Dist. LEXIS 42373 (N.D. Tex. Mar. 13, 2023). There, the plaintiff, a restaurant general manager, filed a collective action alleging that the defendant misclassified general managers as exempt employees and thereby failed to pay overtime compensation in violation of the FLSA. The plaintiff specifically alleged that general managers spent most of their time performing non-managerial, manual labor tasks due to the defendant ’ s policy of understaffing its restaurants. The court previously had granted the plaintiff ’ s motion for conditional certification of a collective action consisting of current and former general managers that worked for defendant and, following discovery, the defendant filed a motion to decertify the collective action. The court found that the general managers had differing job duties, geographical locations, levels of supervision, and compensation. Further, the court stated that the general managers’ day-to-day tasks, discretion, and responsibilities varied significantly. Critically, the court also agreed with the defendant that individualized defenses related to FLSA exemptions, arbitration agreements, and statute of limitations, would require individual assessments for each opt-in plaintiff. Finally, the court reasoned that considering the notions of fairness and efficiency, the plaintiff ’ s action was not suited for collective-wide treatment because the plaintiff ’ s experiences and testimony were not representative of other general managers. For these reasons, the court granted the defendant ’ s motion to decertify the collective action. Disparate employment circumstances resulted in decertification in Moore, et al. v. MW Servicing, LLC, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 133773 (E.D. La. Aug. 2, 2023). The plaintiffs filed a collective action alleging that the defendant failed to pay their last paychecks upon separation from the company in violation of the FLSA. The court previously had granted the plaintiffs’ motion for conditional certification of a collective action. Following discovery, the defendants moved to decertify the collective action, and the court granted the motion. The plaintiffs argued that maintaining a collective action would negate the need for several individual trials, thereby resulting in more delay to the plaintiffs after “several Covid-related delays.” Id. at *7. The plaintiffs also asserted that the questions of FLSA applicability, salary status, good faith, and willfulness of the defendants, and joint employer and individual personal liability, were common to all claims and necessitated resolution through a collective action. The defendants contended that the plaintiffs failed to cite to any applicable case law authority requiring collective-wide treatment for FLSA applicability of employees by a common employer. The court agreed with the defendant that the plaintiffs’ different job positions, pay structures, work locations, and individual claims made the action unsuitable for collective- wide treatment. Accordingly, the court granted the defendant’s motion for decertification. Salazar, et al. v. Driver Provider Phoenix LLC, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 153714 (D. Ariz. Aug. 30, 2023), demonstrates that an individualized defense can secure the decertification of a collective action even where job duties are similar. In that case the plaintiffs, a group of drivers, filed a class action alleging that the defendant violated the FLSA and the Arizona Minimum Wage Act (AMWA) by failing to pay the minimum wage and failing to provide and maintain accurate payroll records. The court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for conditional certification of a collective action. The defendant filed a motion for decertification of the collective action, and the court granted the motion. The defendant argued that plaintiffs had different job duties, payment structures, and employment policies, making collective-wide treatment infeasible. The defendant further argued that the drivers were exempt from FLSA regulations based on the taxicab exemption and the retail/service establishment exemption. The plaintiffs asserted that the drivers were considered chauffeurs by the defendant, they all performed the same job duties, and they were all subject to the same policies. The defendant argued that assessing whether the drivers were paid more than the minimum wage and calculating their regular rate of pay would turn on individual week-by- week calculations. The plaintiffs asserted that this factor could be decided on a collective-wide basis by reviewing the number of hours worked and wages paid . The court agreed with the defendant that the determination of whether each driver was paid below the minimum wage requirement would turn to individualized inquiries. The court also opined that whether a driver was paid more than 50% commission, as required by the exemption, would necessitate multiple mini-trials to examine each driver ’ s pay and commission during the relevant time period. The defendant argued that whether each driver qualified for the taxicab exemption also would require individualized assessments based on the driver ’ s vehicle type and routes, and some drivers primarily drove fixed shuttle routes that would not qualify. The plaintiffs contended that the exemption turned on the nature of the defendant ’ s business, not individual inquiries.
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Wage & Hour Class And Collective Action Review – 2024
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