Home Depot Employees ask for preliminary approval of a $72.5 million settlement over a California wage and hour lawsuit.
San Francisco, CA A Home Depot wage & hour class action lawsuit is seeking preliminary approval of a $72.5 million settlement, which will resolve allegations of unpaid off-the-clock work. The complaint was brought under California's Private Attorneys General by the home improvement company’s workers going back to early 2016 and a trial was slated for this year. The preliminary California labor settlement was filed last month in a San Francisco federal court and covers more than 272,000 people employed by Home Depot in the state since March 8, 2012.
Plaintiff John Utne claimed that that hourly workers were locked in the store after their shifts had ended because the store had been closed to the public for the night. Those employees were not compensated for the time they were trapped in the store.
The workers alleged that Home Depot:
Failed to pay overtime
Failed to pay minimum wage
Failed to pay hourly wages
Failed to provide accurate written wage statements
Did not pay all final wages in a timely manner
Did not pay for all the time it took them to clock in before shifts and clock out after shifts.
Home Depot Class Action Time Frame
2016: Employees sued Home Depot in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
2017: The court granted Home Depot summary judgment on the time-rounding allegation, but the workers said that it could have been appealed and reversal was a possibility.
2018: The class was certified.
May 2022: The court denied Home Depot's attempt to decertify.
July 2022: The court agreed to adjust parts of the lawsuit regarding issues with Utne's claim that the company failed to pay final wages in a timely manner.
Nov 2022: A judge approved Home Depot's bid to toss a report from a Stanford University social scientist and parts of expert calculations, ruling that evidence would be more helpful in settlement negotiations. The judge also denied the workers' request to exclude certain evidence, finding their arguments weak, reported Law360.
According to Reuters, hourly employees who worked closing shifts and were required to wait off-the-clock after stores were locked will receive half the settlement, minus legal fees and costs. Another 41% goes to employees who were not paid for time needed to collect and put on aprons, and 9% goes to employees who lost pay because Home Depot rounded their clock-in and clock-out times to the nearest quarter hour. Home Depot denied wrongdoing, but settled to avoid the burden, cost and uncertainty of litigation, states court documents. The estate of main plaintiff John Utne, who died in April, requested a $25,000 service enhancement for his participation in the lawsuit.
California’s wage and hour laws are most stringent, nationwide. The Golden State protects workers by requiring employers to pay overtime, a minimum wage, and by enforcing rest and meal breaks. California employers are required to keep accurate wage & hour records and provide them to employees when requested.
The Home Depot wage & hour class action lawsuit is Utne v. Home Depot USA Inc., Case No. 3:16-cv-01854-RS, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
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