A judge Monday gave final approval to a $600,000 gross class-action settlement of a lawsuit filed by a former Nielsen Co. employee who alleged that the global marketing research and television ratings firm owed her and other current and former workers compensation for missed meal and rest breaks as well as overtime.
Armida Marquez brought the proposed class-action suit in Los Angeles Superior Court in March 2023, alleging multiple violations of the state Labor Code. Marquez asked for a court finding that the company violated the Labor Code provisions and that back wages be paid with interest.
On Monday, Judge Timothy Patrick Dillon signed an order giving his nod to the accord. In their court papers urging approval of the settlement, Marquez’s attorneys included a sworn declaration from their client.
“During my employment, I questioned whether defendant was paying its employees correctly and I believed that I and other employees were not being allowed to take meal and rest breaks lawfully, among other things,” Marquez said.
“I wanted to take steps to make sure defendant was held accountable for not properly compensating its employees for all hours worked, not providing employees with lawful meal and rest breaks, not reimbursing employees for business expenses, and other related violations.”
In their previous court papers, Nielsen attorneys maintained that all employees were “properly and fully compensated for all work performed” and that Marquez’s suit should be dismissed.
According to Marquez’s suit, Nielsen “had the financial ability to pay such compensation, but willfully, knowingly and intentionally failed to do so in order to increase (its) profits.”
Marquez worked for Nielsen from June 2018 through March 2022 and her duties included recruiting, signing and providing services to households of people who allow their television and radio viewing listening to be monitored so Nielsen could use the data to compile ratings, according to the suit.
Marquez and similar employees often took calls at all times from the company as well as the monitored households on a large range of issues, the suit stated.
However, the employees were frequently asked to work outside their work hours without compensation, were not paid complete monies due for overtime and missed meal and rest breaks and also did not always get reimbursed for out-of-pocket business expenses, the suit alleged.
“(Nielsen) also implemented policies that prohibited (Marquez) and the class members from accurately recording the actual time worked, resulting in a failure to pay plaintiff and the other (proposed) class members all wages owed,” the suit alleged.
Marquez further contended that Nielsen management knew or should have known that they were required to timely pay all wages owed to her and the other proposed class members at the correct rate of pay.