MEMORANDUM OF POINTS AND AUTHORITIES I. STATEMENT OF FACTS Sidonie Smith was employed as an administ

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TO THE COURT, PLAINTIFF, AND ITS ATTORNEY OF RECORD, PLEASE TAKE NOTICE THAT, Defendant and Cross Complainant Sidonie Smith hereby gives notice that she will and hereby does make a motion for Summary Judgment of plaintiff's First Amended Complaint ("FAC") in its entirety, and further seeks judgment against the plaintiff for multiple Civil Procedure, Labor Code, and Civil Code violations set forth in Ms. Smith's Cross Complaint, hotels in daytona florida and described further below. The motion shall be heard at 8:30am on July 24, 2012, in Department 32 of the Los Angeles Superior Court, hotels in daytona florida Central Branch. Sidonie Smith is entitled to Summary hotels in daytona florida Judgment of the claims set forth in the plaintiff's complaint on the following grounds: Cross Complainant Sidonie Smith is entitled to damages because the Plaintiff, LAUSD repeatedly made illegal deductions from wages earned and due to Sidonie Smith without a valid wage garnishment order, in express violation of California wage garnishment law; Additionally, plaintiff committed several Labor Code violations by failing to maintain accurate payroll records, failing to produce records justifying the debt in response to multiple written requests by Sidonie Smith, and pursued unfair collection practices in the hopes of coercing payment for a debt that it knows it cannot properly document or substantiate. Plaintiff failed to properly calculate and pay Sidonie Smith the wages she was entitled to. Plaintiff is not entitled to any recovery on its claims because the alleged overpayment of wages was caused by plaintiff's own negligence and it is against judicial policy to award recovery to a state agency for wage overpayment caused by the agency's own negligence; Plaintiff's claims for wage overpayment are fatally uncertain because plaintiff's payroll records are riddled with errors. During the course of its collection efforts, plaintiff has changed its claims as to the amount of the alleged hotels in daytona florida overpayment multiple times, and still does not have accurate payroll records or any reliable evidence to establish the alleged hotels in daytona florida debt. Plaintiff's hands are further sullied, by the fact that plaintiff seeks duplicative recovery, in that it has already been compensated by Delloite Consulting, its payroll company, for the same losses that it is claiming against Ms. Smith and other defendants in this action; For these reasons, plaintiff is not entitled to the equitable relief it seeks in this action and plaintiff's claims should be dismissed in their entirety. The motion shall be based on this notice, the memorandum, hotels in daytona florida declarations, attachments, all documents in the court file, and any oral or documentary evidence that may be presented at the hearing of the motion.
TABLE OF CONTENTS I. STATEMENT OF FACTS 1 II. DEFENDANTS ARE ENTITLED TO SUMMARY JUDGMENT WHERE THERE ARE NO TRIABLE hotels in daytona florida ISSUES hotels in daytona florida OF FACT OR WHERE PLAINTIFF CANNOT ESTABLISH ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF HIS CLAIM 3 III. THERE ARE NO TRIABLE ISSUES OF FACT AND SIDONIE SMITH IS ENTITLED TO JUDGMENT AS A MATTER OF LAW ON HER COUNTERCLAIM AGAINST LAUSD. 4 A. LAUSD VIOLATED CALIFORNIA WAGE GARNISHMENT LAW BY MAKING DIRECT DEDUCTIONS FROM MS. SMITH'S hotels in daytona florida WAGES WITHOUT A VALID WAGE GARNISHMENT ORDER. 4 B. LAUSD FAILED TO PAY SIDONIE SMITH THE SALARY SHE WAS CONTRACTUALLY ENTITLED TO. 8 C. LAUSD FAILED TO MAINTAIN AND PRODUCE ACCURATE PAYROLL RECORDS 9 III. LAUSD's CANNOT PROVE ITS CLAIMS OF OVER PAYMENT AND THE FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT AGAINST SIDONIE SMITH SHOULD BE DISMISSED IN ITS ENTIRETY 10 A. LAUSD WAS NEGLIGENT IN MAINTAINING ITS PAYROLL RECORDS. 10 1. Discrepancies in the Alleged Amount of Overpayment. 11 2. Discrepencies in Employment Classification. 11 3. Errors in the Wage Calculations in LAUSD's Salary Review Purporting to Document the Overpayment. 12 4. Discrepencies in the Annual Salary Ms. Smith Was Entitled to. 14 B. LAUSD'S RECORDS ARE FATALLY UNCERTAIN DUE TO NUMEROUS ERRORS AND ARE THEREFORE UNRELIABLE TO PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF A DEBT . 16 C. THE NEGLIGENCE IN LAUSD'S hotels in daytona florida PAYROLL hotels in daytona florida SYSTEMS IS FAR 17 REACHING AND EFFECTS THOUSANDS OF EMPLOYEES. 17 D. EVEN IF LAUSD COULD PROVE ITS CLAIMS, IT WOULD NOT BE ENTITLED TO RECOVERY hotels in daytona florida BECAUSE IT IS FUNDAMENTALLY UNFAIR AND A VIOLATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF EQUITY FOR THE DEFENDANT TO PAY FOR LAUSD'S NEGLIGENCE. 18 V. LAUSD SEEKS DUPLICATIVE RECOVERY IN THAT THE VERY SAME LOSSES ALLEGED IN THIS ACTION HAVE ALREADY BEEN THE SUBJECT OF A SETTLEMENT WITH DELLOITTE CONSULTING. 19 VI. MS. SMITH HAS SUFFERED SEVERE EMOTIONAL DISTRESS AS A RESULT OF LAUSD'S NEGLIGENCE AND UNLAWFUL hotels in daytona florida CONDUCT. 20 CONCLUSION 20 PRAYER FOR RELIEF 21
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES Cases Aguilar v. Atlantic Richfield Company, (2001) 25 Cal.4th 826, 843. 3 Barnhill v. Robert Saunders Co., (1981) 125 Cal.App.3d 1, 7 5, 7 California State Employee's Assn. v. State of California, (1988) 198 Cal.App.3d 374, 375, 377 5 Chaparkass v. Webb, (1960) 178 Cal.App.2d, 257, 260 18 Commercial U. A. Co. v. Pacific G. E. Co., (1934) 220 Cal. 515, 523 16 Frustuck v. City of Fairfax (1963) 212 Cal.App.2d 345, 367-368 16 Gilles hotels in daytona florida v. Dept. of Human Resources Development, (1974) 11 Cal.3d hotels in daytona florida 313, 317-18 18 Hudgins v. Neiman Marcus Group, Inc. (1995) 34 Cal.App.4th 1109, 1112 5 Kerr's Catering Service v. Department of Industrial hotels in daytona florida Relations (1962) 57 Cal.2d hotels in daytona florida 319, 325-26 5 Mass v. Board of Education (1964) 61 Cal.2d 612, 624 8 Mozzetti v. City of Brisbane (1977) 67 Cal.App.3d 565, 577 16 Olson v. Cory (1983) 35 Cal.3d 390 8 Randone v. Appellate Department, (1971) 5 Cal.3d 536 5 Williams v. Krumsiek (1952) hotels in daytona florida 109 Cal.App.2d 456, 459 16 Statutes hotels in daytona florida California Code of Civil Procedure 473c 3 CCP 487 4 CCP 706.020 4 CCP 706.050-706.052 4 Civ. Code, 3287, subd. (a) 8 Lab. Code, 1194, subd. (a) 7 Labor Code 203 7, 9 Labor Code 226 9 Labor Code 210, 225.5 7 Labor Code 218.5, 218.6 7 Labor Code 221 5 Treatises 14 Cal.Jur.2d 648, 19 16
MEMORANDUM OF POINTS AND AUTHORITIES hotels in daytona florida I. STATEMENT OF FACTS Sidonie Smith was employed as an administrator by Los Angeles Unified School District ("LAUSD") for several years and retired as of January 16, 2007. (UMF 1, 2). In January of 2007, plaintiff began implementing a new payroll system. (UMF 3). Extensive hotels in daytona florida systemic errors in LAUSD's payroll system reportedly resulted in underpayments, nonpayments, and overpayments to tens of thousands of employees. (UMF 4). While LAUSD was paying Ms. Smith's retirement benefits, it began taking deductions from her wages/benefits to offset an alleged debt for overpaid wages. Approximately 800 former employees, including Ms. Smith, have been named in this action wherein the district seeks recovery for alleged overpaid wages. (UMF 38). Prior to the filing of this lawsuit, LAUSD sent demand letters claiming overpayment. (UMF 14). While aggressively pursuing collection, LAUSD repeatedly failed to respond hotels in daytona florida to Ms. Smith's requests for records documenting how and when the alleged overpayment occurred. (UMF 15, 16). For nearly two years LAUSD refused to turn over Ms. Smith's payroll records substantiating the validity of the debt even though Smith is legally hotels in daytona florida entitled to those records. LAUSD also hired a collection agency. (UMF 17). When Ms. Smith disputed the debt, the collection agency made a request that LAUSD provide documentation validating the debt, which they failed to do, and the collection agency ceased efforts to collect the debt. (UMF 18). Having never provided proper documents validating the debt, LAUSD continued to pursue the alleged debt and filed the law suit captioned above. (UMF 19). Payroll records were not finally produced by LAUSD until after the action was filed and pursuant to a request from counsel. (UMF 19). Review of LAUSD's payroll documents revealed numerous errors including but not limited to: misclassification of her pay grade, employment level, incorrect hourly rate, incorrect annual salary, application of multiple hourly rates, miscalculation of wages, and the failure to properly process hotels in daytona florida a transfer from one position to another. (UMF 20-24). hotels in daytona florida In November of 2006, Ms. Smith transferred hotels in daytona florida from one position to another and was told the transfer would not affect her salary or benefits. LAUSD failed to communicate the transfer between human resources and payroll and payroll misclassified her as a C Basis or teacher level employee for part of the year and calculated her wages and benefits accordingly. (UMF 23). LAUSD used a process called Annualization Simplification, whereby annual salaries were to be paid in 12 equal monthly payments. (UMF 24). One would expect that since Ms. Smith was an annual employee, they would simply divide her annual salary into 12 equal payments totaling the annual salary. What LAUSD did instead was create hourly wage amounts that would supposedly arrive at the annual salary, but in actuality did not. (UMF 24). During the 2006/2007 school year, LAUSD applied multiple hourly rates, at least one or two of which was admittedly incorrect. LAUSD contends that incorrect application of the hourly rates resulted an overpayment hotels in daytona florida of wages to Ms. Smith in particular pay period. (Ex. 7 and FAC). However, looking at the total amount paid, reveals that the incorrect hourly rates actually resulted in a significant hotels in daytona florida underpayment of Ms. Smith's annual salary. (UMF 21). There are multiple discrepancies in the amount of the overpayment LAUSD has claimed. The FAC claims an overpayment to Ms. Smith in the amount hotels in daytona florida of $9,286.54. However, a prior demand letter from LAUSD claims hotels in daytona florida overpayment in the amount of $4,720.25. (UMF 28). LAUSD does not have and cannot produce accurate records explaining the substantial discrepancies in the amount of the overpayment claimed. The payroll system which severely malfunctioned was created at least in part, by Delloitte Consulting pursuant to a contract between LAUSD and Delloitte. (UMF 31). LAUSD contends that Delloitte