In a partially published decision issued on December 11, 2025, the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, addressed several recurring issues in wage-and-hour litigation involving commercial truck drivers. In Dieves v. Butte Sand Trucking Company et al. (No. C099631), the court considered whether a truck driver could pursue class claims for meal and rest period violations, whether expense reimbursement claims were suitable for class treatment, and whether a representative claim under the Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) could be stricken as unmanageable. The court affirmed some trial-court rulings, reversed others, and provided guidance on how lower courts must apply recent California Supreme Court authority in these contexts.
The plaintiff, Stephen Dieves, worked as a truck driver for Butte Sand Trucking Company and related entities for approximately nine months in 2018. He alleged that the employer failed to provide legally compliant meal and rest breaks, failed to reimburse business expenses, and engaged in unfair competition. Dieves sought to pursue these claims on a classwide basis and also brought a representative PAGA claim seeking civil penalties for alleged Labor Code violations. The trial court denied class certification for all claims and later granted the employer’s motion to strike the PAGA claim on manageability grounds. Dieves appealed both rulings.
With respect to class certification, the Court of Appeal applied established California standards requiring a showing of an ascertainable class and a community of interest, including predominant common questions of law or fact. The court reviewed the trial court’s ruling under the abuse-of-discretion standard but emphasized that reversal is required where the denial of certification rests on erroneous legal assumptions.
The appellate court reached different conclusions for the meal-period and rest-period claims. As to meal periods, the court held that the trial court erred by failing to apply the burden-shifting framework established by the California Supreme Court in Donohue v. AMN Services, LLC. Dieves had introduced time records showing no recorded meal breaks for over 1,300 shifts lasting more than five hours and evidence that no meal-period premium pay had been provided. Under Donohue, such records give rise to a rebuttable presumption that compliant meal periods were not provided, shifting the burden to the employer to demonstrate that employees were in fact afforded compliant breaks but voluntarily chose to work. The trial court instead treated the absence of recorded meal breaks as inconclusive and focused on employee declarations offered by the employer without applying the presumption. The Court of Appeal concluded this was legal error and that the error was prejudicial, requiring reversal and remand for reconsideration of class certification under the correct standard.
By contrast, the court affirmed the denial of class certification for the rest-period claim. The appellate court explained that the Donohue presumption is grounded in an employer’s statutory duty to maintain accurate meal-period records, a duty that does not extend to rest breaks. Because employers are not required to record rest periods, the absence of rest-break records does not give rise to a presumption of violation. The court found that Dieves’ personal declaration that he did not observe rest breaks was insufficient, by itself, to compel a finding of commonality or predominance across the proposed class.
The Court of Appeal also affirmed the denial of class certification for Dieves’ expense reimbursement claim under Labor Code section 2802. Although Dieves alleged that drivers were required to use personal cell phones for work and that reimbursement was inadequate, the court agreed with the trial court that the evidence showed individualized circumstances rather than a common, classwide practice. The record did not compel a finding that personal phone use was necessary or that the post-2020 reimbursement amount was uniformly insufficient, and the trial court therefore acted within its discretion in denying class treatment.
In the published portion of the opinion, the Court of Appeal addressed the trial court’s order striking the PAGA claim as unmanageable. While the trial court relied on prior appellate authority recognizing inherent judicial authority to strike unmanageable PAGA claims, the California Supreme Court subsequently disapproved that doctrine in Estrada v. Royalty Carpet Mills, Inc. (2024) 15 Cal.5th 582. Applying Estrada, the Court of Appeal held that trial courts do not have inherent authority to strike PAGA claims based on manageability concerns and reversed the order striking Dieves’ PAGA claim.
The employer argued that the PAGA claim should nevertheless be dismissed on federal preemption grounds based on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s December 28, 2018 decision preempting California meal- and rest-break rules for certain commercial drivers. The Court of Appeal agreed with the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation that the federal preemption decision applies regardless of when the underlying conduct occurred and deprives California courts of the power to enforce preempted rules. However, the court concluded that the record did not establish whether the drivers at issue were subject to the federal hours-of-service regulations triggering preemption. Because that determination involves factual questions, the court remanded the matter for the trial court to decide whether preemption applies to Dieves’ PAGA claim.
The Dieves decision reinforces several important principles for California wage-and-hour litigation. Trial courts must apply the Donohue burden-shifting framework when meal-period records show apparent violations without premium pay. Rest-period claims remain analytically distinct due to different recordkeeping obligations. PAGA claims may not be dismissed simply because they present case-management challenges, although defendants may still raise due-process and preemption defenses where supported by the record. For employers in the trucking industry, the decision highlights the continuing significance of federal preemption issues and the need for careful factual development regarding driver classifications and regulatory coverage.
Viewed more broadly across industries, the decision reinforces principles articulated by the California Supreme Court in Donohue v. AMN Services, LLC regarding meal-period compliance and the evidentiary significance of employer time records. Employers remain obligated to provide legally compliant, unpaid, and uninterrupted meal periods and to maintain accurate records reflecting meal-period compliance. Where time records show missed, late, or short meal periods and no meal period premium is paid, those records may give rise to a rebuttable presumption that compliant meal periods were not provided. In such circumstances, the burden shifts to the employer to present evidence that employees were in fact relieved of duty and voluntarily chose to work through or shorten their meal periods. The decision further underscores the importance of separately itemizing meal period premium payments on wage statements and periodically auditing timekeeping and payroll records to ensure accuracy and compliance.
By contrast, the court’s analysis remains consistent with Donohue’s recognition that employers are not required to record rest periods, and the absence of rest-period records does not give rise to a comparable evidentiary presumption. Employers must nevertheless authorize and permit legally compliant rest periods. Where an employer elects to track paid rest periods in timekeeping systems, those records may assume evidentiary significance and should be carefully maintained and audited, as inaccurate or incomplete rest-period entries could complicate compliance analysis or create unintended inferences in later proceedings.