18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition 111 forced assistant general managers to work off-the-clock. Further, the Court noted that McGlade failed to provide information to show that there were similarly-situated employees who were forced to work off the clock and not paid overtime. For these reasons, the Court denied McGlade’s motion for conditional certification of a collective action. Ivanovs, et al. v. Bayada Home Health Care, LLC, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 147779 (D.N.J. Aug. 6, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of home healthcare client service managers (“CSMs”), filed a collective action alleging that Defendant failed to pay overtime compensation in violation of the FLSA. The Court previously had granted Plaintiffs’ motion for conditional certification of a collective action. Defendant subsequently filed a motion to decertify the collective action, which the Court denied. Plaintiffs contended that all CSMs across Defendant’s 330 nationwide branches were misclassified as exempt employees, and therefore were not paid overtime compensation for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. Plaintiffs asserted that CSMs regularly worked over 40 hours per week and Defendant contended that the duties of CSMs differed significantly across offices, and the determination of whether an employee should be classified as exempt or non-exempt would require an individualized, fact-specific analysis so that collective treatment would be inappropriate. Defendant contended that each Plaintiff worked at a different location across 13 different states, each with a different supervisor providing different guidance as to work, management and timekeeping, and different staffing levels; each worked in different home health practice areas, ranging from pediatric services to hospice care, and all exercised widely varying managerial duties, administrative duties, discretion, and judgment. Id . at *12-13. Finally, Defendant asserted that a collective action of over 70 CSMs, all with different supervisors, varied duties and decision-making, and other challenges would be unmanageable. The Court disagreed. It found that Defendant’s uniform policies for every CSM regardless of location undermined Defendant’s argument regarding inefficiency, unfairness, and individualized defenses. Id . at *13. The Court ruled that collective treatment of Plaintiffs would promote efficiency, fairness, and limit individualized defenses. The Court held that Plaintiffs demonstrated that despite some minor differences between how each Plaintiff performed his or her job, the preponderance of the evidence established that Defendant treated all CSMs in a uniform way, and CSMs accordingly performed their jobs in a uniform way. Id . at *14. The Court therefore denied Defendant’s motion to decertify the collective action. Kerin, et al. v. Toms King, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 58933 (W.D. Penn. March 29, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of restaurant managers (“RMs”), restaurant managers in training (“RMITs”), and restaurant general managers in training (“RGMITs”), filed a collective action alleging that Defendants misclassified them as exempt employees and thereby failed to pay them 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 130 Burger King restaurants in Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Id . at *3. Plaintiffs averred that, despite being by classified by Defendants as exempt employees under the FLSA, the primary job duties of Plaintiffs and the members of the putative collective action were manual and/or clerical in nature, and alleged that their performance of manual and/or clerical labor occupied the majority of their working hours. Id . at *4. Plaintiffs contended that they were regularly scheduled for 50 to 60 hours per week and were not paid overtime compensation for hours worked in excess of 40 per workweek. Plaintiffs also submitted evidence that Defendant classified all RMs, RGMITs, and RMITs as exempt employees. Plaintiffs further submitted evidence that demonstrated that Plaintiffs performed non-exempt tasks at least 90% of the time during their employment. The Court found that Plaintiffs made the requisite factual showing necessary to demonstrate that they were similarly-situated for purposes of conditional certification. The Court also ruled that Plaintiffs made the necessary showing that demonstrated a factual nexus between the manner in which Defendants’ alleged policy of purportedly misclassifying managers as exempt affected Plaintiffs and the manner in which such a policy affected the proposed collective action members. Id . at *22-23. For these reasons, the Court granted Plaintiffs’ motion for conditional certification of a collective action. Kyem, et al. v. Merakey United States, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 82969 (E.D. Penn. April 30, 2021). Plaintiff, a Behavioral Specialist Consultant (“BSC”), filed a collective action alleging that Defendant failed to pay compensation for work that was deemed “non-billable” in violation of the FLSA. Plaintiff filed a motion for conditional certification of a collective action, which the Court granted in part. Plaintiff’s responsibilities included meeting with clients and their family members; meeting with school personnel; communicating with clients, their