Dynamic Accident Lawyers: Burlington Coat Factory Settles Wage Class Action for $1.8M

On Dec. 2, the court approved a preliminary settlement of $1.8 million to resolve claims that Burlington Coat Factory shorted employees by limiting rest breaks and requiring security checks without paying for that time.

Lead plaintiff Armida Rodriguez originally filed the Burlington Coat Factory wage and hour class action in October of 2012, based on her work at the Burlington Coat Factory store in Compton, Calif.

In November of 2014, Rodriguez asked the court to certify the class action lawsuit, which took issue with some of Burlington’s policies. Rodriguez took issue with “(1) an allegedly unlawful written rest break policy” limiting rest breaks to “discrete time frames”; and “ (2) a policy requiring putative Class Members to submit to security checks, which Plaintiff alleged led to both off the-clock work and short (less than 30 minutes) meal periods.”

Defendants Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corp. and Burlington Coat Factory of California LLC fired back at the plaintiffs in March of 2015. The Defendants argued that store managers did not violate California wage and hour law in practice (even if the written policy was different). The Defendants also that the bag check policy was random, enforced differently at different stores, and did not uniformly limit workers’ lunches to less than 30 minutes.

Before the court could decide whether or not the Burlington Coat Factory wage and hour class action lawsuit could move forward, the parties reached a settlement. Based on “Defendant’s potential liability of total exposure in relation to the costs and risks associated with continued litigation” as well as the “risks for both sides,” the parties asked the court to approve the class action settlement as the best for everyone involved.

U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson agreed. In his order, Judge Pregerson approved a Class of “All current and/or former non-exempt, hourly employees of Burlington who worked in a Burlington retail store in a non-managerial position in the State of California at any time beginning October 11, 2008 through the date of Preliminary Approval of the Class Action Settlement.” Rodriquez believes that roughly 22,000 people qualify for the Class.

The $1.8 million settlement will be paid to anyone in the Class who does not opt out, on a pro rata basis determined by the number of weeks they worked for Burlington Coat Factory since Oct. 11, 2008.

This is the second recent settlement for Burlington Coat Factory. In November, Burlington Coat Factory settled a class action lawsuit alleging it violated California law by requesting and recording telephone numbers from customers when they paid with a credit card at a retail store located in California.

The final approval hearing for the Burlington Coat Factory wage and hour class action lawsuit will be held on Feb. 29, 2016.

More information about the Burlington Coat Factory wage and hour settlement was not immediately available. Keep checking TopClassActions.com or sign up for our free newsletter for the latest updates. You can also mark this article as a “Favorite” using your free Top Class Actions account to receive notifications when this article is updated.

Lead plaintiff Armida Rodriguez is represented by Farzad Rastegar and Sharon W. Lin of the Rastegar Law Group, APC, Scott B. Cooper and Samantha Smith of the Cooper Law Firm, P.C., Kashif Haque, Samuel Wong, and Jessica L. Campbell of the Aegis Law Firm, PC, and Roger Carter of the Carter Law Firm.

The Burlington Coat Factory Wage and Hour Class Action Lawsuit is Rodriguez, et al. v. Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corp., et al., Case No. CV 13-02426 DDP, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

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