On Friday, Cargill Meat Solutions Corporation removed the class action case of Marin et al v. Cargill Meat Solutions Corp. from the Superior Court of California to the Eastern District of California. The original complaint alleges class action violations of California’s wage and employment laws.
According to the complaint, Cargill is a Delaware corporation that operates a beef processing plant that employs more than 100 non-exempt employees. Additionally, the complaint states that the named plaintiffs, Richard Marin and Samantha Lopez, were former non-exempt employees of Cargill’s beef processing plant.
The complaint alleges that the named plaintiffs and other class members would frequently work in excess of eight hours per day and 40 hours per week, but were not paid the required overtime rate for their time worked in excess of 40 hours. Further, the plaintiffs allege that Cargill failed to properly calculate the class members regular rate of pay by failing to include all forms of compensation for the overtime calculation process. The plaintiffs argue that for certain pay periods, their pay stubs reflected an hourly rate lower than their actual rates and that the overtime pay was slightly lower than the required 1.5 times base pay.
Additionally, the plaintiffs purport that Cargill failed to pay sick pay at the regular rate and failed to pay the plaintiffs for additional work before and after their shifts. Further, the plaintiffs allege that Cargill regularly required plaintiffs to forgo their lawfully required meal breaks, and Cargill would then modify the plaintiffs time to include lawfully required meal periods even when the plaintiffs did not receive their meal break.
The complaint alleges that Cargill knew or should have known of the required pay rates, the proper calculation process and required breaks under the law. The plaintiffs argue that they have not received the proper compensation and required breaks under the law and the defendants willfully failed to comply with California labor and employment laws.
Accordingly, the plaintiffs bring the present class action lawsuit seeking class certification, recovery of unpaid wages, compensatory damages, pre- and post-judgment interest, attorney’s fees and costs for the defendant’s alleged violation of California’s labor and employment law for failure to pay wages, failure to provide meal breaks and rest periods, failure to provide accurate wage statements, failure to accurately record and pay sick leave and unlawful deduction of wages.
The plaintiffs are represented by James Hawkins APLC, and the defendant is represented by Cozen O’Connor.
