Redstone Residential Lawsuit: Lopez Settlement and Complaints

The main Redstone Residential lawsuit is Santino Lopez v. Redstone Residential, Inc., a California wage-and-hour class action brought by a former employee that settled for $163,537 and received final court approval on March 24, 2025.¹² Redstone, a Provo, Utah student-housing management company, has also drawn years of tenant complaints and pandemic-era lease disputes, but those have not produced a comparable class action.

What the Lopez Case Alleged

Santino Lopez filed the class action complaint in Fresno County Superior Court on January 18, 2023, on behalf of himself and other non-exempt hourly employees of Redstone Residential.¹ The complaint accused the company of:

Failing to pay overtime wages
Denying required meal and rest periods
Failing to pay sick time
Issuing deficient wage statements
Withholding waiting time penalties
Failing to reimburse necessary business expenses

Lopez also alleged a violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law and sought civil penalties under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA).³

How the $163,537 Settlement Was Divided

The parties reached a settlement in August 2024 valued at $163,537, covering 48 aggrieved employees across a class period running from February 10, 2019 through June 28, 2024.¹ The proposed allocation of that gross amount was:³

Attorney fees up to $54,512, roughly one-third of the total
Litigation expenses up to $20,000
A class representative service award up to $10,000 for Lopez
Settlement administration costs up to $5,000
PAGA penalties up to $10,000, with 75 percent ($7,500) going to California’s Labor and Workforce Development Agency and 25 percent ($2,500) split among eligible employees

Individual payments were not a flat amount. They were calculated based on the number of workweeks each class member worked during the covered period. Employees did not have to file a claim to participate. Anyone who did not affirmatively opt out by February 7, 2025 was automatically included and was set to receive a check by mail.³

The PAGA component worked differently. Employees could not opt out of it. All eligible workers were bound by the PAGA release regardless of whether they participated in the broader class settlement.³

Court Approval and Timeline

The settlement proceeded through Santa Barbara County Superior Court under Case No. 24CV03557, before Judge Colleen K. Sterne.² After preliminary approval, notices were mailed to class members on December 24, 2024, giving them until February 7, 2025 to opt out, object, or challenge the calculation of their workweeks.⁴

The court held its final approval hearing on March 24, 2025 and approved the settlement, with the formal order granting final approval and entering judgment filed the following day. Court records do not indicate that any objections were raised during the proceedings.²

Tenant Complaints Have Not Become a Lawsuit

Redstone’s tenant-side troubles look different from the Lopez case, and it’s worth being clear on that difference. The company’s Better Business Bureau profile shows 92 complaints filed over a three-year period, with 20 closed in the most recent 12 months. Of the 92, only 15 were marked as resolved; the remaining 77 received a response from the company but were not confirmed resolved by the complainant.⁵

Recurring grievances include difficulty breaking leases (with reports of $700 cancellation fees even when tenants find a replacement renter), pest infestations, persistent mold, broken appliances, and unresponsive management. Some tenants described the company’s practices as “predatory” toward college students, citing aggressive billing and excessive move-out cleaning fees.⁵ A 2023 UVU Review investigation identified six recurring student-tenant issues going back to 2019: slow response times, unexpected charges, poor maintenance, unreliable appliances, difficulty negotiating contracts, and allegations of maintaining a local housing monopoly.⁶

The COVID-19 Lease Dispute

The closest tenants came to organized legal pressure was in spring 2020. When Utah universities shifted to online instruction, Redstone, which managed CollegePlace Provo (housing roughly 6,000 BYU students and 3,000 UVU students), refused to offer blanket lease releases and said it would handle requests case-by-case, releasing anyone who had contracted COVID-19 or could document a loss of income.⁷

Students pointed to Section 23-B of BYU-approved housing contracts, which allowed termination for “verified, unforeseeable and unexpected catastrophic loss or serious illness.” Redstone and BYU argued the clause covered individual medical emergencies rather than a blanket pandemic exit. BYU released on-campus students from their contracts but said it lacked authority to force off-campus landlords to do the same.⁷

BYU’s Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution conducted more than 200 housing mediations between students and landlords. Of 10 published arbitration decisions, six tenants were released and five were not, with rulings favoring release generally turning on whether there was a direct and imminent threat to the tenant’s personal health. Some landlords reportedly tried to condition releases on tenants signing nondisclosure agreements.⁸ A Change.org petition directed at Redstone and CollegePlace Provo gathered 575 signatures before closing, but it did not lead to formal legal action.⁹

Redstone as Plaintiff

Court records show Redstone Residential has also been the party filing suit. In Redstone Residential, Inc. v. Coleman, Alex et al., filed in Butte County Superior Court in November 2021, the company sought to evict residents Alex Coleman and Laura Sandoval. A default judgment for possession was entered in January 2022, the writ of possession was returned without enforcement, and the case is now closed.¹⁰

1
CABIA.org. Santino Lopez v. Redstone Residential, Inc.
2
Trellis.law. Santino Lopez vs. Redstone Residential, Inc.
3
ILYM Group. Lopez v. Redstone Residential — Class Notice
4
ILYM Group. Lopez v. Redstone Residential Settlement Administration
5
BBB. Redstone Residential, Inc. — BBB Complaints
6
UVU Review. Student Housing: What’s the Big Deal?
7
KSL TV. Students Struggle With Off-Campus Housing Contracts
8
BYU Daily Universe. Conflict Over Housing Contracts Continues, Some Students Seek Mediation
9
Change.org. Terminate 2019-2020 Lease at College Place Provo Due to COVID-19
10
UniCourt. Redstone Residential, Inc. vs. Coleman, Alex et al.