18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition 109 Fitch, et al. v. Giant Eagle, Inc., 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 33416 (W.D. Penn. Feb. 23, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of grocery store team leaders, filed a collective action alleging that Defendant misclassified the team leaders as exempt employees and thereby failed to pay them overtime compensation in violation of the FLSA. The Magistrate Judge previously had recommended granting Plaintiffs’ motion for conditional certification of a collective action. On Rule 72 review, the Court adopted the Magistrate Judge’s findings, and granted Plaintiffs’ motion for conditional certification. Defendant objected to the Magistrate Judge’s findings for three reasons, including: (i) because some discovery had occurred, the Magistrate Judge erred in not applying a heightened burden of proof with respect to the motion; (ii) not all employees in the collective action were similarly-situated; and (iii) the Magistrate Judge failed to apply or address the "primary duties test.” Id . at *5. First, the Court determined that the Magistrate Judge used the correct factual standard requirement. The Court determined that the remaining objections were predicated on whether the correct burden of proof was applied to the motion. Since the Court concluded that only a modest showing was required at this stage of the litigation, it rejected these objections. The Court agreed with the Magistrate Judge’s findings that Plaintiffs sufficiently had alleged that all team leaders spent more than a majority of time on manual, non-managerial tasks, had de minimis or no management responsibilities, were considered exempt employees under the executive exemption by Defendant, regularly worked overtime, and were not paid overtime wages. Id . at *6. The Court determined that Plaintiffs made the requisite showing required to demonstrate that they were similarly-situated to the proposed collective action members for purposes of conditional certification. For these reasons, the Court adopted the Magistrate Judge’s recommendation and granted Plaintiffs’ motion for conditional certification of a collective action. Gallagher, et al. v. Charter Food , 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 116930 (W.D. Penn. May 23, 2021). Plaintiff, an assistant manager (“AM”), filed a collective action alleging that Defendants misclassified AMs as exempt employees and thereby failed to pay overtime compensation in violation of the FLSA. Plaintiff filed a motion for conditional certification of a collective action, which the Court granted. Defendants owned and operated approximately 309 franchised Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver’s and A&W restaurants in 12 states. Plaintiff asserted that she was scheduled to work at least 50 hours each week, and on average, worked approximately 60 hours per week. Plaintiff contended that the vast majority of AMs’ work time was spent performing the same duties as non-exempt employees, including serving customers, preparing food, working the drive-thru, counting inventory, unloading trucks, and cleaning the restaurant. Id . at *2-3. During the relevant period, Defendants employed nearly 900 AMs who were classified as exempt from the FLSA’s overtime requirement. In support of her motion, Plaintiff offered declarations from three former employees of Defendants who worked as AMs and had the same experiences as Plaintiff. In her motion, Plaintiff sought to certify a collective consisting of all exempt "Assistant Managers" who worked for Defendants in the United States at any time between January 10, 2017 and January 1, 2020 and who worked more than 40 hours during one or more workweeks. Id . at *5. The Court found that Plaintiff made the necessary factual showing that AMs performed the primary duties of serving customers, preparing food, working the drive-thru, counting inventory, unloading trucks, and cleaning the restaurant, and did not involve hiring, firing, disciplining, promoting, setting rates of pay for, and managing employees, or other substantive management tasks. Id . at *9. The record also showed that all AMs were subject to the same policies and procedures, and all were classified as exempt employees and not paid overtime compensation although they were required to work at least 50 hours per week. The Court also determined that the opt-in Plaintiffs’ declarations demonstrated that they had near identical experiences with respect to the type of work, job descriptions, training, working over 40 hours per week, and spending the majority of their time performing non-exempt work, while being classified as exempt. Id . at *14. For these reasons, the Court granted Plaintiff’s motion for conditional certification of a collective action. Gravely, et al. v. Petrochoice, LLC, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36162 (E.D. Penn. Feb. 26, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of clerical hourly employees, filed a collective action alleging that Defendant failed to pay overtime compensation in violation of the FLSA. Plaintiffs filed a motion for conditional certification of a collective action, which the Court granted. Plaintiffs contended that Defendant utilized an automatic deduction system whereby a 30-minute lunch period would automatically be deducted from an employee’s total hours for the day, when employees worked six hours or more without a punch out. Plaintiffs contended they and other similarly-situated individuals routinely performed work during their meal periods on a near-daily basis in order to meet their job requirements, but that time was still deducted from their pay. In support of their motion, Plaintiffs offered their own declarations and evidence from the limited discovery conducted in the matter, which allegedly showed that