Shannon B. Jones Law Group v. Vella-Andrade CA1/1

I. BACKGROUND

This action arises from Vella-Andrade’s employment with SBJLGI. Vella-Andrade was hired by SBJLGI in July 2010 as an assistant bookkeeper and was promoted to controller about one month later. As controller, Vella- Andrade was responsible for, among various duties, SBJLGI’s payroll. She collected hourly employees’ timesheets for every bi-monthly pay period and entered the reported total hours onto a payroll summary. Vella-Andrade submitted the payroll summary, and occasionally the underlying timesheets, to Jones. Once Vella-Andrade received Jones’s approval, she would submit the payroll summary to Payroll Masters, SBJLGI’s payroll service provider, to process and issue the paychecks and paystubs to the employees. Jones trained Vella-Andrade on how to process payroll and on at least one occasion during Vella-Andrade’s approximately 5-year tenure as controller, Jones processed payroll herself. Vella-Andrade resigned on January 13, 2016. Another SBJLGI employee, part-time file clerk Christy Olson, regularly submitted timesheets reflecting work in excess of eight hours a day. Olson classified all her hours worked as regular hours and never reported the time in excess of…