California Court of Appeal Confirms PAGA Claims Cannot be Dismissed Based on Manageability Issues

Provides Guidance for Certification in Meal-Period Class Actions

In a partially published decision issued on December 11, 2025, the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, addressed several recurring issues in wage-and-hour litigation involving commercial truck drivers. In Dieves v. Butte Sand Trucking Company, the Court considered whether a truck driver is able to pursue class claims for meal and rest period violations, whether expense reimbursement claims were suitable for class treatment, and whether a representative claim under the Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) could be stricken as unmanageable. The Court affirmed some trial-court rulings, reversed others, and provided guidance on how lower courts must apply recent California Supreme Court authority in these contexts.

The opinion has two parts. The first, which is not certified for publication and, thus, cannot be cited by lawyers or courts as legal authority, addresses the class certification issues. The second, which is certified for publication and, thus, citable, reverses the dismissal of PAGA claims based on alleged unmanageability because the trial court did not follow previous precedent.

Thus, this article focuses primarily on the Court’s analysis of the class certification issues and provides guidance and recommendations for employers.

Facts

Plaintiff, Stephen Dieves, worked as a truck driver for Butte Sand Trucking Company (“Butte”) and related entities for approximately nine months in 2018. He alleged that Butte failed to provide legally compliant meal and rest breaks, failed to reimburse business expenses, and engaged in unfair competition. In particular, Dieves claimed the company “talked a good game” about meal breaks but created a workplace culture where taking them was essentially discouraged. When he was hired, according to his account, Butte’s safety director told him to sign an agreement for on-duty meal periods and that he would have to do what every other driver did: “eat at 55 miles per hour.” According to Dieves, his trainer reportedly reinforced the message, saying drivers did not take meal breaks because that was not “the Butte Sand’s way” unless they crossed state lines.

Dieves sought to pursue these claims on a class wide basis and also brought a representative PAGA claim seeking civil penalties for alleged Labor Code violations. With respect to the class claims, Dieves relied on company time records covering approximately two percent of shifts worked between May 2015 and November 2021 by all drivers. Those records, representing over 1,300 work shifts longer than five hours, revealed that not a single meal break was recorded. Dieves’ expert analyzed the data and projected that between 99.78 and 100 percent of qualifying shifts during the proposed class period would show the same pattern.

Butte’s office manager confirmed that no meal period premiums had been paid to drivers working those shifts. However, the company fought back with no less than fourteen declarations from current and former drivers who said they had never been pressured to skip breaks. These drivers also said that Butte had policies allowing meal breaks, sent daily reminders through an in-truck communications system, and let them take breaks whenever they wanted. Most said they simply preferred working through lunch to finish earlier and get home.

Dieves also claimed that none of the drivers took or were compensated for rest breaks.

Finally, Dieves alleged that he and other drivers were required to use their personal phones to communicate with Butte’s dispatchers and drivers. However, he alleged that Butte did not reimburse him or other drivers for use of their personal phones prior to January 1, 2020, but started reimbursing drivers $25 per month thereafter—an amount insufficient to constitute full reimbursement of the expense.

Proceedings in the Trial Court

Trial Court Denies Motion for Class Certification of All Claims

Plaintiff moved for class certification of the meal break and rest break claims as well as the claim based on the failure to reimburse business expenses. The trial court, siding with Butte, denied class certification as to all three claims.

As to the meal break claims, the trial court noted that Dieves relied primarily on Butte’s time records as the basis for certifying the class. The trial court found the time records did “not establish a uniform practice of discouraging meal breaks, or constitute substantial evidence of such practice, especially when the fourteen declarations of truck driver employees” produced by Butte were considered. The trial court explained the time records “only demonstrate drivers included in the [2 percent] sample were not clocking out for meal breaks but provide[d] no evidence of the reason for this, for example, if the nature of the driver’s work prevented them from being relieved of all duty for a meal break, or if drivers did in fact take meal breaks and didn’t record them, or if drivers voluntarily worked through a meal break as a matter of individual preference.”

As to the rest break claim, the only evidence presented by Dieves was his own declaration that, based on his personal observation, none of the drivers took rest breaks as they were entitled to do. The trial court noted that this evidence is insufficient to establish that all the drivers in the class did not take rest breaks and were not compensated for them.

Finally, the court denied certification of the expense reimbursement claim on the grounds that Dieves failed to produce substantial evidence indicating any driver within the proposed class believed personal phone use for work was required or that the $25 per month reimbursement starting in January 2020 was insufficient for occasional use of personal phones for work.

Based on the evidence submitted by Butte, the trial court found that Dieves failed to produce substantial evidence to show he shares a community of interest with any other truck driver employed by Butte or that “common issues of law or fact predominate over individual issues.” The trial court thus denied class certification of the meal and rest break claims.

Opinion by the Court of Appeal

Dieves appealed all of the court’s rulings. We address only the denial of class certification in this article.

Denial of Class Certification

In the unpublished portion of the opinion, the Court of Appeal set forth its rulings on the denial of class certification. The Court reached different conclusions for the meal-period and rest-period claims. As to meal periods, the Court held that the trial court erred by failing to apply the burden-shifting framework established by the California Supreme Court in Donohue v. AMN Services, LLC (2021) 11 Cal.5th 58. Dieves had introduced time records showing no recorded meal breaks for over 1,300 shifts lasting more than five hours and evidence that no meal-period premium pay had been provided. Under Donohue, such records give rise to a rebuttable presumption that compliant meal periods were not provided, shifting the burden to the employer to demonstrate that employees were in fact afforded compliant breaks but voluntarily chose to work. The trial court instead treated the absence of recorded meal breaks as inconclusive and focused on employee declarations offered by the employer without applying the presumption. The Court of Appeal concluded this was legal error and that the error was prejudicial, requiring reversal and remand for reconsideration of class certification under the correct standard.

By contrast, the Court affirmed the denial of class certification for the rest-period claim. The Court explained that the Donohue presumption is grounded in an employer’s statutory duty to maintain accurate meal-period records, a duty that does not extend to rest breaks. Because employers are not required to record rest periods, the absence of rest-break records does not give rise to a presumption of violation. The Court found that Dieves’ personal declaration that he did not observe rest breaks was insufficient, by itself, to compel a finding of commonality or predominance across the proposed class.

Finally, the Court affirmed the denial of class certification for Dieves’ expense reimbursement claim under Labor Code section 2802. Although Dieves alleged that drivers were required to use personal cell phones for work and that reimbursement was inadequate, the Court agreed with the trial court that the evidence showed individualized circumstances rather than a common, classwide practice. The record did not compel a finding that personal phone use was necessary or that the post-2020 reimbursement amount was uniformly insufficient, and the trial court therefore acted within its discretion in denying class treatment.

Key Takeaways

The Court’s opinion emphasizes the importance of proper timekeeping in defending meal break claims. Records showing missing breaks without documented premium payments create a presumption of violations that puts the burden on employers to explain why. Having a written policy allowing breaks is simply insufficient protection if the records suggest employees are not actually taking them. Talk to your labor and employment counsel about strategies to utilize to be sure you have solid admissible evidence that despite time records showing no meal breaks given, meal breaks were taken or voluntarily waived.