NEWS ITEM

Appellate Court Rules for Workers in Living Wage Class Action

Ruling Clears the Way for Laundry Workers to Receive Back Wages

January 20, 2009 – A California Court of Appeal ruled in favor of laundry workers today in a class action case seeking to enforce the City of Los Angeles’ Living Wage Ordinance. The workers allege that their employer, Cintas Corporation, failed to pay them the living wages required by the ordinance from 2000 to 2004. A trial court had ruled that only laundry workers who spent more than 20 hours per month on City contracts were covered by the Living Wage Ordinance, but the Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate District disagreed and reversed the trial court decision, thereby clearing the way for all the laundry workers to recover back wages and penalties.

Altshuler Berzon LLP represents the class of laundry workers in the case, Aguiar v. Cintas Corporation. Altshuler Berzon also represented a class of Northern California laundry workers in an earlier case enforcing the Hayward Living Wage Ordinance that resulted in a $1.4 million judgment in 2006 against Cintas Corporation, which was affirmed in Amaral v. Cintas Corporation, 163 Cal.App.4th 1157 (2008).

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