A representative action lawsuit accuses furniture retailer Stoneledge Furniture LLC of wrongly shorting workers' pay, denying them break and rest periods, and other alleged violations of California labor law.
The lawsuit was filed under California's controversial Private Attorney General Act, which allows individual plaintiffs to sue employers for violating California labor law on behalf of all employees.
The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, also accuses of Stoneledge of failing to "correctly calculate the regular rate of pay," for employees, failure to reimburse for required business expenses, failing to provide employees with accurate itemized wage statements and failure to timely pay wages after workers have been terminated from their jobs.
Workers were also required to work in excess of four hours "without being provided 10-minute rest periods as a result of their rigorous work requirements and indequate staffing," the suit says. "When they were provided with rest breaks, plaintiff and other aggrieved employees were, from time to time, required to remain on premises, on duty and/or on call and/or on the premises."
Workers were also required to be available to be reached by cell phones while on their rest breaks, "in order to receive and respond to work-related communications," the lawsuit alleges.
Employees were required to use their own cell phones to perform work related tasks, the suit says, but the company did not reimburse them their phone expenses.
Employees were also required to undergo Covid screenings while they are off the clock, the suit alleges.
The suit seeks penalties of $100 per employee for each pay period for the initial violation and $200 per pay period for each subsequent violation, plus potentially large attorney fees.
The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Jean-Claude Lapuyade and Monnett De La Torre, of JCL Law Firm, and Shani O. Zakay of Zakay Law Group.
Brito v. Stoneledge Furniture LLC, San Francisco Superior Court,CGC-23-608656