MUNOZ v. BCI COCA-COLA BOTTLING COMPANY
OF LOS ANGELES
Filed 6/10/10;
pub order 7/2/10
(see end of opn.)
IN
THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND
APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION
EIGHT
TOM MUNOZ et al.,
Plaintiffs and Respondents,
v.
BCI COCA-COLA BOTTLING COMPANY
OF LOS ANGELES
Defendant and Respondent;
__________________________________
GREG (TONY) GREENWELL,
Objector and Appellant.
B215594
(Los Angeles
County
Super. Ct.
No. BC 392263)
APPEAL from
an order and judgment of the Superior Court for the County
of Los
Angeles. John P. Shook, Judge. Affirmed.
Righetti
Law Firm, Matthew Righetti and John Glugoski for Objector and Appellant.
Law Offices of James P. Stoneman II
and James P. Stoneman II; Law Offices of Mark R. Haddon and Mark R. Haddon, for
Plaintiffs and Respondents.
Jennifer B. Robinson, T. Harold
Pinkley and Tara L. Ferguson for Defendant and Respondent.
SUMMARY
Tom Munoz
and Phillip Eichten filed a class action lawsuit against BCI Coca-Cola Bottling
Company of Los Angeles (BCI),
seeking damages and penalties for
allegedly unpaid overtime wages, missed meal and rest period wages, and other
Labor Code violations and unfair business practices. The proposed class consisted of production
supervisors and merchandising supervisors who were allegedly misclassified by
BCI as exempt employees. After mediation
before a respected mediator, the parties agreed to settle the matter for $1.1
million. Notice of the proposed
settlement elicited one objection. Two
of the 188 class members opted out of the class and 142 submitted valid claim
forms, so that the average net payment to each class member would be about
$4,300. The trial court found the
settlement fair and reasonable.
The
objector, Greg (Tony) Greenwell, appeals.
He argues the trial court abused its discretion in approving the
settlement, principally because the parties did not provide the court with the
information necessary to make a finding that the settlement was reasonable and
fair. We find no merit in Greenwell's
contentions and affirm the trial court's order approving the settlement.
In June
2008, Munoz and Eichten (collectively, Munoz) filed a class action complaint
against BCI. Munoz asserted causes of
action for failure to pay overtime wages, waiting time penalties (penalties for
late payment of wages to terminated employees), failure to provide or authorize
meal and rest periods, failure to provide accurate itemized wage statements,
and unfair business practices. The
proposed class consisted of persons employed by BCI in a salaried position as
production supervisors or merchandising supervisors in the state of California
at any time during the four-year period preceding the filing of the
complaint. Central to Munoz's action was
the claim that production and merchandising supervisors were intentionally
misclassified as exempt employees by BCI, which used the misclassification
scheme to justify failure to pay overtime wages and provide meal and rest
periods to those employees.
The Munoz
class action followed earlier class action litigation against BCI, prosecuted
by the same counsel representing Munoz in this case (and defended by the same
counsel representing BCI here), styled Costanza
v. BCI Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Los Angeles (Costanza). The Costanza
class action, filed in April 2006, asserted the same causes of actions as
in this case, and initially defined the class as all persons employed by BCI as
salaried supervisors in California. By the time of the fifth amended complaint
(filed May 3, 2007), the Costanza class
was refined to consist of full-service supervisors, warehouse supervisors, and
delivery (or distribution) supervisors, and no longer included production or
merchandising supervisors.
Discovery conducted in the
narrowed included detailed analyses of the job duties of numerous supervisory
positions, including the production supervisor and merchandising supervisor
positions that are at issue in this case.[1] BCI's discovery answers identified 20
different job duties performed by some or all production supervisors, and 18
different job duties performed by some or all merchandising supervisors. BCI's answers also indicated that the job
duties and time spent performing each of the duties varied from supervisor to
supervisor and from week to week, as well as by facility and season. The class representative for the production
supervisor position in the Costanza case
also responded to BCI's requests for information relating to his claims for
unpaid overtime, meal and rest breaks, and so on.
The Costanza
case, with 377 class members, was settled in November 2007, with BCI paying
$2.25 million. No one opted out or
objected, and final approval by the trial court was granted March 18, 2008.
Several months later, on June 9, 2008, this case was filed,
asserting the same causes of action as in Costanza. Some discovery was conducted: BCI propounded form interrogatories and
requests for production of documents to Munoz and Eichten, and special interrogatories
to Munoz, and verified responses were provided; Munoz propounded requests for
admission and form interrogatories to BCI and BCI provided verified
responses. BCI obtained declarations
from 30 class members from several California
facilities. These declarations described
the declarant's job duties; amounts of time spent performing various duties;
his or her authority (or not) to hire, fire, or discipline; the number of hours
he or she worked each week and each day; and whether or not he or she took meal
and rest breaks. On November 5, 2008, BCI produced payroll data for
each production supervisor and merchandising supervisor during the relevant
time period.
On November 15, 2008, the parties
participated in a mediation (with the same mediator who conducted the
unsuccessful, but the parties continued to work with the mediator and agreed to
settlement terms on December 1, 2008:
$1.1 million (none of which would revert to BCI if unclaimed, but rather
would be distributed pro rata to class members who made claims), from which
deductions would be made for attorney fees (30 percent), $10,000 in incentive
awards for the class representatives ($5,000 each), costs (up to $10,000), and
administrative costs.
The parties
moved for preliminary approval of the settlement on December 15, 2008. A supporting declaration from class counsel
(James P. Stoneman) described his qualifications and experience in employment
and class action matters, and indicated there were â€
| Description | Tom Munoz and Phillip Eichten filed a class action lawsuit against BCI Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Los Angeles (BCI), seeking damages and penalties for allegedly unpaid overtime wages, missed meal and rest period wages, and other Labor Code violations and unfair business practices. The proposed class consisted of production supervisors and merchandising supervisors who were allegedly misclassified by BCI as exempt employees. After mediation before a respected mediator, the parties agreed to settle the matter for $1.1 million. Notice of the proposed settlement elicited one objection. Two of the 188 class members opted out of the class and 142 submitted valid claim forms, so that the average net payment to each class member would be about $4,300. The trial court found the settlement fair and reasonable. The objector, Greg (Tony) Greenwell, appeals. He argues the trial court abused its discretion in approving the settlement, principally because the parties did not provide the court with the information necessary to make a finding that the settlement was reasonable and fair. Court find no merit in Greenwell's contentions and affirm the trial court's order approving the settlement. |
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