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Mississippi Collision Repair Association and Parts Suppliers File Suit Against PartsTrader The Mississippi Collision Repair Association and Parts Suppliers are seeking industry support in suit against State Farm and PartsTrader. Over 30 plaintiffs, mostly Mississippi body shop owners, have filed an injunction against State Farm and PartsTrader in an attempt to prohibit the insurer from forcing any Select Service shop in Mississippi to use PartsTrader. The suit was filed Aug. 28 by Jackson, MS-based attorney for the nearly three dozen plaintiffs, John Arthur Eaves, Jr., in the Hinds County, MS, Chancery Court against State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company and PartsTrader LLC.
Plaintiff include the Mississippi Collision Repair Association (MSCRA) OEM parts dealers and other parts suppliers and dozens of collision repair principals, including prominent local repairers John Mosley (Clinton Body Shop) and Doug White (Capitol Body Shop). The suit seeks the court’s declatory judgment and injuction to block State Farm from requiring the PartsTrader ordering process in Mississippi. The requested injunction is to 1) Prohibit the Defendants from forcing implementation of PartsTrader in the State Farm Select ServSee Suit Against PartsTrader, Page 28
California Supreme Court Action in Piece-Rate Pay Case Puts Focus on Alternative Pay
In April of 2013, the California Court of Appeal decided automobile service technicians should be paid while waiting between jobs. The court held that the technicians, who were paid on a “piece-rate” basis, must also be paid at least the minimum hourly wage for the time that they are required to wait between their piece-rate paid repair jobs. The California Court of Appeal case held that piece-ratepaid employees are entitled to separate hourly pay for “waiting” time. On July 19, the California Supreme Court refused to review the See Piece-Rate Pay in CA, Page 8
Change Service Requested
P.O. BOX 1516, CARLSBAD, CA 92018
Under federal law, employers can meet minimum wage requirements for piecerate workers by paying them enough so that their total pay meets the minimum wage, on average, for the hours they work in a work week, regardless of whether each hour was productive. But now the California Court of Appeal says that’s not true in California. In Gonzalez v. Downtown LA Motors, the Court of Appeal held that employers who pay on a piece-rate basis for certain compensable tasks must also pay a separate minimum wage for non-productive time spent between those tasks.
VOL. 31 ISSUE 10 OCTOBER 2013
Employer Found Liable for Employee’s DUI Fatal Crash After Employee Got Home According to a recent California appellate court decision, an employer can be liable for an employee who drank too much at a company party, made it home safely, and then killed a man in a drunk driving accident after he left his house again to drive another employee home. “It is irrelevant that foreseeable effects of the employee’s negligent conduct (here, the car accident) occurred at a time the employee was no longer acting within the scope of his or her employment,” the court ruled. Michael Landri was a bartender at the Marriott Del Mar Hotel. He attended the hotel’s annual holiday party in December 2009, beginning his celebration with a beer and a shot of Jack Daniels at home. He also
filled a five-ounce flask with Jack Daniels and took it with him to the party, held at the hotel. At the party, one of the managers acted as a bartender. She filled Landri’s flask on at least one occasion. Another employee drove a group to Landri’s house. Roughly 20 minutes later (and not having consumed any more alcohol) Landri left his house to drive another coworker home. En route, while driving over 100 mph, he rear-ended another car, killing the driver. Landri had a 0.16 blood alcohol level. He pleaded guilty to gross vehicular manslaughter and was sentenced to six years in prison. The deceased’s parents brought suit against Landri and Marriott. A See Employer Liable in DUI, Page 22
Special SNAPSHOT of the Collision Industry, survey by Collision Repair Educational Foundation and I-CAR p. 6
State Farm and PartsTrader Offer More Info on Roll-Out, Use of the System by John Yoswick
Whether or not they participate in State Farm’s Select Service program, shops and parts vendors still have lots of questions and concerns about PartsTrader as State Farm continues its roll-out of the program. Here is some additional information addressing some of those questions that representatives of State Farm or PartsTrader have provided. Roll-out schedule. PartsTrader rolled out in September in major markets in California, Nevada and Utah, and in October in Michigan and Ohio. It will reach major markets in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee later this year. Vendor choice. Shops are not required to get price quotes from anyone beyond their designated preferred dealer. In fact, Partstrader’s
Dale Sailer said, the system defaults to sending a job’s parts list only to the shop’s preferred dealer, though the shop can expand the search from this default. State Farm does not get data about whether a Select Service shop’s parts list for a job went only to the shop’s preferred dealer for quotes. A shop can “direct order” a part through the system without waiting for any parts quotes; State Farm does know, however, if a Select Service shop does this. And if a dealer always gives a shop the same discount, the dealer can set the system up to automatically respond with that discount to all requests for quotes from that shop. “Dealers don’t have to hire a whole bunch of people to fill out quotes,” Sailer said. See More on PartsTrader, Page 16
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