18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

138 Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition 5 to 10 minutes. Finally, Plaintiffs asserted that at the end of a shift, logging-out and shutting down a computer took approximately 5 minutes during which they were not paid. Plaintiffs stated they were similarly-situated as PSRs were subject to common policies and procedures, a common timekeeping system and log-on instructions, and had similar job duties. Defendant argued that Plaintiffs were not similarly-situated because they could not point to a common policy violating the FLSA and because they used different time-reporting systems at different locations. The Court found that regardless of the time-reporting system used, Defendant admitted that PSRs were only paid for time spent once they were logged-in to the computer system. Therefore, the Court ruled that Plaintiffs satisfied their burden of making a modest factual showing that Plaintiffs and the putative collective action members were similarly-situated. For these reasons, the Court granted Plaintiffs’ motion for conditional certification of a collective action. Elmy, et al. v. Western Express, Inc., 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 139695 (M.D. Tenn. July 27, 2021) . Plaintiffs, a group of truck drivers, filed a collective and class action bringing claims for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and alleging that Defendants failed to pay all wages due in violation of state wage & hour laws. Plaintiffs filed a motion for class certification of the state law claims pursuant to Rule 23, which the Court granted. The Court found that given that the class was estimated to exceed 4,000 members, the proposed class clearly met the numerosity requirement. The Court next addressed typicality and reasoned that Plaintiffs’ claims were typical to those of the proposed class because they arose from the same factual circumstances of alleged improper payment relating to hauling leases. Turning to the adequacy requirement, Plaintiffs asserted that the interests of Plaintiffs were not in conflict with the other unnamed class members, and that Plaintiffs possessed the same interests and suffered the same injuries as the unnamed class members. Id . at *7. The Court agreed with Plaintiffs’ contention that class counsel demonstrated their ability and commitment to vigorously represent the interests of the class and had substantial experience handling employment class actions. Id . at *8. Plaintiffs argued that common questions predominated with respect to their claim based on fraud, including: (i) whether Defendants’ statements were false; (ii) with knowledge of the statement’s falsity or utter disregard for its truth; (iii) with the intent of inducing reliance on the statement, and (iv) the statement was reasonably relied upon, which were all issues that could be proved through common, class-wide proof. Id . at *11. Additionally, Plaintiffs argued that they could prove their fraud damages on a class-wide basis because Defendants’ pay records reflected the miles that drivers drove each week and their weekly earnings were such that a mathematical computation could be used to determine the difference between what Defendants actually paid drivers and what drivers would have earned at the rates promised by Defendants. Id . at *12. The Court held that Plaintiffs’ claims met the predominance requirement because the nature of misrepresentations Defendants allegedly made to class members were fundamentally the same. Id. at *13. Defendants argued that the issue of breach of contract would be subject to only individualized proof because not all drivers had the same versions of the contract or were paid under the same compensation structure. Plaintiffs asserted that to determine whether the contract was breached and how much a driver was due for that breach was simply a matter of determining the number of miles driven each week as reported on driver’s weekly settlement sheets and recalculating the amount that should have been paid for those miles under the wage term in the contract. The Court agreed with Plaintiffs that the common issue was whether the contract was breached. Finally, the Court opined that a class action would be the superior method of adjudication because of the relatively small amount of individual damages and the similarity of claims, it would streamline the resolution of the claims and conserve judicial and litigation resources, and there were no particular difficulties associated with the management of this class action. Id. at *22-23. For these reasons, the Court granted Plaintiffs’ motion for class certification. Fortney, et al. v. Walmart, Inc. , 22021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11915 (S.D. Ohio Jan. 22, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of hourly automotive technicians, filed a collective action alleging that Defendant required them to work during meal breaks and thereby failed to pay overtime compensation in violation of the FLSA. Plaintiffs sought conditional certification of a collective action, and the Court granted the motion. Thirteen individuals filed consent forms seeking to join the action as opt-in Plaintiffs. In support of the motion, Plaintiffs and all opt-in Plaintiffs filed declarations that stated that they were employed as an automotive technician, not paid for meal breaks, and not paid for all overtime compensation owed. The Court determined that Plaintiffs’ declarations and the allegations in the complaint were sufficient to granted conditional certification. Defendant, however, argued that: (i) Plaintiffs had not shown a national plan, policy, or practice connecting the members of the proposed collective action; (ii) Defendant had written policies that directly prohibited the alleged unlawful; (iii) the predominance of