The three named plaintiffs — George Duardo, Nick Hibbs, and Jason Deneau — are firefighters employed by the City of San Diego. Their complaint alleges the city provides a paramedic certification bonus of $500 plus the cost of recertification as part of their employment contract, but willfully failed to include that bonus or stipend when computing the regular rate of pay under 29 U.S.C. § 207(a). Because the alleged practice affects other current and former city employees, the plaintiffs brought the case as a collective action under 29 U.S.C. § 216(b).
The motion for conditional certification was joint — both sides agreed to the preliminary step to facilitate notice to former or current employees who may be similarly situated and who may opt into the lawsuit by filing written consent with the court.
Judge Anthony J. Battaglia of the Southern District of California granted the motion in part on January 28, 2026, in case No. 25-cv-02311-AJB-BLM. The court found that the plaintiffs' allegations that the city applied a uniform policy of excluding the paramedic bonus from regular-rate calculations provided a sufficient basis for conditional certification under the Ninth Circuit's two-step framework established in Campbell v. City of Los Angeles, 903 F.3d 1090 (9th Cir. 2018).
The court approved the parties' proposed notice but modified the distribution procedure. Rather than allowing plaintiffs' counsel to choose between regular mail and email, the court ordered that notice be sent by both methods — regular mail to all putative collective action members, and email to all members for whom the city has personal email addresses. The court applied the same dual-method requirement to any reminder notice, rejecting the parties' proposal to send reminders by email only, given the city's acknowledgment that it may not have email addresses for all eligible individuals.
Under the order, the city must provide plaintiffs' counsel with a list of eligible former or current employees by February 18, 2026. Potential collective action members will have 60 days to opt in. Plaintiffs' counsel may, at their option and expense, send a reminder 20 days before the opt-in deadline via regular mail and email.