It’s worth noting that the judge made a decision of limiting the company’s damages and penalties to $750,000. The reason is that Judge Ann Jones of the Los Angeles County Superior Court mentioned the alleged violations weren’t willful. She pointed out that based on the uncontroverted testimony, McDonald’s was certain that its payroll date overtime practice is quite fair, as well as legal.
Thus, the lawsuit filed against the company states that McDonald’s violated state overtime law. Further, it also failed to handle its employees’ overnight shifts in a proper manner.
The suit notes that problems started because of changes in the daily work schedule. That’s to say, instead of 12:01 a.m. a daily work schedule started at 4 a.m. As a consequence, employees who worked for an overnight shift followed by a daytime shift had to work more than eight hours within 24 hours. However, the company failed to pay these employees an overtime rate for the extra hours, as the suit says.
According to the judge, McDonald’s violated California labor law. Additionally, she concluded that because of the method that the company used to schedule overnight shift employees many Class members didn’t receive their overtime pay. However, Judge Jones also said the alleged violations weren’t willful.
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As a matter of fact, the attorney who represents the plaintiffs is indeed surprised. He didn’t expect that the judge will make a decision of limiting the company’s damages and penalties to $750,000. Furthermore, he expressed his willingness to continue fighting for additional injunctive relief, as the company hasn’t altered its practices.
It was in January 2013, when Maria Sanchez filed the wage and hour class action lawsuit against McDonald’s. Actually, next year three plaintiffs joined the class action lawsuit. These plaintiffs are David Cruz, Ines Marino, and Jonathan Valentin.
It’s also true that the attorney also referred to the court’s decision of considering the company’s violations of the California labor law weren’t willful. The argument that he brings is that willfulness cannot be referred to as the standard under California labor law. Additionally, the attorney also noted that in this case, the following question is relevant, “Did the company intend to schedule its overnight shift employees in a manner it did?’’ He believes that the question whether McDonald’s had the intention of breaking the California labor law is irrelevant.
