a system in which the defendants acted together to require dancers to pay rent for leasing space, often documented in lease agreements, instead of being paid as employees for performing work. While ultimately declining to conditionally certify the collective action based on the Sixth Circuit ’ s recent Clark decision, the court evaluated whether the plaintiffs satisfied the Rule 23 standards for seeking to certify a class of dancers on their state law claims. The court concluded that the plaintiffs met the requirements for class certification under Rule 23(b)(3), because questions of law or fact common to class members predominated over any questions affecting only individual members, and that a class action was superior to other available methods for fairly and efficiently adjudicating the case. As to predominance, the court reasoned that the issue of the defendants’ alleged unlawful system of treating dancers as tenants rather than paying them wages predominated over individualized issues such as whether a particular dancer signed a lease agreement. As to superiority, the court concluded that the relatively small size of each dancer ’ s wage claim demonstrated that individuals would have little incentive to pursue their claims alone. Finding no factors pointing against class treatment of the claims, the court concluded that treating the claims as a class action was the superior method for adjudicating liability efficiently. The existence of a common policy, even where implementation of that policy may vary, will often preclude decertification of a class action. For example, in Vasquez, et al. v. Leprino Foods Co., 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22303 (E.D. Cal. Feb. 9, 2023), the plaintiffs, a group of non-exempt employees, filed a class action alleging that the defendants failed to pay for work done while “on-call” during their meal and rest breaks in violation of California law. The court previously granted the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification. The defendants thereafter filed a motion for reconsideration or, in the alternative, for decertification, which the court denied. The defendants subsequently filed a renewed motion to decertify the class on the basis that the plaintiffs could not prove class-wide liability through the individualized testimony of their identified pre- trial witnesses. The court again denied decertification of the class. The defendants argued that decertification was appropriate because the plaintiffs failed to meet the Rule 23(b) requirements of predominance and superiority because they have not proposed any manageable plan on the eve of trial to prove that the defendants’ official policies and practices effectively created a facility-wide requirement that workers remain on-call during breaks. Id. at *8. The defendants contended that individual mini-trials would predominate over common questions because each witness ’ s testimony regarding work responsibilities during breaks would differ based on how each supervisor implemented the relevant policies. The plaintiffs stated that there was no compelling reason to decertify the class, such as discovery of new facts, changes in the parties, or changes in the substantive or procedural law. The court found that the defendant ’ s alleged policies and practices were “sufficiently facility-wide” and that the question of whether they put class members on call during their breaks was “capable of class-wide resolution.” Id. at *11. The court further ruled that the plaintiffs’ on-call theory was “not focused on the reason for each interruption to each employee ’ s many breaks,” but rather on the “facility-wide policies and practices, i.e., namely, did those policies and practices effectively place all putative class members on call during all breaks?” Id. The court concluded that based on previous findings and the body of evidence the plaintiffs intended to use at trial, decertification was not warranted. The court specifically found that based on the plaintiffs’ expert survey and class member testimonies, the jury could reasonably conclude that the defendant ’ s official policies and practices effectively put class members on-call during their breaks. Id. at *36-37. The court concluded that whether the plaintiffs’ evidence was factually representative of the class was a merits dispute for the jury to decide. For these reasons, the court denied the defendants’ motion to decertify the class action. Another example is Wade, et al. v. JMJ Enterprises LLC , Case No. 21-CV-506 (M.D.N.C. Sept. 30, 2023). The plaintiffs filed a class and collective action alleging that the defendants failed to pay wages due for training, meetings, and improper reductions from employees’ time logs in violation of the North Carolina Wage and Hour Act (NCWHA) and the FLSA. The court previously had granted the plaintiff ’ s motion for conditional certification of a collective action. The defendants, JMJ Enterprises LLC and owner Traci Johnson Martin (JMJ), operated three group homes that assist children with mental illnesses or emotional disturbances, as well as adults suffering from mental illnesses and developmental issues. The plaintiff was employed at one of the three group homes operated by JMJ from February 2021 to April 2021, and she alleged that she was not fully compensated for her time attending training sessions and mandatory
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© Duane Morris LLP 2024
Wage & Hour Class And Collective Action Review – 2024
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