MILES V. KIRKLAND'S STORES, INC., No. 22-55522 (9th Cir. 2024)
Annotate this CaseThe case concerned a lawsuit brought by Ariana Miles against her former employer, Kirkland's Stores Inc., alleging that two of the company's employee policies violated California law. The first policy required employees to take rest breaks on store property, while the second necessitated employees to undergo bag checks when they finished their shifts. Miles sought class certification for subclasses of employees affected by these two policies from May 2014 to the present. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of class certification for subclasses related to the Rest Break Claim due to the inaccuracy of the district court's finding that the rest break policy was inconsistently applied. The court held that overwhelming record evidence indicated that the company consistently enforced its rest break policy across all employees. However, the court upheld the district court's denial of class certification for the Bag Check Claim, as the evidence suggested that the bag check policy was sporadically enforced, which would require individualized inquiries. The case was thus remanded for further proceedings concerning the Rest Break Claim.
Court Description: Class Certification In a lawsuit alleging that two employee policies at Kirkland’s Stores violate California law, the panel reversed the district court’s order denying class certification for subclasses that rely on a Rest Break Claim, affirmed the denial of class certification for subclasses that rely on a Bag Check Claim, and remanded for further proceedings.
The Rest Break Claim challenged Kirkland’s policy requiring employees to take rest breaks on store property, and the Bag Check Claim challenged Kirkland’s policy requiring employees to surrender to bag checks when they ended their shift. The district court denied class certification because it found that common issues failed to predominate over individual ones under Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(3).
The panel reversed the district court’s denial of class certification of the Rest Break Claim because the district court incorrectly found that Kirkland’s applied its rest break policy inconsistently during the proposed class period. The panel held that the overwhelming record evidence showed that the company consistently enforced its policy across all employees, and remanded for the district court to reassess the evidence and apply the remaining Rule 23 requirements to the Rest Break Claim.
The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of class certification of the Bag Check Claim because the evidence suggested that Kirkland’s enforced the bag check policy sporadically. Given the uneven enforcement of the policy, the district court would have to embark on a time-intensive mission to figure out the individual circumstances of each proposed class member, which is not amenable to class treatment. In addition, Kirkland’s implemented the bag check policy in different ways when they did enforce the policy.
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