A recent case from the Eastern District of California emphasizes the importance of employers having facially neutral and lawful wage-and-hour policies – as such policies can help in defeating class certification. In Tavares, et al. v. Cargill, Inc., et al., the Plaintiff sought certification of a Rule 23 class consisting of all hourly and non-exempt employees who worked at the Defendants’ Fresno, California meat-processing facility. That proposed class included about 4,000 employees, most of whom were production employees.

Plaintiff claimed, among other things, that those employees had not been properly compensated for minimum wage and overtime, largely due to purportedly having to perform tasks before and after clocking into the timekeeping system for which they were not paid. Those tasks included donning/doffing, pre-shift COVID health checks, cleaning lockers, and reading breakroom bulletin boards. Plaintiff claimed the Defendants had a uniform policy of requiring this work be performed off-the-clock.

The court found, however, that the Defendants’ policies were facially valid – that such tasks were supposed to be occurring while clocked in, if they were required at all. To determine any violation of that policy – and thus, potential violation of wage-and-hour laws – would require numerous individualized inquiries, including whether each class member wore PPE, whether they utilized their lockers, and whether they were required to look at any breakroom bulletin boards.

The court’s willingness to reject class certification at a single work location based on the various individualized circumstances presented by the proposed class reflects the continuing trend of heightened scrutiny of granting class and collective certification in wage-and-hour cases.