Burnham Brown Attorney Cathy Arias Obtains Favorable Verdict in Employment Wage and Hour Case

Federico Alvarez was employed as an exempt General Manager in Santa Barbara, California by Pac Pizza, a limited liability company that owns and operates pizza restaurant franchises defended by Burnham Brown partner Cathy Arias.  Alvarez was paid on the basis of a fixed salary regardless of the actual hours he worked in a particular payroll period.  Plaintiff testified at length that Defendant misclassified him as an exempt employee because he was primarily engaged in performing the same kind of work as his subordinates, namely answering telephones, making pizzas and cleaning.  Defendant asserted that Plaintiff qualified as an executive exempt employee as he managed, trained and supervised twenty-three employees.  Plaintiff also performed managerial tasks including store inventory, scheduling, recommending pay increases, preparing employee performance evaluations and preparing various sales, production and labor reports.  Defendant produced labor time studies to demonstrate that only 20% of plaintiff's workday could have been spent in performing any non-exempt tasks.

The Labor Commissioner found for the defense and found that more than 50% of plaintiff's time was spent performing exempt duties. 

Plaintiff demanded $71,991.15 in overtime wages, $12,475.32 in meal period and rest period premium pay and $7,488.00 in waiting time penalties.

The Order from the Labor Commissioner was that Plaintiff take nothing by virtue of his complaint.  The award was $0.