Sali v. Corona Regional: “Compensable Time” and Considering Inadmissible Evidence at Class Cert.

On May 3, 2018, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its ruling in Sali, et al. v. Corona Regional Medical Center, et al., 889 F.3d 623, 629 (9th Cir. 2018) (slip op. available here), a wage-and-hour class action, reversing the district court’s denial of class certification on several grounds. The Ninth Circuit found that the plaintiffs’ evidence of typicality, while not admissible at trial, should be considered for the purposes of class certification. Significantly, in reversing the denial of class certification, the panel found that the district court erred in interpreting compensable time as limited to time spent actually working. The ruling reaffirms that compensable time is both the time when an employee is under the control of the employer, regardless of whether or not the employee is engaged in work activities, as well as the time when an employee is “suffered or permitted to work, whether or not required to do so.” Slip op. at 24 (quoting Morillion v. Royal Packing Co., 22 Cal.4th 575 (2000)).

In Corona, the plaintiffs alleged that the employer failed to fully compensate a putative class of registered nurses (RNs) due to an electronic timekeeping system that did not account for their starting early and failed to pay their statutory time-and-a-half for overtime. Under Corona’s timekeeping system, a clock-in at seven minutes before or after the hour would round to the hour. But a clock-in at eight minutes or more before the hour would round back to the prior quarter hour, while those made eight minutes or more after the hour are rounded forward to the next quarter hour. The district court initially denied certification as to the plaintiffs’ rounding claim, finding that “time records are not a reliable indicator of the time RNs actually spent working because RNs frequently clock in for work and perform non-compensable activities, such as waiting in the break room, getting coffee, or chatting with their co-workers, until the start of their scheduled shift.” Slip op. at 23. The district court also rejected, on evidentiary grounds, that the plaintiffs had demonstrated typicality. Slip op. at 10. The plaintiffs appealed the district court’s denial of class certification.

The Ninth Circuit reversed the lower court’s denial of certification on several grounds, finding that the district court misapplied California’s definition of “work” because it did not decide whether Corona controlled workers after they had clocked in. Under California law, employees must be compensated for all time under the employer’s control, whether the employee is actually required to work or not. Morillion, 22 Cal.4th at 578 (quoting Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8, § 11140, subd. 2(G)). The panel found that the district court erred in suggesting that “‘non-compensable activities, such as waiting in the break room, getting coffee, or chatting with their co-workers’ are categorically not time ‘actually worked . . . ’,” meaning that this was not “time spent engaging in work activities.” Slip op. at 24. This misapplies California law. The Ninth Circuit further elaborated that that the question of whether the rounding policy was unfair required a focus on the company’s policies and practices, and whether they “restricted RNs in a manner that amounted to employer control during the period between their clock-in and clock-out times and the rounded shift-start and shift-end times,” an issue that the district court failed to consider. Id. at 26.

The Sali panel also found it to be an abuse of discretion for a district court to limit its analysis of whether class plaintiffs satisfied a Rule 23 requirement “to a determination of whether Plaintiffs’ evidence on that point was admissible.” Slip op. at 14 (quoting Ellis v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 657 F.3d 970, 982 (9th Cir. 2011)). Specifically, Sali found that the lower court committed reversible error by striking the class counsel’s paralegal’s declaration regarding Corona’s time-rounding to demonstrate the plaintiffs’ injuries, because courts cannot be limited to only evidence which is admissible at trial when deciding whether to certify a class: “Limiting class-certification stage proof to admissible evidence risks terminating actions before a putative class may gather crucial admissible evidence . . . [a]nd transforming a preliminary stage into an evidentiary shooting match inhibits an early determination of the best manner to conduct the action.” Slip op. at 13-14. Thus, inadmissibility alone is not a proper basis to reject evidence submitted in support of class certification.

Corona will be helpful for potential employee-plaintiffs because they are not restricted to presenting admissible evidence in support of their class certification motions. Further, the Ninth Circuit affirmed Morillion’s broad definition of compensable time as time when an employee is actually working or under the control of his or her employer.

Authored by:
Jordan Carlson, Associate
CAPSTONE LAW APC