748 refinery workers claimed they got nothing for hours spent waiting by the phone
Marathon Refining Logistics Services agreed to pay $9 million to settle allegations that hundreds of refinery workers went uncompensated for mandatory on-call shifts.
The settlement, filed for final approval on March 23, 2026, resolves a class action involving 748 current and former operators and lab workers at Marathon Refining Logistics Services LLC's Los Angeles Refinery – the largest refinery on the West Coast, with a crude oil capacity of 365,000 barrels per calendar day. The case is pending before Judge Dale Fischer in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, with a final approval hearing set for April 27, 2026. The settlement does not constitute an admission of liability by Marathon.
At the center of the dispute is a scheduling practice called "Primary Relief." According to court filings, Marathon assigned employees to two-hour on-call windows during which they had to stay available and be able to reach the refinery within 90 minutes. They were expected to be well-rested, sober, and keep the rest of their day clear in case they needed to work a full 12-hour shift. If they failed to answer the call or show up, they risked discipline – up to and including termination.
Here is the part that matters most: employees who were called in got paid their normal rate for a 12-hour shift. Employees who stayed on standby but were never called in allegedly got nothing. The plaintiffs argued that the level of control Marathon exercised over their time during these on-call windows amounted to compensable work under California's reporting time pay rules. Marathon contended that being scheduled for a Primary Relief shift did not equate to reporting for work or compensable on-call time, and that employees were not entitled to wages unless actually required to report to the refinery.
The case was originally filed on May 4, 2023, by Louis Butel, an operator at the refinery since 2005, and Pam Mocherniak, who worked there from 2001 to 2023. What followed was nearly three years of aggressive litigation – two motions to dismiss, a contested class certification fight, a failed appeal to the Ninth Circuit by Marathon, and a fully briefed summary judgment motion in which the company argued the claims were preempted by federal labor law.
The parties eventually mediated in October 2024 and reached a deal. Finalizing it, however, took close to another year because the settlement also required a going-forward agreement with the United Steelworkers union, which had to be ratified by the union membership.
The total potential recovery, based on the plaintiffs' review of timecard and payroll data, was estimated at roughly $24 million. The $9 million settlement represents about 37 percent of that figure. After deductions for attorneys' fees, administration costs, service awards, and penalties under California's Private Attorneys General Act, the net payout to class members comes to $6,588,750 – an average of approximately $8,808 per person, allocated by how many weeks each worker was assigned Primary Relief during the class period from May 2020 through November 2025.
The class response was telling. Not a single member out of 748 objected. Not one opted out. Eighteen workers disputed their allocated weeks, and 16 of those disputes were resolved in the workers' favor.
This is not an isolated case. The filing references a string of similar settlements at California refineries – including a separate $9 million deal against the same defendant in a Northern District case, as well as reporting time cases and other wage and hour class actions against Equilon Enterprises, Corteva, ExxonMobil, and Dow Agrosciences involving shift workers.
For HR professionals, the pattern is worth watching. The recurring question across these cases is a practical one: at what point do the restrictions an employer places on an employee's off-duty time turn unpaid standby into paid work? The legal landscape remains unsettled – the filing itself acknowledges that this is a novel issue in the law and that courts have gone both ways, with summary judgment limiting or preempting similar claims in other cases. That uncertainty cuts in every direction, but the exposed liability when these cases do settle is substantial.
The case is Butel et al. v. Marathon Refining and Logistics Services LLC, Case No. 2:23-cv-04547-DSF-JPR, in the Central District of California.
