A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has stopped a class action lawsuit alleging that a retailer illegally failed to provide chairs for cashiers.
As reported in the Daily Journal (subscription only), the lawsuit is one in a series of suits filed by three plaintiffs firms based in California and Nevada against virtually every major retailer across the state, including Target Corp., The Home Depot Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Rite Aid Corp., and Blockbuster Inc.
In the Los Angeles case, a 99ยข Only Stores employee sued her employer, seeking civil penalties under California's Private Attorneys General Act, which her attorneys argued in court papers "requires employers to provide seats to their employees." According to the complaint, the defendant violated sections of the California Labor Code and Wage Order 7-2001 by "failing to provide suitable seats to plaintiff and current and former employees." The plaintiff, Eugina Bright, brought the suit as a class action and stated in her complaint that the class could include more than 1,000 people.
Judge Luis A. Lavin granted the company's motion to dismiss, ruling that the section of the statute on which Bright based her complaint did not have that requirement, but instead states, "all working employees shall be provided with suitable seats when the nature of the work reasonably permits" their use.
The firms "are seizing on the fact that checkout clerks are routinely not provided seats, a novel legal strategy in the world of employment law," wrote Daily Journal reporter Ciaran McEvoy. "It's unclear whether the strategy will prove successful."