California Labor Lawsuit against Apple Certified Class Action

San Diego, CA A California labor lawsuit filed against Apple by former employees has been certified a class-action lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges Apple violated federal and California labor laws by denying timely payment of last paychecks and by not providing meal and rest breaks.

According to RE/CODE (7/22/14), the lawsuit was filed in 2011 by Brandon Felczer and other employees, who alleged Apple owed its retail and corporate employees back wages. As many as 20,000 workers could be included in the class.

In allowing the class-action certification, San Diego Superior Court Judge Ronald S. Prager broke the class into six subclasses: a meal break class for retail employees, a meal break class for corporate employees, a rest break class for retail employees, a rest break class for corporate employees, a waiting time penalty subclass and a wage statement subclass.

Brandon Felczer alleged in his lawsuit that he was forced to work five hours or more at a time without a meal break, a violation of California labor law. Furthermore, he alleges that when he quit his job he gave 72-hours notice but did not receive his final paycheck until two days later and did not receive sufficient waiting fees.

According to the judge’s ruling, Apple argued that plaintiffs were provided timely rest breaks. The judge, however, found that under Apple’s meal period policy, non-exempt non-manager employees were not told they were permitted to take their meal break within the first five hours of every shift. The policy reportedly stated that non-exempt employees who work more than five hours at any time during a work shift must take at least a 30-minute meal period, and that meal periods cannot be taken at the end of a shift to allow the employee to leave work early.

“Thus, as stated, it can be argued that Defendant’s meal break policy never authorized, permitted or made its non-exempt employees aware that they had the right to take a meal period within (italics in original) the first five hours prior to August 1, 2012,” the judge noted in his ruling.

The lawsuit is Felczer et al vs Apple Inc, case number 37-2011-00102593-CU-OE-CTL, in the Superior Court of California, County of San Diego.

In 2013, Apple employees in California filed a lawsuit against the company alleging they were wrongly denied overtime wages because they were not paid for time they spent off-the-clock waiting for security checks prior to leaving stores.