The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived an employee’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) claims relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Mariana.
Chelsea Hamilton brought five wage and hour claims under PAGA against Walmart in California state court, alleging that Walmart denied workers overtime and meal breaks because it required all employees to clock out before going through a security checkpoint, which frequently took 15 to 20 minutes.
After Walmart removed the case to federal court, the plaintiffs filed expert reports regarding how they planned to calculate the time required to go through the security checkpoint.
Walmart moved to strike the expert reports for failure to comply with Rule 26(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
The district court granted the motion and then decertified the various classes of plaintiffs, holding that, without the expert reports, they could not present a workable method for calculating damages. In addition, the district court dismissed some of the PAGA claims as unmanageable and others for the plaintiffs’ failure to sufficiently disclose estimated damages under Rule 26(a).
The case proceeded to trial on two class claims with a split verdict. Both parties filed post-trial motions. Siding with the employees, the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal of the PAGA claims.
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