Castanon v. Winco Holdings, Inc.

1

ESMERALDA CASTANON and JOHN DURON, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. WINCO HOLDINGS, INC., an Idaho Corporation, doing business as WINCO FOODS; and DOES 1-10, inclusive, Defendants.

No. 2:20-cv-01656-MCE-EFB

United States District Court, E.D. California

September 30, 2021

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

MORRISON C. ENGLAND, JR SENIOR UNITED STATE DISTRICT JUDGE

Through the present class action proceeding, Plaintiff Esmeralda Castanon (“Plaintiff”)^[1] challenges various wage and hour practices utilized by her employer, Defendant Winco Holdings, Inc., doing business as Winco Foods (“Defendant” or “Winco”) both on her own behalf and on behalf of others similarly situated. According to Plaintiff, Winco has failed 1) to pay its employees all wages owed, including overtime; 2) to provide legally compliant meal and rest periods; and 3) to pay all wages due upon separation. Plaintiff further alleges that wage statements provided by Winco have been legally non-compliant.

Winco now moves to dismiss Plaintiff's operative pleading, the First Amended Complaint (“FAC”), on grounds that because the allegations contained therein are generic and lack any specificity, they fail to state any legally cognizable claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 12(b)(6).^[2] In addition, Winco moves to strike, in accordance with Rule 12(f), the FAC's class action allegations as formulaic and conclusory

As set forth below, Winco's Motion is GRANTED in part and DENIED as moot in part.^[3]

BACKGROUND^[4]

Winco operates at multiple locations in California as a retailer providing supermarket products to consumers. Plaintiff was employed as a non-exempt customer service employee between 2001 and 2019 (her title was Loss Prevention Agent) at Winco's location in Chico, California.

Plaintiff alleges that she, as well as some 16, 000 other non-exempt Winco employees working in California, were required to check in and out of their shifts by using an electronic time clock. Plaintiff alleges that the time clocks “improperly rounded Plaintiff and the Class Members' time such that it resulted in a lower pay over time”, without providing any further detail except that the practice caused her “to be underpaid as many as 11 minutes in in a week and 4 minutes a week on average” between May 4, 2019 and July 6, 2019. FAC, ¶ 24. Plaintiff further alleges that improper rounding caused her to be unpaid for overtime. In addition, Plaintiff more generally alleges that she and others frequently worked more than eight hours a day and 40 hours a week, but were not paid for the resulting overtime, and similarly often worked more than 12 hours a day but were not compensated for double time.

Plaintiff goes on to claim that she and others were also not provided lawful meal and rest breaks and were not compensated for breaks that were missed. While she provides dates and times for when those failures allegedly took place for her, she provides no further explanation of the circumstances and no detail as to whether practices of Winco's caused other employees to also miss legally required breaks.

Additionally with regard to wage statements provided by Winco, Plaintiff alleges that those statements failed to reflect the omissions described above and further failed to properly record accrued sick leave balances and other required data. Again, there is no information as to how, and under what circumstances, such practices affected other employees. Finally, Plaintiff alleges that Winco failed to accurately compensate employees for all wages owed either at the time of termination, or within 72 hours for resignations without prior notice. No. facts of any kind, whether applicable to Plaintiff herself or to other class members, attach to that claim.

STANDARD

A. Motion to Dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6)

On a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), all allegations of material fact must be accepted as true and construed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Cahill v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 80 F.3d 336, 337-38 (9th Cir. 1996). Rule 8(a)(2) “requires only ‘a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief' in order to ‘give the defendant fair notice of what the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.'” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 (1957)). A complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss does not require detailed factual allegations. However, “a plaintiff's obligation to provide the grounds of his entitlement to relief requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Id. (internal citations and quotations omitted). A court is not required to accept as true a “legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555). “Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 (citing 5 Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1216 (3d ed. 2004) (stating that the pleading must contain something more than “a statement of facts that merely creates a suspicion [of] a legally cognizable right of action”)).

Furthermore, “Rule 8(a)(2) . . . requires a showing, rather than a blanket assertion, of entitlement to relief.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 n.3 (internal citations and quotations omitted). Thus, “[w]ithout some factual allegation in the complaint, it is hard to see how a claimant could satisfy the requirements of providing not only ‘fair notice' of the nature of the claim, but also ‘grounds' on which the claim rests.” Id. (citing Wright & Miller, supra, at 94, 95). A pleading must contain “only enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Id. at 570. If the “plaintiffs . . . have not nudged their claims across the line from conceivable to plausible, their complaint must be dismissed.” Id. However, “[a] well-pleaded complaint may proceed even if it strikes a savvy judge that actual proof of those facts is improbable, and ‘that a recovery is very remote and unlikely.'” Id. at 556 (quoting Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236 (1974)).

A court granting a motion to dismiss a complaint must then decide whether to grant leave to amend. Leave to amend should be “freely given” where there is no “undue delay, bad faith or dilatory motive on the part of the movant, . . . undue prejudice to the opposing party by virtue of allowance of the amendment, [or] futility of the amendment . . . .” Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962); Eminence Capital, LLC v. Aspeon, Inc., 316 F.3d 1048, 1052 (9th Cir. 2003) (listing the Foman factors as those to be considered when deciding whether to grant leave to amend). Not all of these factors merit equal weight. Rather, “the consideration of prejudice to the opposing party . . . carries the greatest weight.” Id. (citing DCD Programs, Ltd. v. Leighton, 833 F.2d 183, 185 (9th Cir. 1987)). Dismissal without leave to amend is proper only if it is clear that “the complaint could not be saved by any amendment.” Intri-Plex Techs. v. Crest Group, Inc., 499 F.3d 1048, 1056 (9th Cir. 2007) (citing In re Daou Sys., Inc., 411 F.3d 1006, 1013 (9th Cir. 2005); Ascon Props., Inc. v. Mobil Oil Co., 866 F.2d 1149, 1160 (9th Cir. 1989) (“Leave need not be granted where the amendment of the complaint . . . constitutes an exercise in futility . . . .”)).

B. Motion to Strike under Rule 12(f)

The Court may strike “from any pleading any insufficient defense or any redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(f). “[T]he function of a 12(f) motion to strike is to avoid the expenditure of time and money that must arise from litigating spurious issues by dispensing with those issues prior to trial....” Sidney-Vinstein v. A.H. Robins Co., 697 F.2d 880, 885 (9th Cir. 1983). Immaterial matter is that which has no essential or important relationship to the claim for relief or the defenses being pleaded. Fantasy, Inc. v. Fogerty, 984 F.2d 1524, 1527 (9th Cir. 1993), rev'd on other grounds510 U.S. 517 (1994) (internal citations and quotations omitted). Impertinent matter consists of statements that do not pertain, and are not necessary, to the issues in question. Id.

ANALYSIS

A. First Cause of Action for Failure to Pay Wages, Including Overtime

As set forth above, Plaintiff generically alleges that Winco failed to pay overtime and double time wages as authorized by law, and somehow used the time clocks which tracked non-exempt employee's hours to “improperly round” time in a manner that impermissibly deprived employees of their entitlement to properly calculated wages. Plaintiff offers no explanation as to how any rounding employed would not have been employed in a neutral fashion so as favor Winco over the interests of its employees. In addition, aside from alleging she worked in excess of 40 hours between May 4, 2019, and July 6, 2019, Plaintiff says nothing about how often she worked overtime, the number of hours involved, or the overtime wages she believes she is owed.

In Landers v. Quality Commc'ns, Inc., 771 F.3d 638 (9th Cir. 2014), the Ninth Circuit made clear that minimum pleading requirements require “detail regarding a given workweek, ” including the length of the average week the amount of overtime wages believed to be owed, and other facts “that will permit the court to find plausibility.” Id. at 645, 646. Plaintiff's factual allegations as they currently stand are plainly insufficient under Landers. The required detail is simply not provided. Additionally, Pla...