PetSmart Facing Groomer’s Lawsuit Over Alleged Wage Violations

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A pet groomer employed at one of PetSmart’s 28 Washington locations has filed a proposed class action against the company over numerous alleged wage and hour violations of state labor law. The plaintiff, employed by defendant PetSmart, Inc. since 2015, claims she and similarly situated groomers are paid on a piece-rate/commission basis whereby they’re paid a percentage of what the defendant charges for each grooming service. For any given week, the lawsuit says, PetSmart retrospectively determines whether proposed class members will be paid under the minimum wage compensation system or by the piece-rate/commission method.

According to the complaint, Washington labor law stipulates that employers must provide employees with a paid 10-minute rest period for each four-hour block of time worked. For employees compensated on a piece-rate basis, employers “must compensate the employees separately and hourly for their time spent” taking a rest period. Even further, under Washington law employers are required to give employees a 30-minute off-duty meal break between the second and fifth hours of a shift. If an employee is not fully relieved of his or her job duties during this meal break, it must be compensated by the employer.

The plaintiff claims that during weeks in which she and proposed class members were paid under PetSmart’s piece-rate/commission system, the company failed to pay groomers “hourly and separately” for rest breaks, for time spent on on-duty meal breaks, and for non-grooming services.

“During the class period, [PetSmart] issued inaccurate itemized wage statements to its class members,” the lawsuit alleges. “Specifically, the itemized wage statements issued to class members consistently fail to include accurate entries for ‘total hours worked’ and the full ‘wages earned’ by virtue of their exclusion of hours and hourly pay for rest breaks and non-grooming services, and on-duty meal periods at the applicable overtime rate.”