Jones Day Wins Motion to Deny Class Certification in Meal-and-Rest-Period Action for McDonald's in California

Business Wire, August 28, 2008

LOS ANGELES -- Jones Day achieved a significant victory for McDonald's Corporation when Judge Philip S. Gutierrez of the Central District of California last week granted McDonald's motion to deny certification of plaintiff Deanna Kimoto's putative meal and rest period classes. [Kimoto v., McDonald's Corp., Case No. CV 06-03032 (C.D. Cal. August 19, 2008)]

Plaintiff brought a purported California-wide class action against McDonald's asserting that its nonexempt employees were not provided meal and rest breaks in accordance with California law, as well as derivative claims for failure to pay overtime, inaccurate wage statements, failure to maintain required wage-hour records, and unfair competition. Plaintiff sought to represent a class of approximately 45,000 restaurant employees. Following the close of discovery, rather than waiting for Plaintiff to file a motion to certify the class, McDonald's filed a motion to deny class certification. Plaintiff then filed her motion to certify 11 days after McDonald's filed its motion. In an 11-page ruling, Judge Gutierrez ruled that McDonald's motion to deny certification was well-founded and granted McDonald's motion, and deemed moot Plaintiff's motion for class certification.

The Court initially found that Plaintiff's later filing date failed to comply with the Court's order requiring the filing of a class certification motion before August 4, 2008, as well as Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(c)(1)(a), which requires the Court to determine whether to certify a class action at "an early practicable time after a person sues or issued as a class representative." On the substantive aspects of McDonald's motion, the Court agreed with McDonald's construction of the meal and rest period requirements of California law, consistent with the recently decided case of Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior Court, Cal. Rptr. 3d, 2008 WL 2806613 (Cal. App. 4 Dist., July 22, 2008), holding that employers need only make available meal and rest breaks, and need not ensure that employees take such breaks. Under that standard, and considering the standards of Rule 23(b)(3), the Court concluded that Plaintiff had not shown predominance of any common issues for class certification. The Court also rejected Plaintiff's attempt to redefine her classes as only constituting those employees who were provided breaks "late" in the day (i.e., employees who were not authorized to take a first rest break in the first 4 hours of their shifts, and employees who were not authorized to take meal breaks in the first 5 hours of their shifts). Even with those redefined classes, the Court concluded that individual questions predominated in determining if employees were or were not authorized to take breaks at the appropriate times.

Jones Day partners Michael Gray (Chicago) and Mark Kemple (Los Angeles), with associates Matthew Yu, Elizabeth McRee, Kamran Mirrafati, and Anna Hartog, represented McDonald's in the matter.

Jones Day is an international law firm with 30 locations in centers of business and finance throughout the world. With more than 2,300 lawyers, including more than 400 in Europe, and 200 in Asia, it ranks among the world's largest law firms. In California, Jones Day has more than 270 lawyers in five offices (San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Irvine, and San Diego). Jones Day acts as principal outside counsel to, or provides significant legal representation for, more than half of the Fortune Global 500 companies.