18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

142 Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition schedule; and (iii) reported their time in the same manner. Id . at *10. The Court found that Defendant’s arguments and declaration required it to address the merits of Plaintiff’s claim, which it declined to resolve at the conditional certification stage. The Court concluded that all the declarants averred that they had personal knowledge of Defendant’s pay practices as to hourly employees based upon their individual interactions with other employees, which was sufficient to establish that they were similarly-situated to the membership of the proposed collective action for purposes of conditional certification. For these reasons, the Court granted Plaintiff’s motion for conditional certification of a collective action. King, et al. v. Bailey ’ s Quality Plumbing & Heating, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45785 (N.D. Ohio March 11, 2021). Plaintiff, an hourly plumber, filed a collective action alleging that Defendant failed to pay overtime compensation and failed to pay for time spent traveling to plumbing jobs in violation of the FLSA. Plaintiff filed a motion for conditional certification of a collective action, which the Court granted. Plaintiff alleged that Defendant required plumbers to report to the business office prior to and at the conclusion of the workday, which could take as much as a half hour at the beginning and end of the day. Plaintiff alleged that Defendant failed to pay overtime compensation as the travel time brought the total work time for a week to over 40 hours. Plaintiff sought conditional certification of a collective action consisting of all plumbers and those in similar positions over the previous three years. In support of his motion, Plaintiff submitted a declaration in which he averred he was similarly-situated to other plumbers and those with similar duties, including plumbing helpers, apprentices, and laborers, who were required to travel back to the business premises at the end of the day. Id . at *11. Plaintiff asserted that he and the proposed collective action members were subject to the same unlawful policy where they were required to travel back to the business without receiving compensation and without receiving overtime compensation. Plaintiff contended that all collective action members performed similar job functions, were subject to the same travel time payment policy, and were not compensated for overtime hours. Id . Plaintiff also stated that he was aware that all employees were subject to the same pay policies and procedures. Defendant argued that conditional certification was improper because Plaintiff’s claims were too individualized to satisfy the modest factual showing required for conditional certification. The Court found that Defendant’s argument went to the merits of the claims, and were thus inappropriate to consider at the conditional certification stage. The Court determined that Plaintiff provided sufficient evidence to meet the requisite burden of showing that he was similarly-situated to Defendant’s current and former employees. The Court held that Plaintiff alleged that the proposed collective action members were all subject to a common policy whereby Defendant did not pay them for travel time from the day’s worksite back to the business premises and did not compensate them for overtime hours. Id . at *16. For these reasons, the Court granted Plaintiff’s motion for conditional certification of a collective action. Kleinhans, et al. v. Greater Cincinnati Behavioral Health, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 210562 (S.D. Ohio Nov. 1, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of case managers, filed a collective action alleging that Defendant misclassified them as exempt employees and thereby failed to pay them overtime compensation in violation of the FLSA. Plaintiffs filed a motion for conditional certification of a collective action, and the Court granted the motion. Plaintiffs argued that the collective action should be conditionally certified because Plaintiffs had shown they were similarly-situated to the potential opt-in Plaintiffs. In support of their motion, Plaintiffs offered their own declarations and those of opt-in Plaintiffs, which asserted that they were all employed as case managers, they were all misclassified as exempt employees, they all performed the same job duties, they were all paid on a salary basis, and they regularly worked overtime hours without compensation. Plaintiffs further averred that they were classified as exempt under the professional services exemption to the FLSA, but the their primary work duties did not involve “advanced or specialized knowledge;” their work was not “predominantly intellectual in character” and did not require “the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment;” and their work did not require a degree in social work. Id . at *11. Defendant contended that each Plaintiff worked on one of its 29 care management teams during their brief tenure with Defendant, and that Plaintiffs offered only “conclusory” statements of what they had “observed” as to other unidentified collective action members while providing no details about the specific payment policies they referenced or any evidence to show these policies were uniformly enforced across all care management teams. Id . at *20. The Court declined to address Defendant’s arguments at the conditional certification stage, since they were to the merits of the claims. The Court determined that Plaintiffs’ declarations made the requisite showing necessary to demonstrate that they were