Lingle v. Centimark Corp.

1

Anthony Lingle, Plaintiff, v. Centimark Corporation, et al., Defendants.

No. 2:22-cv-01471-KJM-JDP

United States District Court, E.D. California

April 14, 2023

ORDER AND RULE 16 SCHEDULING ORDER

Plaintiff Anthony Lingle asserts several wage and hour claims against his former employer, defendant Centimark Corporation, and he seeks to represent a class of similarly situated workers. Centimark moves to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) and to strike under Rule 12(f). As explained in this order, the court converts the motion to strike to a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). So construed, the motions are granted in part with leave to amend.

I. BACKGROUND

At this stage, the court assumes the allegations in Lingle's complaint are true. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 679 (2009). According to his complaint, Lingle worked as a laborer and roofer for Centimark between 2019 and 2021. Second Am. Compl. ¶ 16, ECF No. 16. He was regularly scheduled to work more than forty hours a week, often as many as twelve to fourteen hours a day. Id. ¶ 17. But Centimark routinely withheld or miscalculated his overtime compensation, supervisors prevented him from taking mandatory breaks, and Centimark refused to reimburse expenses Lingle incurred on his personal phone bill from work calls and text messages. Id. ¶¶ 18-21. As a result of these failures, his wage statements were inaccurate, and some wages went unpaid. Id. ¶¶ 22-23.

Lingle filed a complaint against Centimark in Sacramento County Superior Court a few months after he left the company. See Compl., Not. Removal Ex. A-2, ECF No. 1-1. He asserted wage and hour claims under California Labor Code, including for unpaid overtime, wages below the legal minimum, wrongfully withheld meal and rest breaks, inaccurate wage statements, and unfair competition, among others. See generally id. After an amendment to the complaint, see generally First Am. Compl., Not. Removal Ex. A-8, ECF No. 1-2, Centimark removed the case to this court in August 2022 under the Class Action Fairness Act, see generally Not. Removal, ECF No. 1. The operative complaint includes nine claims:

1. Failure to pay overtime wages under California Labor Code sections 510 and 1194, Second Am. Compl. ¶¶ 25-28;

2. Failure to pay minimum wages under Labor Code section 1194, id. ¶¶ 29-32;

3. Failure to offer meal breaks under Labor Code sections 226.7 and 512, id. ¶¶ 33-39;

4. Failure to offer rest breaks under Labor Code section 226.7, id. ¶¶ 40-45;

5. Wage statement violations under Labor Code section 226(a), id. ¶¶ 46-49;

6. Penalties for delayed wages after the end of employment under Labor Code sections 201, 202, and 203, id. ¶¶ 50-56;

7. Failure to reimburse business expenses under Labor Code section 2802(a), id. ¶¶ 5760;

8. Unfair competition under Business & Professions Code sections 17200, 17203, and 17208, id. ¶¶ 61-65; and

9. A representative claim under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), id. ¶¶ 66-70. Lingle's experience was similar to that of other employees. See id. ¶ 16. He seeks to represent two classes of hourly employees: one asserting the first seven claims under the Labor Code, and one asserting the eighth claim for unfair competition. Id. ¶¶ 12-14. The PAGA claim is representative by nature, so Lingle does not seek to assert it on behalf of any class. See id.

¶ 68; Cal. Lab. Code § 2699(f)(2). He seeks damages, civil penalties, injunctive and declaratory relief, fees, and costs, among other things. See Second Am. Compl. at 17-19.

Centimark moves to dismiss the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth claims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). See Mot. at 6-14. It also moves to strike several portions of the complaint under Rule 12(f), including portions of the PAGA claim. Id. at 15-20. Like the motion to dismiss, the motion to strike rests on legal arguments. For example, Centimark urges the court to strike the complaint's allegations about paid sick leave because there is no private right of action to enforce the Labor Code's sick leave provisions, see id. at 15-17, and it asks the court to strike Lingle's PAGA claim in part based on its interpretation of the underlying Labor Code protections, see id. at 17-19.

Rule 12(f) is meant to avoid unnecessary expenditures of time and money over “spurious issues,” not to test legal claims. Whittlestone, Inc. v. Handi-Craft Co., 618 F.3d 970, 973 (9th Cir. 2010) (citation and quotation marks omitted). But because motions to strike under Rule 12(f) and motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) resemble one another as far as evidentiary standards and proof are concerned, district courts occasionally convert 12(f) motions to 12(b)(6) motions. See, e.g., Kelley v. Corr. Corp. of Am., 750 F.Supp.2d 1132, 1146 (E.D. Cal. 2010); see also Whittlestone, 618 F.3d at 975 n.2 (evaluating pleading alternatively under Rule 12(b)(6)). The parties will suffer no prejudice if Centimark's motion to strike is converted to a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The court therefore converts Centimark's motion to strike to a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6).

The court took these motions under submission after hearing oral arguments over videoconference on February 17, 2023. Mins., ECF No. 35. Justin Rodriguez appeared for Lingle, and Michael Nader appeared for Centimark. After oral arguments, Lingle submitted a notice of the California Court of Appeal's intervening decision in Wood v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, 88 Cal.App. 5th 742 (2023), which interpreted relevant provisions of the Labor Code and Unfair Competition Law. See Not. Suppl. Auth., ECF No. 36.

II. LEGAL STANARD

A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) may be granted if the complaint lacks a “cognizable legal theory” or if its factual allegations do not support a cognizable legal theory. Godecke v. Kinetic Concepts, Inc., 937 F.3d 1201, 1208 (9th Cir. 2019) (quoting Balistreri v. Pacifica Police Dep't, 901 F.2d 696, 699 (9th Cir. 1988)). The court assumes all factual allegations are true and construes “them in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.” Steinle v. City & County of San Francisco, 919 F.3d 1154, 1160 (9th Cir. 2019) (quoting Parks Sch. of Bus., Inc. v. Symington, 51 F.3d 1480, 1484 (9th Cir. 1995)). If the complaint's allegations do not “plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief,” the motion must be granted. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679.

A complaint need contain only a “short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief,” Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2), not “detailed factual allegations,” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). But this rule demands more than unadorned accusations; “sufficient factual matter” must make the claim at least plausible. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. In the same vein, conclusory or formulaic recitations of elements do not alone suffice. Id. (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555). This evaluation of plausibility is a context-specific task drawing on “judicial experience and common sense.” Id. at 679.

The Ninth Circuit has specified how district courts should apply this standard to claims about uncompensated work like those at issue in this case. See Landers v. Quality Commc'ns, Inc., 771 F.3d 638, 641-46 (9th Cir. 2014). It does not require plaintiffs to “approximate the number of hours worked without compensation” or allege how much is owed “with mathematical precision.” Id. at 646 (citation and quotation marks omitted). But the Circuit has agreed with three other courts of appeal “that, at a minimum, a plaintiff . . . must allege that she worked more than forty hours in a given workweek without being compensated for the hours worked in excess of forty during that week.” Id. at 645.

This court recently declined “to read Landers as requiring plaintiffs to identify a specific date or time frame for which they were deprived of overtime pay, minimum wages, a meal break, or a rest break.” Turner v. LTF Club Mgmt. Co., LLC, No. 20-0046, 2022 WL 1018498, at * 5 (E.D. Cal. Apr. 5, 2022). As this court explained in Turner, the Ninth Circuit did not describe its decision in Landers as creating any more demanding or “heightened” standard for wage and hour claims, the Circuit has not interpreted Landers as demanding specific dates in any later decisions, and the persuasive authority the Ninth Circuit relied on in Landers did not demand specific dates. See id. at *3-6. To be sure, a plaintiff could ensure its claims would withstand a motion to dismiss by detailing specific weeks or days, but dates are not the only sufficient facts that might show a plaintiff “is entitled to relief' under the California Labor Code. See id. at *4-5.

III. DISCUSSION

A. Meal and Rest Breaks (Claims 3 and 4)

Centimark first moves to dismiss Lingle's third and fourth claims. He alleges Centimark did not offer him and others meal and rest breaks as required by the California Labor Code. See Second Am. Compl. ¶¶ 33-45 (citing Cal. Lab. Code §§ 226.7, 512). He alleges Centimark expected him and his colleagues to be on call, remain on the job site, complete inspections and safety checks and receive deliveries all during their breaks. See id. ¶ 20. He identifies one jobsite in particular. See id. He also alleges supervisors tracked breaks with a mobile app that sometimes rounded break times up to the required length, when in they were in fact shorter. Id. Supervisors similarly clocked employees out for their breaks without telling them and while they were still working, which meant employees started breaks late and did not have all the time they deserved. Id.

These allegations suffice under this court's interpretation of the legal standard in Landers. They are similar to those the Circuit relied on in its...