UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT KAREN HARTSTEIN, in her No.22-55276 representative capacity and on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated, D.C. No. Plaintiff-Appellant, 2:20-cv-04874- v. DSF-JPR HYATT CORPORATION, a Delaware corporation doing business OPINION in California, Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Dale S. Fischer, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted July 17, 2023 Pasadena, California

Filed September 22, 2023

Before: A. Wallace Tashima and Danielle J. Forrest, Circuit Judges, and Kathleen Cardone,* District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Tashima * The Honorable Kathleen Cardone, United States District Judge for the Western District of Texas, sitting by designation. 2 HARSTEIN V. HYATT CORP.

SUMMARY**

Employment Claims

The panel affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s summary judgment in favor of Hyatt Corporation in a class action brought by former California employees of Hyatt who were laid off after the COVID-19 pandemic, alleging that Hyatt violated California law by failing to pay them immediately for their accrued vacation time and by failing to compensate them for the value of the free hotel rooms employees received each year. Hyatt contended that it was not required to pay its employees their accrued vacation pay until June 2020, when the employees were formally terminated. The panel concluded that the prompt payment provisions of the California Labor Code required Hyatt to pay plaintiffs their accrued vacation pay in March 2020. The California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (“DLSE”) opinion letter and its Policies and Interpretations Manual establish that a temporary layoff without a specific return date within the normal pay period is a discharge that triggers the prompt payment provisions of Cal. Labor Code § 201. Hyatt thus should have paid the accrued vacation pay at the initial layoff in March 2020 because the temporary layoff was longer than the normal pay period and there was no specific return date. The panel reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Hyatt as to the vacation pay claim and remanded for the district court to consider whether ** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. HARSTEIN V. HYATT CORP. 3

Hyatt acted willfully in failing to comply with the prompt payment provisions. The panel also reversed the grant of summary judgment as to plaintiffs’ Private Attorneys General Act and unfair competition claims, which the district court had dismissed as derivative of plaintiffs’ claims under the Labor Code. The panel held that the complimentary hotel rooms Hyatt provided to employees were excludable from the calculation of employees’ regular rate of pay under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) because they were excludable as “other similar payments” under 29 C.F.R. § 778.224. The panel therefore affirmed the grant of summary judgment as to the complimentary hotel room claim.

COUNSEL Michael Rubin (argued) and Eileen B. Goldsmith, Altshuler Berzon LLP, San Francisco, California; Matthew W. Dietz and Jonathan M. Genish, Blackstone Law PC, Beverly Hills, California; for Plaintiff-Appellant. Ian H. Gershengorn (argued), Lindsay C. Harrison, Adam G. Unikowsky, and Illyana A. Green, Jenner & Block LLP, Washington, D.C.; Kelsey L. Stimple, Jenner & Block LLP, Chicago, Illinois; Holger Besch and Brian P. Long, Seyfarth Shaw LLP, Los Angeles, California