Court sides with Terrible Herbst employee seeking class action suit

By Steve Kanigher

Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2011 | 12:01 p.m.

A Terrible Herbst employee who sued the company in 2009 to recover minimum wages and overtime he claims was due to him will be allowed to pursue a class action lawsuit against the company after rejecting its settlement offer.

A ruling Tuesday from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a decision from U.S. District Judge Robert Clive Jones in Las Vegas that required Terrible Herbst to pay employee Gareth Pitts $900, plus $3,500 to his attorney.

The amount far exceeded the $88 Pitts was seeking for himself, but he had rejected the offer because he wanted to pursue a class action suit on behalf of other employees in a similar situation. Jones, though, stuck to the monetary award and rejected Pitts' bid to pursue a class action lawsuit, declaring the issue moot.

But the Circuit Court sent the case back to District Court, arguing that Jones erred in rejecting Pitts' pursuit of a class action suit because he hadn't filed a motion for class action prior to the deadline for initial discovery in the case. The Circuit Court said that wasn't Pitts' fault because the lower court never ruled on his motion to compel Terrible Herbst to produce certain documents that he believed would help him prove the need for a class action.