Opinion
No. 10-56846
07-31-2014
SUSAN J. PEABODY, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. TIME WARNER CABLE ENTERPRISES LLC, Defendant - Appellee.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
D.C. No. 2:09-cv-06485-AG-RNB MEMORANDUM Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California
Andrew J. Guilford, District Judge, Presiding
Argued July 11, 2012, Resubmitted July 31, 2014 Pasadena, California Before: TALLMAN and N.R. SMITH, Circuit Judges, and BURGESS, District Judge.
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
The Honorable Timothy M. Burgess, District Judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, sitting by designation.
On August 17, 2012, we (1) filed a memorandum disposition affirming the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Time Warner Cable, Inc. (TWC) on Peabody's claim that TWC retroactively reduced her compensation; and (2) certified the following question to the California Supreme Court: "To satisfy California's compensation requirements, whether an employer can average an employee's commission payments over certain pay periods when it is equitable and reasonable for the employer to do so." Peabody v. Time Warner Cable, Inc., 689 F.3d 1134, 1135 (9th Cir. 2012).
On July 14, 2014, the California Supreme Court responded "that an employer satisfies the minimum earnings prong of the commissioned employee exemption only in those periods in which it actually pays the required minimum earnings. An employer may not satisfy the prong by reassigning wages from a different pay period." Peabody v. Time Warner Cable, Inc., No. 2S04804, 2014 WL 3397770 at *4, — P.3d — (Cal. July 14, 2014).
Therefore, we REVERSE the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of TWC on the remaining four issues on appeal and REMAND for reconsideration consistent with the foregoing interpretation of California law. Each party shall bear its own costs.
These issues are:
1) whether Peabody qualified for the commissions paid exemption of Section 3(D) of Wage Order 4-2001; 2) whether Peabody was owed additional minimum wage payments under Wage Order 4-2001 4(B); 3) whether Time Warner Cable, Inc. ("TWC") was exempt from providing wage statements under California Labor Code Section 226(a); and 4) whether TWC owes Peabody any late wage payments under California Labor Code Section 203.
Peabody, 689 F.3d at 1135.