Wage & Hour Class And Collective Action Review – 2025

defendant. The court found that the plaintiff did not demonstrate a “strong likelihood” that she and other potential plaintiffs were similarly-situated under the new standard set by the Sixth Circuit. The court determined that the plaintiff’s evidence was insufficient to show a uniform policy or practice that denied paying overtime compensation. The court reasoned that the plaintiff’s evidence did not establish a company-wide practice of withholding overtime pay, nor did it sufficiently connect any alleged policy to the defendant’s practices. Therefore, the court concluded that the plaintiff had not met the burden required for conditional certification under the FLSA, and accordingly, denied the motion. Even outside of the Fifth and Sixth Circuits, defendants routinely argue for the adoption of the stricter Swales standard and for forgoing “conditional” certification entirely, with the defendant successfully convincing a district court within the Seventh Circuit to do so in Laverenz, et al. v. Pioneer Metal Finishing, LLC, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 149409 (E.D. Wis. Aug. 21, 2024). In that case, the court rejected the lenient two-step method for adjudicating conditional certification. The plaintiff, a former hourly employee at Pioneer Metal Finishing, LLC, filed a collective action against her former employer, claiming it violated the FLSA and Wisconsin state wage laws by failing to pay her and other similarly-situated employees overtime compensation. Pioneer, which operates nine divisions across the United States and employs around 700 to 750 hourly workers, uses rounding software to track employee hours, which rounded employees’ punch times to the nearest quarter hour, leading to a situation where the defendant failed to pay for all time worked. The plaintiff filed a motion for conditional certification of a collective action, and the court denied the motion. The defendant asserted that the court should adopt a more rigorous standard due to recent decisions by the Fifth and Sixth Circuits which have criticized the more lenient approach commonly used in the Seventh Circuit. The defendant contended that the plaintiff’s evidence failed to adequately prove that she and the other employees were similarly-situated or that the defendant’s rounding practice violated the FLSA. The court agreed with the defendant and stated that although the Seventh Circuit’s typical practice used the lenient “minimal showing” standard for conditional certification, there has been a notable shift in how other circuits approach conditional certification. The court opined that the recent rulings from the Fifth and Sixth Circuits have questioned the efficacy of the traditional “conditional certification” process. The Fifth Circuit, in particular, rejected the two-step test used in the Seventh Circuit on the basis that it did not adequately ensure that all individuals notified were actually similarly-situated. The Sixth Circuit also moved away from the two-step test by adopting a “strong likelihood” standard instead. The court found that the plaintiff failed to meet the burden required for conditional certification, as her evidence did not sufficiently demonstrate that she and the potential plaintiffs were similarly-situated, largely due to the minimal and varied impact of the rounding policy in question. Additionally, the court ruled that the defendant’s defenses were individualized and thus could not be applied to a broad group of members of a collective action. Accordingly, the court denied the plaintiff’s motion for conditional certification of a collective action. In contrast to the FLSA’s generally lenient standard for conditional certification of a collective action, the requirements for Rule 23 class certification are far more stringent. Under Rule 23, for example, employers can defend against expansive and costly class claims by showing that the purported class is not sufficiently numerous to warrant certification. In Valdez, et al. v. Universal Logistics Of Virginia LLC, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 44548 (D. Colo. Mar. 13, 2024), the plaintiffs, a group of Class A flatbed home delivery-L2L drivers, filed a class action alleging that the defendant failed to pay overtime for hours worked over 40 per week and did not provide required rest and meal breaks in violation of the Colorado Constitution, the Colorado Wage Act, and COMPS Order #36. The plaintiffs filed a motion for class certification pursuant to Rule 23, and the court denied the motion. COMPS Order #36 exempts certain trucking industry workers from overtime and break requirements, and the defendant argued that the exemption applied to the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs contended that the exemption did not apply to them because they did not cross state lines during work. The defendant also argued that the plaintiffs failed to establish that the class was so numerous that joinder would be impractical. The plaintiffs argued that their proposed class consisted of approximately 30 or more delivery drivers in Colorado who were employed between March 16, 2020, and December 31, 2020. The plaintiffs claimed that joinder of the individuals in individual lawsuits would be impractical due to their transient nature, financial resources, and the relatively small individual claims. The defendant contended that the actual number of potential class members was significantly smaller than claimed by the plaintiffs and presented evidence suggesting that some individuals had settled their claims outside of the class action, which further reduced the number of potential class members. The defendant also argued that the geographic proximity and the manageable size of the class made joinder feasible. The court found that while the proposed class might include up to 60 members initially claimed by the plaintiffs, the actual number had been reduced due to numerous individual settlements. The court

Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online