IBM obtains summary judgment as to claims of named plaintiff seeking to represent statewide class of California IT workers in wage-hour class action
Client(s) International Business Machines
On behalf of International Business Machines Corporation, Jones Day obtained summary judgment as to the claims of the named plaintiff seeking to represent a statewide class of California IT workers in a wage-hour class action.
Plaintiff asserted claims under California law that he and other IT workers in California were misclassified as exempt from overtime pay requirements. He also alleged that he and others were denied meal and rest breaks in violation of California law. IBM moved for summary judgment as to the Plaintiff's individual claims. The Court granted the motion, agreeing with Jones Day that "Plaintiff's own words support his exempt classification" and concluding that Plaintiff satisfied the California administrative exemption. The court found that "there is ample evidence from Plaintiff's own testimony and emails that he customarily and regularly exercised discretion and independent judgment." Likewise, the court found that Plaintiff’s "work managing outages and making recommendations concerning mainframes and networks affected the business operations of [IBM's] customers to a substantial degree." Given that Plaintiff was properly classified as exempt, the court further granted summary judgment to IBM on the meal-and-rest break claim.
Valles v. International Business Machines Corp., Case No. 8:09-cv-00202-AG-MLG (C.D. Cal. May 6, 2010)
