Bluford v. Safeway Stores, Inc.

Case Updates

The U.S. Chamber urged the California Supreme Court to grant the petition for review. The Chamber argued that this case is yet another employment dispute in which a Court of Appeal superimposed rules developed in the wage-and-hour context on a different compensation system. Here, the appeals court held that an employer using a productivity compensation system must separately compensate piece-rate workers at the minimum hourly wage for rest breaks and that a determination whether the claims are suitable for class action treatment can be based entirely on the plaintiff’s allegations without regard to the employer's affirmative defenses.