Liberty Mutual Hit with Class Action Alleging Calif. Sales Reps Owed Unpaid Wages

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A proposed class action claims Liberty Mutual sales representatives in California have been deprived of proper wages, statutory breaks and reimbursement for business expenses.

According to the case, Liberty Mutual Group, Inc. has wielded a policy and practice of rounding employees’ time records to the nearest half-hour in a manner that the plaintiff believes “was neither fair nor neutral” and resulted in workers being systematically underpaid. Per the complaint, this time-rounding practice also caused the workers to be paid incorrectly for overtime hours.

Further, the lawsuit argues that when Liberty Mutual did pay overtime wages, the workers’ time-and-a-half and double-time rates were miscalculated either because the insurer did not take into account non-hourly compensation or did not calculate the rates on a weekly basis.

The suit goes on to claim that sales representatives were not provided with proper 30-minute meal breaks and 10-minute rest breaks in accordance with the California Labor Code. Per the case, workers were often forced to take late, on-duty or interrupted breaks “or forego them entirely.” Despite the defendant’s apparent failure to provide compliant breaks, employees never received premium wages for the days on which a proper break was missed, the case avers.

Still further, the lawsuit alleges Liberty Mutual had no policy in place to reimburse employees for work-related expenses such as using their personal cell phones and vehicles for business purposes.

“To the contrary, although Plaintiff and the Class Members used their personal cell phones and vehicles for necessary work-related purposes to perform their job duties with the knowledge of and/or acquiescence of Defendants, Defendants did not reimburse Plaintiff and the Class Members in any amount for any such expenses incurred throughout the Class Period,” the complaint claims.

Additionally alleged in the complaint is that Liberty Mutual took unlawful deductions from sales reps’ wages, issued wage statements that intentionally did not include all of the information required under the California Labor Code, and failed to timely pay employees within seven calendar days following the close of payroll.

The lawsuit, recently removed from Orange County, California Superior Court to the state’s Central District Court, Southern Division, proposes to cover a class comprised of anyone employed as a sales representative or in an equivalent position by Liberty Mutual in California within the past four years and through the date of trial.

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