Former Safelite Technician Voluntarily Dismisses Overtime Pay Claims Against Safelite
March 14, 2012

by Katie O'Mara, komara@glass.com

Joseph Perez, a California Safelite technician, has voluntarily dismissed his claims of denial of overtime wages by Safelite. Perez will retain his personal stake in the class claims as a representative of the class. The court documents cite that “when a class representative voluntarily settles his or her individual claims, but specifically retains a personal stake … he or she retains jurisdiction to appeal the denial of class certification.”

Perez, a California resident, alleges in his suit that he and other associates in the state had been denied overtime wages he believes they were owed for work more than eight hours per day and 40 hours per week. He further alleges that the company had a consistent policy of requiring associates within the state of California “to work at least five hours without an uninterrupted meal period and failing to pay such employees one hour of pay at the employee’s regular rate of compensation for each workday that the meal period is not provided or provided after five hours.”

Perez’s request for class certification was denied by the district court as it “found it unlikely that prospective injunctive relief is more valuable to plaintiff or predominant in the action than monetary relief.”

In early February, Safelite filed a notice claiming that there should be coordination between Perez’s case and a case filed by Demetriot Lewis.

Lewis, a California auto glass technician who worked for Safelite for approximately eight months in 2010 filed a class action suit against the company alleging that he is owed overtime pay for hours not counted in his work day. Lewis alleges that he was regularly scheduled to work eight hours per day, but that the company “did not pay [him] wages for all the hours [he] worked.”

“Defendant required plaintiff to clock in for work at a specified time, but regularly suffered or permitted [him] to work prior to the specified time for clocking in,” alleges Lewis. “Tasks that defendant knowingly allowed or required plaintiff to perform prior to the specified time for clocking in included calling customers; retrieving paperwork, supplies or equipment from defendant’s warehouse; attending meetings or taking tests at defendant’s warehouse; and driving to customer locations from defendant’s warehouse.”

In response to Safelite, Lewis filed court documents claiming that the two cases are “materially different.”

Lewis says he’s brought the suit against the company on behalf of himself and “others similarly situated” in California. He suggests there are three potential classes involved—a California on-site technician class that includes all mobile technicians who were employed by Safelite in California for the four years prior to the filing of the complaint; a wage statement subclass that includes all those employed by Safelite as mobile technicians in California one year before the filing of the complaint; and a final wages subclass that includes all mobile technicians in California whose employment was terminated by the company within the three years before the complaint was filed.

Lewis is seeking damages, restitution, pre-judgment interest, civil penalties, and court costs and attorneys’ fees.

An initial case management conference has been scheduled for March 23.

This story is an original story by AGRR™ magazine/glassBYTEs.com™. Subscribe to AGRR™ Magazine.
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