Sergio V. Bernal v. Serco, Inc.

I. Background1

At issue here in this wage-and-hour lawsuit is whether the Defendant has carried its burden of demonstrating that the $5 million amount-in-controversy requirement of the Class Action Fairness Act (“CAFA”), 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d), has been met. Before the Court is the Plaintiff’s motion to remand this case back to state court, arguing that the Defendant has not made this showing. A. The complaint Plaintiff Sergio Bernal worked as a parking enforcement officer for Defendant Serco, Inc. in Santa Ana, California. He filed a putative class action in state court on behalf of himself and other similarly-situated non-exempt employees who worked for Serco. The complaint alleges the following violations of California’s wage-and-hour laws concerning Serco’s non-exempt employees: 1. Serco failed to either: (1) provide employees with duty-free rest periods of at least 10 minutes for every four hours of work; or (2) pay them one hour’s worth of wages when it could not provide the required rest period. Compl. ¶¶ 23, 26. 2. Serco failed to: (1) provide employees with a 30 minute meal period within the first five hours of their shifts or a second meal period on days where…