David v. Queen of the Valley Med. Ctr.

51 Cal.App.5th 653

264 Cal.Rptr.3d 279

Joana DAVID, Plaintiff and Appellant,

v.QUEEN OF the VALLEY MEDICAL CENTER, Defendant and Respondent.

A157336

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 5, California.

Filed June 8, 2020

Mallison & Martinez, Stanley Scott Mallison, Oakland, Hector R. Martinez, Lafayette, and Liliana Garcia for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, Derek Richard Havel, Daniel J. McQueen and Matthew A. Tobias, Los Angeles, for Defendant and Respondent.

Jones, P. J.

In this wage and hour litigation, plaintiff Joana David (plaintiff) appeals from a judgment entered after the trial court granted her former employer, Queen of the Valley Medical Center's (QVMC or hospital) motion for summary judgment. Plaintiff contends the trial court "ignored" her evidence and violated California law by adjudicating her meal and rest period claims, and her time-rounding claim, in favor of QVMC.

We disagree and affirm.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Plaintiff worked as a registered nurse at the hospital from 2005 to 2015. Plaintiff was an hourly employee. During the relevant time period—September 2011 to May 2015—plaintiff worked two 12-hour shifts per week. Plaintiff clocked in and out of work using an electronic timekeeping system that automatically rounded time entries up or down to the nearest quarter-hour.

After her employment ended, plaintiff filed a complaint against QVMC alleging seven causes of action, including claims for failure to provide meal and rest periods, and failure to pay minimum wages. As relevant here, plaintiff alleged she was not paid for hours worked off-the-clock, such as when she performed " ‘charting’ " work, and when her meal and rest periods were interrupted by co-workers and " ‘charge nurses’ " who asked her work-related questions. Plaintiff also claimed she was not paid all wages because of the hospital's time-rounding policy.

Motion for Summary Judgment¹

QVMC argued its meal and rest period policies complied with California law, and that whenever plaintiff reported a missed break, she received an extra hour of pay. The hospital also contended it could not be held liable for missed meal or rest periods of which it was unaware. In addition, QVMC argued plaintiff was paid for all time worked, and that its rounding policy was legal. The hospital offered the following supporting evidence, derived largely from plaintiff's deposition testimony:

QVMC employees are entitled to an uninterrupted meal period of at least 30 minutes within the first five hours of a shift. Employees who work more than 10 hours in a shift are entitled to a second uninterrupted meal period of at least 30 minutes.

Those employees, however, may waive one of the meal periods. Employees are also entitled to an uninterrupted 15-minute rest period for every four hours of work. An employee who misses a meal or rest period must complete an "edit" or "correction" sheet, so QVMC can pay the employee a one-hour premium. The hospital's practice is to pay a premium for a missed meal or rest period "whenever ... requested."

Under the hospital's meal period policy, plaintiff was entitled to two meal breaks per 12-hour shift. Plaintiff waived her second meal break. Plaintiff scheduled meal breaks by writing her name next to a time slot on a whiteboard. At the appointed time, the "break nurse" relieved plaintiff. If no break nurse was available, the charge nurse relieved plaintiff. Plaintiff did not recall missing a meal period or notifying a supervisor about a missed meal period. Plaintiff's supervisors did not interrupt her meal periods with work-related questions or requests; they never told her to end her break early. The only complaint plaintiff had regarding her meal breaks was that they sometimes happened "too late" in the shift.

Plaintiff's rest breaks operated similarly: a break nurse or charge nurse relieved plaintiff. On the few occasions when plaintiff missed a rest period, she received an extra hour of pay. Plaintiff's supervisors did not interrupt her rest periods with work-related questions or requests. On occasion, plaintiff's co-workers asked her questions while she was on a rest break, but when plaintiff responded that she was on a break, the co-workers left her alone. Plaintiff did not recall complaining to a supervisor about rest periods.

QVMC prohibited off-the-clock work. Plaintiff always clocked in before performing work; she did not recall working after she clocked out. Plaintiff's time entries were rounded to the nearest quarter hour, either up or down a maximum of seven minutes, depending on when plaintiff clocked in or out. On several occasions, plaintiff benefitted from the rounding policy. Beginning in June 2013, plaintiff's time entries contained a prompt asking her whether she received meal and rest breaks. When plaintiff clocked out, she honestly answered the prompt. Plaintiff's supervisors never discouraged her from reporting a missed meal or rest period.

QVMC's expert, Scott Sternberg, analyzed plaintiff's time entries to determine whether the rounding policy favored plaintiff or the hospital. He determined the policy was facially neutral, and that the effects of the policy varied over time, "including day to day, week to week, and month to month. This indicates that the time period analyzed can alter the results, particularly considering the very small difference between the total hours recorded by the time clock and the total unrounded elapsed time between the punches. For example, when looking at a 128-day period ... from September 24, 2011, to January 29, 2012, I found that the time clock recorded 400.75 hours while the total unrounded elapsed time between the punches is 400.72 hours, indicating a difference of.03 hours in [plaintiff's] favor."

Sternberg determined 47 percent of plaintiff's rounded time entries favored plaintiff or had no impact, and 53 percent favored QVMC. According to Sternberg's review of plaintiff's time records, the hospital paid plaintiff for 2,995.75 hours of work; had punch time entries been used, QVMC would have paid plaintiff for 3,003.5 hours, a difference of.26 percent.

Opposition and Reply

Plaintiff argued her meal and rest periods were "incomplete or interrupted" and that she had no obligation to report these violations to the hospital because her time records reflected "short meal periods." As to her claim for unpaid wages, plaintiff argued she was undercompensated because she worked off-the-clock and during breaks. She also contended the hospital's rounding policy systematically undercompensated her, and that any bias in favor of QVMC, "however small, may establish an illegal [rounding] practice."

In a supporting declaration, plaintiff claimed she performed "charting" work after clocking out because her managers wanted hospital employees to avoid overtime. Plaintiff averred her lunch breaks were "often interrupted ... with questions about patients or work-related tasks by coworkers and Charge Nurses." She "often took short meal periods or rest breaks because supervisors would walk into the break room and look at the clock, signaling that they expected [her] to clock-in."

Plaintiff "felt pressured to clock-in early from rest and meal periods because of supervisor's behavior and because patients needed" care. She was "expected to put patients’ needs ahead of [her] own, even if it meant not taking timely and complete rest breaks and meal periods." According to plaintiff, break nurses often provided late coverage—or no coverage—for meal and rest periods. Plaintiff "often" reported "late, missing, incomplete or interrupted" meal and rest periods to charge nurses and "was not compensated."

Plaintiff's expert, Aaron Woolfson, offered a supporting declaration criticizing Sternberg's methodology and conclusions. Woolfson opined the hospital's failure to pay plaintiff for 7.75 hours of work over the relevant time period—a total of 1.56 minutes per shift— "conclusively establishe[d]" the rounding policy "was biased." Woolfson did not analyze QVMC's timekeeping policy or plaintiff's time sheets.

QVMC's reply urged the court to exclude the portions of plaintiff's self-serving declaration that contradicted her deposition testimony, and to reject much of Woolfson's declaration. Substantively, the hospital argued: (1) there was no evidence it knew or should have known plaintiff was working off-the-clock; (2) plaintiff's claim that she told charge nurses about the meal and rest period violations did not provide QVMC with notice of the alleged violations because charge nurses were not plaintiff's supervisors; (3) plaintiff's timesheets did not " ‘prove’ " meal and rest period violations; and (4) the rounding policy was neutral and did not systematically disfavor plaintiff.

Order Granting Summary Judgment

In a thorough written order, the court granted QVMC's motion for summary judgment. First, it excluded portions of plaintiff's declaration that were inconsistent with her deposition testimony and/or lacked foundation. The court also excluded the portion of Woolfson's declaration describing alleged flaws in Sternberg's analysis and conclusions, determining Woolfson's opinion lacked foundation.²

Next, the court concluded QVMC was entitled to judgment on plaintiff's meal and rest period claims. It summarized the hospital's extensive evidence that plaintiff's supervisors did not urge her to work during meal or rest periods and that she did not report missing a meal or rest break to her supervisors. As the court observed, plaintiff was asked at her deposition whether charge nurses were supervisors, she "replied, ‘I don't know,’ " and "testified that she did not know whether any supervisor ever interrupted her with a work question during her lunch break.... She also stated she did not know whether ‘any supervisor ever knew’ she was being interrupted by her coworkers during [her] meal breaks."

The court considered plaintiff's declaration, where she averred charge nurses...