and closed. The defendant argued that conditional certification would duplicative because all potential collective members had already received notice and an opportunity to join the other collective action, which covered the same claims during the same time period. The court agreed with the defendant. It denied the motion for conditional certification based on concerns about duplicative litigation, judicial efficiency, and the fact that potential members who did not join the other lawsuit had not given up their rights to pursue claims individually. Accordingly, the court denied the plaintiffs’ motion for conditional certification of the collective action. Francois, et al. v. Smithfield Foods, Inc., 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 118136 (E.D.N.C. July 10, 2023), is another good example of how settlements in overlapping litigation can be used effectively to prevent conditional certification. The plaintiffs, three employees, sued their employer, Smithfield Fresh Meats Corp., and three of its sister companies for violations of the FLSA and specifically, for failing to include a “Responsibility Bonus” in their pay when calculating overtime. Id. at *1. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the plaintiffs received a “Responsibility Bonus,” which entitled them, as hourly employees, to a bonus of “$5 per hour for all regular hours worked up to and including forty in a workweek,” between April 1, 2020 and October 31, 2020. Id. at *3. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants underpaid them for overtime pay during the period between April 1, 2020 and October 31, 2020. Id. The plaintiffs moved to certify a collective action of a similarly-situated group of 8,000 employees who were not properly compensated by the defendants for overtime work performed. Id. at *1. The defendants opposed the motion for conditional certification and argued, among other things, that the proposed collective action could not be certified because it was duplicative to two other similar actions that had recently reached agreements to settle the FLSA claims concerning the same responsibility bonus for employees and notices to opt-in plaintiffs who opted-in to the settlement had already been distributed. Id. at *2-3. The court agreed with the defendants and denied the plaintiffs’ motion for conditional certification. Id. at *11. Significantly, the court found that one action, Canas, et al. v. Smithfield Packaged Meats Corp. , Case No. 20-CV-4937 (N.D. Ill.), encompassed claims identical to the claims that the plaintiffs alleged in this action. On September 13, 2021, the court in Canas approved a settlement between “the FLSA settlement class plaintiffs who opted-in to the settlement” and the two Smithfield companies concerning the responsibility bonus. Id. at *2 - 3. The settlement included employees who worked in North Carolina. Id. at *3. The court further explained that the plaintiffs were already part of the collective action that received notice as part of the Canas collective action, and that the scope of the Canas collective action included every potential opt-in plaintiff in the current proposed collective action at issue in the plaintiffs’ motion. Id. at *9-10. Instead of certifying another collective action, the court opined that the plaintiffs’ remedy was “to proceed with their action as an individual action or request to be paid now what they would have received had they submitted a claim for from the Canas reserve fund.” Id. at *10-11. For these reasons, the court denied the plaintiffs’ motion for conditional certification. While some employers are unable to fully defeat conditional certification, they may be able to substantially limit the scope of the potential collective action. An expansive nationwide collective action was limited by focusing on the limitations of a plaintiff ’ s knowledge and evidence in Bowling, et al. v. Davita, Inc., 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 116078 (D. Colo. July 6, 2023). The plaintiff, a nurse, filed a collective action alleging that the defendant failed to provide bona fide meal breaks to its employees in violation of the FLSA. The plaintiff specifically contended that nurses and technicians regularly worked six-hour shifts and were entitled to a 30-minute unpaid meal break, which the defendant deducted automatically from their work hours, despite the fact that the employees regularly worked during the breaks. The plaintiff filed a motion for conditional certification of a collective action and, in support of his motion, he offered declarations and deposition testimony from several employees in different states, which all asserted that they regularly worked through meal breaks without pay. The plaintiff also offered the defendant ’ s meal beak policy, which stated that non-exempt employees should not perform work during rest breaks or meal periods, and those who worked during their meal breaks would be compensated accordingly. Additionally, the plaintiff submitted employee timesheet records, which demonstrated uncompensated overtime pay due to improperly deducted meal breaks. Based on the plaintiff ’ s allegations and evidence, the court concluded that the plaintiff met the lenient standard for conditional certification. However, the court limited the scope
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Wage & Hour Class And Collective Action Review – 2024
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