ¶ 19.) Plaintiff also was not provided a third rest break when he worked more than ten hours in a day. (Id.)

Plaintiff presents six causes of action in the FAC: (1) failure to pay overtime wages in violation of Labor Code §§ 1194 and 1199; (2) failure to provide lawful meal periods in violation of Labor Code §§ 226.7 and 512; (3) failure to provide lawful rest periods in violation of Labor Code § 226.7; (4) failure to pay wages due at termination in violation of Labor Codes §§ 201-03; (5) failure to provide accurate itemized wage statements in violation of Labor Code § 226(b); and (6) violation of California's unfair competition law codified at Business & Professions Code §§ 17200-08. (Id. at 11-16.)

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LEGAL STANDARD

The purpose of a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) is to test the legal sufficiency of the complaint. N. Star Int'l v. Ariz. Corp. Comm'n, 720 F.2d 578, 581 (9th Cir. 1983). "Dismissal can be based on the lack of a cognizable legal theory or the absence of sufficient facts alleged under a cognizable legal theory." Balistreri v. Pacifica Police Dep't, 901 F.2d 696, 699 (9th Cir. 1990). A plaintiff is required to allege "enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). "A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009).

In determining whether a complaint states a claim on which relief may be granted, the court accepts as true the allegations in the complaint and construes the allegations in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U.S. 69, 73 (1984); Love v. United States, 915 F.2d 1242, 1245 (9th Cir. 1989). However, the court need not assume the truth of legal conclusions cast in the form of factual allegations. United States ex rel. Chunie v. Ringrose, 788 F.2d 638, 643 n.2 (9th Cir. 1986). While Rule 8(a) does not require detailed factual allegations, "it demands more than an unadorned, the defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. A pleading is insufficient if it offers mere "labels and conclusions" or "a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action." Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555; see also Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 676 ("Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice"). Moreover, it is inappropriate to assume that the plaintiff "can prove facts which it has not alleged or that the defendants have violated the . . . laws in ways that have not been alleged." Associated Gen. Contractors of Cal., Inc. v. Cal. State Council of Carpenters, 459 U.S. 519, 526 (1983).

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ANALYSIS

Defendants move to dismiss each of plaintiff's causes of action for failing to allege facts sufficient to state a claim. Plaintiff's overtime, meal period, and rest break claims will be discussed below.¹

1. Overtime Claim

Defendants move to dismiss plaintiff's first cause of action for failure to pay overtime, arguing that plaintiff has not alleged sufficient facts to state a claim under the standard set forth by the Ninth Circuit in Landers v. Quality Communications, Inc., 771 F.3d 638 (9th Cir. 2014). (Doc. No. 27 at 9-10.) In particular, defendants maintain plaintiff must allege specific instances in which he has not been adequately compensated for overtime work. (See id. at 10) ("[Plaintiff] cannot name a single specific occasion on which he was not compensated for overtime worked, nor can he name a pay period in which he was wrongfully underpaid overtime."). Plaintiff contends that the decision in Landers does not require him to allege any facts in addition to those already alleged. (Doc. No. 31 at 6-7.) While plaintiff need not allege specific instances in which he has been inadequately compensated for overtime, the court concludes that this cause of action must nonetheless be dismissed for the reasons discussed below.

Landers concerned the sufficiency of a pleading alleging failure to pay overtime wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"). See 771 F.3d at 641. While plaintiff's claims in this case are premised on California law, instead of the FLSA, numerous courts in the Ninth Circuit have nevertheless found Landers instructive as to the pleading standard applicable to such claims. See Yang v. Francesca's Colls., Inc., No. 17-cv-04950-HSG, 2018 WL 984637, at *8 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 20, 2018) ("Federal courts considering claims under the California Labor Code apply the standard set forth in Landers . . . , which involved claims under the Federal Labor Standards Act ('FLSA')."); see also Suarez v. Bank of Am. Corp., No. 18-cv-01202-MEJ, 2018 WL 2431473, at *4 (N.D. Cal. May 30, 2018) (same). In Landers, the Ninth Circuit held that, "inorder to survive a motion to dismiss, a plaintiff asserting a claim to overtime payments must allege that she worked more than forty hours in a given workweek without being compensated for the overtime hours worked during that workweek." 771 F.3d at 644-45. The court described the amount of factual detail that must be alleged as "context-specific," stating:

A plaintiff may establish a plausible claim by estimating the length of her average workweek during the applicable period and the average rate at which she was paid, the amount of overtime wages she believes she is owed, or any other facts that will permit the court to find plausibility. Obviously, with the pleading of more specific facts, the closer the complaint moves toward plausibility. However, like the other circuit courts that have ruled before us, we decline to make the approximation of overtime hours the sine qua non of plausibility for claims brought under the FLSA. After all, most (if not all) of the detailed information concerning a plaintiff-employee's compensation and schedule is in the control of the defendants.

Id. at 645 (internal citations omitted). The Ninth Circuit held that the plaintiff in Landers had failed to sufficiently plead an overtime claim because there was an absence of "any detail regarding a given workweek when Landers worked in excess of forty hours and was not paid overtime for that given workweek and/or was not paid minimum wages." Id. at 646. A plaintiff "should be able to allege facts demonstrating there was at least one workweek in which they worked in excess of forty hours and were not paid overtime wages." Id.

Since the decision in Landers, federal courts in this state have varied in defining precisely what allegations are sufficient to state such a claim. See Sanchez v. Ritz Carlton, No. CV 15-3484 PSG (PJWx), 2015 WL 5009659, at *2 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 17, 2015) ("In Landers' wake, courts have offered varying and possibly inconsistent standards for stating wage-and-hour claims under California law."); see also Tan v. GrubHub, Inc., 171 F. Supp. 3d 998, 1007-08 (N.D. Cal. 2016) ("On the one hand, Landers clarifies that mere conclusory allegations that class members 'regularly' or 'regularly and consistently' worked more than 40 hours per week—without any further...