Barrueta v. Ralphs Grocery
Putative class representative Mark Barrueta is one of 250 off-duty or retired peace officers (ODO’s) who entered into independent contractor engagement agreements with defendant International Protective Services, Inc., doing business as International Services, Inc. (ISI), a “private patrol operator†licensed by the State of California to furnish security guards. (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 7582.1, subd. (a).) ISI hired the ODO’s specifically to work as armed security guards at various facilities of defendant Ralphs Grocery Company (Ralphs) during the “Southern California Supermarket Strike of 2003-2004†(strike), which lasted from October 2003 to February 2004.
The complaint alleged that ISI and Ralphs violated the unfair competition law (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 17200 (UCL)) by misclassifying the ODO’s as independent contractors rather than employees and failing to pay statutorily required overtime wages. Barrueta moved to certify the proposed class of ODO’s, but the trial court granted the motion only as to the claim against ISI. Based on the parties’ conflicting evidence concerning Ralphs’s liability as a joint employer, the trial court concluded that it was neither feasible nor desirable to litigate the claim against Ralphs on a classwide basis. In this appeal from the order denying class certification as to the claim against Ralphs, we affirm, finding no abuse of discretion or legal error.
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