Flores
Flores v. Velocity Express, LLC
Opinion
Lead Opinion
Tigar, J.
ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR PARTIAL SUMMARY JUDGMENT
Re: ECF No. 241
Before the Court is Plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment as to misclassi-fication and willfulness. ECF No. 241. The Court will grant the motion in its entirety.
I. BACKGROUND
In this collective action, Plaintiffs allege that Defendants violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and California law by misclassifying their drivers as independent contractors. The following facts are undisputed except where noted.
A. Defendants
Beginning in December 2009, Defendant Velocity Express, LLC (“Velocity”) began operating its delivery logistics, freight forwarding, and brokering business. Wheeler Deck, ECF No. 44-1 at 3, ¶ 3. In its standard services proposal to its customers, Velocity described itself as “America’s largest national ground shipping provider dedicated exclusively to regional delivery.” ECF No. 242-6 at 2. Velocity’s managerial employees testified that Velocity was primarily a delivery business. See Curcuru Depo., ECF No. 242-12 at 70-71 (characterizing Velocity’s business as “[delivering product to the end user”); Healey Depo., ECF No. 242-16 at 4-6 (affirming that “the general…