Trial Judge Must Address Whether Employer’s Wage Policies Were Sufficiently Uniform to Permit Class Certification

On March 12, 2019, the court of appeal published its decision in Myers v. Raley’s that reversed a trial court’s order denying class certification in a wage and hour case because the trial court failed to “provide the reasons for its ultimate finding.” The maintenance technician employees who sued alleged that Raley’s grocery stores controlled their driving time to the first store and from the last store they serviced each day, but did not compensate them for their travel time. They also alleged that they were not reimbursed for the personal tools they were required to purchase and replace to do their jobs, and that they often ate while driving from job to job, but were required to record only eight hours of work in a nine-hour shift using company software that had “no place to record start and stop times for meals.” To decide whether this lawsuit should be certified as a class action, the Myers court remanded the case to the trial court and directed it to focus on whether an employer’s control over its employees was “sufficiently uniform to permit classwide assessment.”