The lawsuit is a wage-and-hour class action against one of California’s largest supermarket pharmacy chain operators.

On February 13, 2008, we filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of all current and former pharmacists employed by SAFEWAY, INC. and one of its subsidiary companies, the VONS Company, in California.  The lawsuit alleges multiple violations of the California labor laws by these defendants in that they failed to provide their pharmacists with meal and rest breaks.

We believe there are over five hundred current and former SAFEWAY and VONS pharmacists similarly situated to the named plaintiff in this case who were denied duty-free meal periods and rest breaks during the relevant statutory period.  The amount of unpaid compensation is unknown at this time.  However, we have estimated the total amount of unpaid compensation to be between $25 to $35 million.  

Generally, California labor law requires that employees receive a 30 minute meal break if they work in excess of five hours in a day.  The employee must be relieved of all duties during the meal break. If an employer fails to provide its employees a meal break, the employee can recover one hour of pay at his or her regular hourly rate of compensation for each day that he or she was not provided a meal break.

California labor law also requires every employer to authorize and permit all employees to take rest breaks, which insofar as practicable must be in the middle of each work period.  The authorized rest period time is based on the total hours worked daily at the rate of ten (10) minutes net rest time per four (4) hours or major fraction thereof.    

The complaint states, in part, "Throughout the statutory period alleged herein, Defendants did not authorize or permit, and failed to provide their employee pharmacists employed in California including Plaintiff, and all other class members similarly situated, meal periods as required by California law including the Wage Order.”  The Complaint goes on to allege, “Beginning on and after January 1, 2001, failure by an employer to provide an employee a 10-minute paid rest break for every four (4) hours, or major fraction thereof, that they work will require the employer to pay the employee one (1) additional hour of pay at the employee’s regular rate of compensation for each work day that the employee fails to take the required rest period. (California Labor Code section 226.7, subdivision (b) ; Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Order 4-2001)”

There currently is no pending class certification motion before the Court.  However, it is anticipated that a class certification motion will be filed within the next several months.  To be able to further investigate this claim on behalf of the class members, the named Plaintiff is asking you to help him and yourself by completing the online questionnaire here on this site.   Although you are not at all required to do this, your completion of the online questionnaire will do two things: 1) it will identify you as a potential member of the class, and 2) it will help us investigate and determine the extent of these alleged unlawful and unfair practices for the Court's consideration.

If this is all sounding very familiar to you, chances are excellent that you may be a member of the class and we would really like to hear from you as soon as possible.  And to put your mind as ease, REMEMBER it is against the law for SAFEWAY or VONS to retaliate against any current or former employees who complete these online forms, join the class, or exercise their legal rights with regard to the practice of denying duty-free meal periods and rest breaks.  Do yourself and the "class" a favor by completing the short questionnaire today and help SPREAD THE WORD  to anyone else you know who is similarly situated.  If you would prefer to fill out and mail a hard copy of the questionnaire to our office, please email us  and we will send you a PDF.