Juul Labs in San Francisco. (Photo: Jason Doiy/ALM)

As the issue of employee misclassification gets a shakeout in various courts, workers participating in a Juul-led campaign to overturn San Francisco's ordinance banning the use of electronic cigarettes have filed a putative class action against the vaping company alleging they were denied overtime pay.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, claimed that the 450 class members who worked phones banks, canvassed and performed administrative tasks connected with the "Yes on C Campaign" to overturn the city's ban were misclassified as "independent contractors" by Juul and other defendants.

The other defendants include the Coalition for Reasonable Vaping Regulation, a nonprofit run by a Juul executive; Long Ying International Inc., a campaign operator; and Long Ying's CEO, David Ho.

"Defendants classified plaintiffs and the campaign workers as independent contractors, even though the workers served defendants as employees for purposes of the federal, state, and local wage-and-hour protections giving rise to the claims averred herein," the complaint said. "Campaign workers were not issued legally compliant pay statements and not timely paid all accrued wages upon separation of their employment. Those working at the phone banks and canvassing in the same workday ('Hybrid Campaign Workers') were not paid for their travel time between work locations; were not paid overtime premium pay; were not provided legally required off-duty meal breaks; and were not reimbursed for work-related travel expenses."

The complaint said Juul abruptly laid off the class members after it announced that it would no longer actively support the campaign.

Juul hired Long Ying to assist with its campaign in support of Proposition C in the lead-up to the November 2019 election, according to the complaint, and the plaintiffs seek to certify a class of "all individuals who were hired by Long Ying International, Inc. to perform phone banking, canvassing and/or administrative tasks for the Yes on C Campaign and did perform such work at any time during the period between July 2019 and October 2019."

Additionally, there is a proposed subclass consisting of "all campaign workers who performed both canvassing and phone banking on a single day, and to perform such work were required to work at or out of multiple offices for the Yes on C Campaign during the course of a single calendar day."

The plaintiffs are represented by Aaron Kaufmann of Leonard Carder in Oakland. He couldn't be reached but was quoted in a release about the case.

"Misclassification is illegal, and it hurts our working class," Kaufmann said. "Misclassification also harms our state and federal governments, as well as law-abiding employers that have to compete against companies that reduce their costs by breaking the law."

Juul did not respond to a request for comment. Long Ying International did not respond to a request for comment.

Employee classification cases are making their way through various courts. Earlier in the week, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reinstated such an action on behalf of UberBLACK drivers, finding that outstanding factual issues in the case precluded summary judgment.