Perfection Pet Foods Cos. Owe Unpaid Wages, Class Action Lawsuit Claims

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From California comes a proposed class action filed by three plaintiffs who allege Western Milling, LLC and Kruse Investment Company, Inc. ran afoul of state laws that govern employee meal and rest periods and overtime wages.

According to the complaint, the defendants, who share ownership interest in Perfection Pet Foods and employed the plaintiffs at their Visalia plant and warehouse, require employees to work 12-hour shifts that include a purported 30-minute meal break. The case claims, however, that the defendants failed to provide meal periods to workers prior to the end of their fifth and 10th hours of work as stipulated by the California Labor Code. The suit charges that employees have not received all wages owed, nor accurate paystubs, due to missed and/or non-compliant meal and rest periods.

“Plaintiffs and [putative class members] were kept too busy by their managers to take meal periods prior to the end of their fifth hour of work,” according to the suit. “Plaintiffs’ managers only permitted them to take meal periods when they had been relieved of duty by a co-worker who would take over their work while Plaintiffs took their meal periods.” 

Further, the defendants allegedly failed to provide a second off-duty 30-minute meal period for shifts that exceeded 10 hours. These alleged violations supposedly occurred while the plaintiffs and those similarly situated were being paid by a temporary staffing agency utilized by the defendants.

Rounding out the suit is the allegation from one named plaintiff that the defendants unlawfully denied his Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA)-covered request for time off before he was terminated in retaliation for having requested FMLA leave. According to the case, the plaintiff requested medical leave due to debilitating headaches stemming from a 2015 stroke. The suit alleges that within days of submitting his request, the plaintiff was “falsely accused of sending inappropriate emails to co-workers” before being terminated. 

“The inappropriate e-mails were fabricated and were used as a pretext for terminating [the plaintiff] for requesting leave under FMLA in retaliation for the same,” the lawsuit reads.