A former Rivian employee has sued the company in a proposed class action in Washington state, alleging it denied hourly workers meal and rest breaks, left overtime and off-the-clock work unpaid and failed to reimburse business expenses.
Elijha Brazil filed the complaint on September 29 in King County Superior Court in Seattle against Rivian LLC and Rivian Automotive LLC, according to the filing.
The 35-page complaint brings 13 causes of action, ten under Washington state law and three under City of Seattle ordinances.
The allegations have not been tested in court, and no response from Rivian could be found on Monday.
The filing came four days after Rivian said it had secured a dealer license to sell directly to consumers in the state.
Who Is Suing
Brazil worked for Rivian as a non-exempt employee “from approximately June 2025 through January 2026,” the complaint says.
It does not state the job, the worksite or the rate of pay. That is about seven months of a class period that runs back three years, to September 2023.
The proposed class covers all current and former hourly-paid or non-exempt employees who worked for the two companies in Washington in the three years before the filing.
The complaint estimates the class at “approximately fifty (50) or more individuals.”
A separate Seattle subclass, for those who worked within the city, carries the three municipal claims.
What the Complaint Alleges
Rivian “engaged in a pattern and practice of wage abuse” against its hourly staff, the complaint alleges.
On breaks, it says the company failed to provide a paid 10-minute rest period for every four hours worked and required or permitted employees to work more than three hours without one.
It also alleges employees worked more than five consecutive hours without a 30-minute meal period.
Workers were required “to perform work, remain on-call, and/or on-duty, during rest breaks and meal periods,” according to the filing.
On pay, the complaint alleges work went unrecorded and unpaid “before clocking-in for a shift, after clocking-out for what should have been a duty-free meal period, and/or after clocking out for a shift.”
Employees “regularly worked approximately forty (40) or more hours per week,” it says, and the off-the-clock time pushed them into overtime that was not paid at one and a half times their regular rate.
The remaining claims cover paid sick leave that allegedly did not accrue on all hours worked, late payment of wages during employment and at termination, incomplete wage statements and inadequate payroll records.
On expenses, the complaint says Rivian required workers to bear business costs without reimbursement, which “reduced Plaintiff’s and Class Members’ take-home pay below the legally-required wage rates.”
It does not say what the expenses were. The complaint gives no dates, amounts, worksites or individual incidents, and it cites no Rivian handbook, written policy or timekeeping system.
Almost all of its factual allegations are made on information and belief, the formula lawyers use for claims they expect to prove through evidence obtained later.
What It Seeks
The complaint puts no figure on damages, which it says are “to be determined at trial.”
It asks for unpaid regular and overtime wages, double damages, liquidated damages, civil penalties, interest and attorneys’ fees.
It alleges the violations were “willful and intentional,” which under Washington’s Wage Rebate Act makes an employer liable for twice the wages withheld.
The Seattle ordinances it cites allow liquidated damages of up to twice the unpaid amount, with interest at 12% a year.
The filing also asks the court to bar Rivian from retaliating against any worker who joins the case and to appoint a receiver to distribute any funds recovered.
The Rules at Issue
Washington rules give employees a meal period of at least 30 minutes, starting between two and five hours into a shift, and a 10-minute rest period on the employer’s time for every four hours worked.
Rest breaks cannot be waived, the complaint notes.
The expense claim is pleaded in two ways.
Under state law, the complaint argues the unreimbursed costs cut pay below legal wage rates, while Seattle’s Wage Theft Ordinance addresses reimbursement directly.
It defines compensation to include “reimbursement for employer expenses” and requires an employer to cover “all necessary expenditures or losses incurred by the employee in direct consequence of the discharge of the employee’s duties,” according to the text quoted in the complaint.
Break cases have become costly for Washington employers.
A King County jury in April 2024 awarded $98.2 million in unpaid wages to more than 33,000 hourly employees of Providence Health & Services over missed second meal periods and time-clock rounding, according to HKM Employment Attorneys, which represented the workers.
Doubling for willfulness and interest took that judgment above $229 million, and Washington’s Supreme Court agreed in April to hear the hospital system’s appeal.
The Rivian case is far smaller on the complaint’s own estimate of the class, though “or more” leaves the number open and the complaint says the full membership is unknown to the plaintiff.
A Second Employment Case
The filing is at least the second employment class action against the same two Rivian entities in King County in 15 months.
Jeffrey Hill sued Rivian LLC, Rivian Insurance Services LLC and Rivian Automotive LLC on July 23, 2025, alleging their job postings did not disclose pay ranges or benefits as state law requires.
Rivian moved that case to federal court three weeks later, and the parties agreed to return it to state court in September 2025, according to the settlement agreement.
The companies agreed to pay between $997,200 and $1,497,600 to settle, while denying the claims.
The agreement puts that class at about 624 job applicants since January 1, 2023, with individual payments capped at $5,000.
The court granted preliminary approval on March 25 and set a final approval hearing for July 24, the outcome of which could not be confirmed.
Rivian’s Footprint in the State
Rivian builds its vehicles in Normal, Illinois, and has no factory in Washington.
It operates a showroom at Seattle’s University Village and service centers in Bellevue, Bothell, Fife and Seattle, according to its website.
It has leased a former Ford dealership in Issaquah for a showroom and service center that is expected to open in early spring 2027 and create 35 jobs.
The complaint does not say which of those sites, or which roles, the class would cover.
Rivian’s registered fleet in the state is approaching 10,000 vehicles.
The case adds to the company’s legal docket. Rivian was sued in June in a proposed nationwide class action over autonomous driving claims on its first-generation R1T and R1S.
