Blue Bottle Coffee is expected to pay $1.5 million to former employees due to a class-action lawsuit, which alleged the Oakland company failed to pay its hourly employees overtime wages and provide required breaks.

In June 2018, Keenan Patterson filed a lawsuit that later obtained class-action status against Blue Bottle on behalf of nonexempt, hourly workers. One month later, Paige Dunn filed a similar lawsuit against the Nestlé-owned coffee company. A judge merged the lawsuits together and, in September 2019, approved the settlement. The terms will be finalized at an April 3 hearing in Oakland.

Blue Bottle denied all of the allegations in court documents.

“While we believe that the company has always complied with California law related to wages and employee breaks, any relevant pay practices were modified more than a year ago,” read a statement Blue Bottle’s attorney emailed to The Chronicle. “Settling the case was a better option than continuing to litigate, because the settlement results in more money being paid directly to employees, and less to attorneys.”

Lawyers for Patterson and Dunn declined to comment on the number of workers who are expected to take part in the settlement. However, the original complaint estimates it will be more than 500 people, as it covers all individuals employed by Blue Bottle in California in an hourly or nonexempt position from June 29, 2014, to March 12, 2019.

The Dunn lawsuit alleges a series of labor violations that form “a uniform policy and systematic scheme of wage abuse.” In addition to forcing employees to work through breaks and not paying overtime, the two lawsuits accuse Blue Bottle of not providing accurate wage statements to workers, not keeping accurate payroll records, not reimbursing employees for business-related expenses and not paying employees full wages upon leaving the company.

Blue Bottle, which is majority owned by Nestlé, moved its roasting operation for all California cafes to Sacramento last year but retained its Oakland headquarters.

Janelle Bitker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: janelle.bitker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @janellebitker