Troyer v. The Yerba Mate Co., LLP

District Court, N.D. California·Decided June 29, 2021·No. 3:20-cv-06065·Unknown

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 8

10 CASEY TROYER, as an individual and on behalf of all similarly situated employees, 11 No. 20-06065-WHA Plaintiff, 12

v.

13 ORDER RE MOTION TO CERTIFY THE YERBA MATE CO., LLC, and CLASS 14 GUAYAKI SUSTAINABLE RAINFOREST PRODUCTS, INC., 15 Defendants. 16

17 18 INTRODUCTION 19 In this wage-and-hour action, plaintiff alleges defendant misclassified his position as 20 exempt from California’s general overtime and meal and rest break rules under the outside 21 salesperson exemption. Plaintiff seeks to certify a class of former and current employees in the 22 same position classified as exempt outside salespersons. For the reasons that follow, a class of 23 employees like plaintiff classified as exempt outside salespersons during the class period is 24 CERTIFIED. Certification of the underlying wage-and-hour claims is HELD IN ABEYANCE. 25 Certification of the unlawful recording claim is DENIED. 26 STATEMENT 27 At all material times, defendant Guayaki Sustainable Rainforest Products, Inc., made 1 of the yerba mate beverages in California. Defendant Yerba Mate sold and distributed the 2 drinks to a variety of retailers, including large chain supermarkets and grocery stores, chain 3 convenience stores, and small, independent stores, and institutions like colleges and 4 universities. Plaintiff Casey Troyer worked for defendant Yerba Mate as a “hacedor”* from 5 December 2019 to August 2020. Yerba Mate uniformly classified plaintiff’s position as an 6 “outside salesperson,” exempt from California’s usual rest and meal break and overtime rules. 7 As a hacedor, plaintiff distributed the yerba mate drinks to defendant’s retail customers 8 using a company vehicle. Each workday, plaintiff retrieved the drinks from defendant’s 9 warehouse and loaded them into the company vehicle. A team of Yerba Mate employees 10 based in Jacksonville, Florida, determined plaintiff’s daily sales route using an application 11 made by third-party Encompass Technologies Development, LLC. Plaintiff used the 12 Encompass app on his smartphone to view his daily sales route. The daily route information 13 included a list of customers, the number of stops, and each customer’s purchase history, which 14 plaintiff could use to gauge how many beverages he would need for the day. 15 At each stop, plaintiff contacted the retailer representative responsible for making 16 purchases of the drinks. Plaintiff recorded the details of the sale, if any, in the Encompass app. 17 The number of drinks plaintiff sold varied from retailer to retailer and visit to visit; however, 18 plaintiff did not have authority to vary the price, except to make promotional offers of free 19 drinks. After confirming the sale, plaintiff unloaded the drinks from the vehicle and moved 20 them into the customer’s store. Plaintiff also made deliveries to retailers who had pre-ordered 21 drinks prior to delivery; in those circumstances, plaintiff made no sale. Some retailers required 22 plaintiff to “merchandise” the drinks, i.e., remove the packaging and arrange the drinks on the 23 display shelf in an aesthetically pleasing display, ready to be sold to the consumer. After he 24 completed his route, plaintiff would deposit the day’s earnings in defendant’s bank account. 25 Throughout his workday, the Encompass app recorded plaintiff’s activities. Each time 26 plaintiff logged onto the app, viewed a customer’s information, arrived at a customer stop, or 27 1 edited an invoice (which were stored in the app), the Encompass app recorded the date, time, 2 location, and the customer identity associated with the activity (Dkt. No. 50-7; O’Neil Dep. 3 112:22–113:18). 4 Plaintiff’s duties also included team meetings, unloading cases of the drinks from a truck 5 into the warehouse, delivering or receiving drinks to or from another hacedor, and cleaning and 6 charging defendant’s electric delivery vehicle. 7 Defendant paid plaintiff a flat salary of about $1,346.00 every two weeks: $16.83/hour 8 times 80 hours compensable time per pay period. Plaintiff’s pay did not vary with time 9 worked and defendant did not pay overtime or commissions. 10 Plaintiff alleges that he frequently worked more than eight hours a day without meal or 11 rest breaks. He alleges that although defendant did not expressly forbid him from taking 12 breaks, defendant required plaintiff to complete his daily routes or risk termination; plaintiff 13 alleges that he could not complete the routes on time if he took a meal or rest break. 14 Plaintiff alleges violations of California’s rest and meal break rules, Cal. Lab. Code 15 Sections 226.7 and 512, overtime compensation, Sections 510 and 1194, and derivative claims 16 for wage statement and waiting time penalties, Sections 201, 202, 203, and 226. In addition, 17 plaintiff alleges that defendant unlawfully recorded a confidential conversation he had with 18 several co-workers at defendant’s warehouse early in the morning, in violation of California 19 Penal Code Section 632. 20 In the instant motion, plaintiff seeks to certify a class of “delivery driver ‘hacedores’ who 21 worked in California and who were classified by Defendants as exempt from overtime during 22 the period from April 6, 2016, to the present” and several subclasses (Dkt. No. 49 at 2). This 23 order follows full briefing and a hearing held telephonically. 24 For the following reasons, this order will CERTIFY the following class: Delivery driver 25 hacedores like plaintiff classified as exempt from overtime under California’s outside 26 salesperson exemption from April 6, 2016 to July 21, 2020. 27 For now, certification applies solely to the classification question. We will revisit 1 classification issue. At that point, the Court will be better-informed to process the 2 multitudinous and bone-crushing details of how plaintiff might establish class-wide overtime 3 damages. Accordingly, the motion to certify a class as to the meal period, rest break, overtime, 4 wage statement, and waiting time claims shall be HELD IN ABEYANCE. 5 The motion to certify the unlawful recording claim is DENIED. 6 ANALYSIS 7 Certification of a class action is governed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. The 8 plaintiff must show that the proposed class action satisfies each of the four prerequisites of 9 Rule 23(a) and one of the three requirements of Rule 23(b). Rule 23(a) requires the plaintiff to 10 show: 11 (1) the class is so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable; 12 (2) there are questions of law or fact common to the class; 13 (3) the claims or defenses of the representative parties are typical of the claims or 14 defenses of the class; and 15 (4) the representative parties will fairly and adequately protect the interests of the 16 class. 17 In addition, plaintiff here seeks certification under Rule 23(b)(3), which requires him to 18 show that: 19 the questions of law or fact common to class members predominate over any questions affecting only individual members, and that a 20 class action is superior to other available methods for fairly and efficiently adjudicating the controversy. 21 A district court is required to do a rigorous analysis to determine if the requirements of 22 Rule 23 are satisfied. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. 338, 350–51 (2011). 23 “Frequently that rigorous analysis will entail some overlap with the merits of the plaintiff’s 24 underlying claim. That cannot be helped. The class determination generally involves 25 considerations that are enmeshed in the factual and legal issues comprising the plaintiff’s cause 26 of action.” Id. at 351 (cleaned up). 27 1. THE OUTSIDE SALESPERSON EXEMPTION.

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Troyer v. The Yerba Mate Co., LLP, (N.D. Cal. 2021).

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