Dispute over excluded evidence and representative sampling of employee waivers at heart of argument

A central factual dispute at argument concerned evidence the defense says the trial court excluded and which Providence contends would have shown employees elected on-duty meal breaks or expressly waived off‑duty breaks. Counsel said Providence introduced 387 sampled waivers for summary judgment from a population of roughly 1,000 employees and that the trial court misread the sample statistics.

Defense counsel said the trial court “just made a math miscalculation and said that was only 0.014%, but that was off by a factor of 100. It was actually 1.4%.” The bench asked whether representative-sample extrapolation was untimely or properly part of the summary-judgment record and whether exclusion operated as a discovery sanction rather than applying lesser remedies. Plaintiffs argued the record lacked non‑speculative evidence that employees voluntarily waived their meal breaks beyond a handful of written waivers.