Joseluis Alcantar v. Hobart Service

Opinion by Judge LEFKOW; Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Judge N.R. SMITH.

OPINION

Joséluis Aleantar wishes to represent a class of service technicians in his suit against his employer, Hobart Service (“Hobart”), and its parent company, ITW Food Equipment Group (“ITW”). Alcantar alleges that Hobart did not compensate its technicians for the time they spent - commuting in Hobart’s service vehicles from their homes to their job sites and from those job sites back home. Aleantar also alleges that Hobart failed to provide its technicians with meal and rest breaks.

Aleantar appeals from the district court’s denial of class certification and its grant of partial summary judgment, as well as its determination that Aleantar did not comply with the notice requirements of California’s Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We affirm the judgment in part and reverse and remand in part.

BACKGROUND

I. Factual Background

ITW, Hobart’s parent company, designs and manufactures commercial food equip *1050 ment. Hobart provides after-sale maintenance and repair services to ITW’s customers. Alcantar works for Hobart as a service…

concurring in part and dissenting in part:

This case should be over. The majority correctly rejects Alcantar’s contentions regarding (a) the denial of class certification on his meal break claim, and (b) the grant of summary judgment to Hobart on his PAGA claim. 1 Then, for reasons quite unclear to me, the majority fails to affirm the grant of summary judgment on the commute time claim. Even viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Alcantar, as we must when reviewing a grant of summary judgment, see Leisek v. Brightwood Corp., 278 F.3d 895, 898 (9th Cir.2002), there is no genuine issue of material fact on this issue.

Under California law, Alcantar may only succeed on his commute time claim if he can show that he is subject to Hobart’s control during his commute. See CaLCode Regs. tit. 8, § 11040(2)(K). If an employer requires its employees to commute in employer provided vehicles and “prohibit[s] them from effectively using their travel time for their own purposes,” then the employer must compensate the employees for their time as “hours worked.” See Morillion v. Royal Packing Co., 22 Cal.4th 575 , 94 Cal.Rptr.2d 3 , 995 P.2d 139, 146 (2000). However, if the employees…

BACKGROUND

I. Factual Background

ITW, Hobart’s parent company, designs and manufactures commercial food equipment. Hobart provides after-sale maintenance and repair services to ITW’s customers. Alcantar works for Hobart as a service technician.

Alcantar and other service technicians provide most services on-site. They drive to and from customer locations in vehicles Hobart provides, carrying the tools and

ALCANTAR V. HOBART SERVICE

replacement parts necessary to make repairs. Although they spend most of their time at customer locations, each technician is assigned to one of Hobart’s thirteen California branch offices.

As hourly employees, the technicians are compensated for the time they spend fixing equipment and the time they spend driving to and from different assignments. If they commute in the service vehicles, they are also compensated for the time spent driving from their homes to their first assignments and from their last assignments back home, but only to the extent it falls outside their “normal commute.”

A normal commute is the time it takes a technician to drive from his home to his branch location. Thus, if a job site is farther from a…