18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition 149 employees’ regular hourly wages when they work overtime. Id . at *19. The Court determined that Defendant’s manual edits to timesheets resulting in rounding against the workers’ benefit was in violation of the FLSA and state laws. The Court also found that Defendant’s overtime calculations were not accurately recorded in accordance with 29 U.S.C. § 207(e), which required additional rates of pay to be included in overtime calculations. The Court concluded that Plaintiffs clearly met all prerequisites of Rule 23, and that Plaintiffs’ showed unified claims of FLSA wage violations that warranted conditional certification under 29 U.S.C. § 216(b). For these reasons, the Court granted Plaintiffs’ motion for conditional certification of a collective action and for class certification of the state law claims pursuant to Rule 23. Riley, et al. v. SK United Corp. , 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 95902 (E.D. Mich. May 20, 2021). Plaintiff, a truck driver, filed a collective action alleging that Defendant failed to pay overtime compensation in violation of the FLSA. Plaintiff filed a motion for conditional certification of a collective action, which a Magistrate Judge recommended be granted. On Rule 72 review, the Court adopted the Magistrate Judge’s recommendation and granted conditional certification of the collective action. Defendant had three main objections to the Magistrate Judge’s recommendation, including: (i) that Plaintiff failed to provide sufficient evidence that he was similarly- situated to drivers outside of Michigan; (ii) that the Magistrate Judge failed to identify an end date to the collective period; and (iii) that the Magistrate Judge erred in recommending conditional certification of a collective action including drivers who already opted-in to a related lawsuit. The Court rejected all of Defendant’s objections. The Court held that Plaintiff met the requisite burden necessary for conditional certification of a collective action consisting of all drivers nationwide. The Court opined that Plaintiff alleged in his complaint and offered declarations that in the course of his employment he drove a vehicle weighing less than 10,000 pounds, was paid on a day-rate basis, received no overtime compensation even though he worked more than 40 hours per workweek. Further, the record contained evidence of single overtime policy that applied to all drivers, including Defendant’s answer, which stated “regardless of the distribution center, Defendant paid each Driver on a day rate basis and classified them as exempt from overtime." Id . at *7. Hence, the Court overruled Defendant’s first objection. As to the second objection, the parties agreed to limit the collective action as requested by Defendant to exclude those who were not subject to the day-rate pay following Defendant’s change to hourly pay. Finally, the Court ruled that the facts of the case were distinguishable from the related action such that opt- in Plaintiffs to that action should still be permitted to opt-in here. For these reasons, the Court overruled Defendant’s objections and adopted the Magistrate Judge’s recommendation to grant conditional certification of a collective action. Roby, et al. v. Lincoln Electric Co ., 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 34758 (N.D. Ohio Feb. 24, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of car factory piece-workers, filed a collective action alleging that Defendant had a policy which automatically deducted 19.8 minutes from each eight hour shift as an unpaid meal break, thereby resulting in instances of unpaid overtime in violation of the FLSA. The Court previously had granted Plaintiffs’ motion for conditional certification of a collective action. After discovery, Defendant moved to decertify the collective action, and the Court granted the motion. The 316 opt-in Plaintiffs included workers in several different job titles in 10 different departments with different supervisors and departments, but all were paid on a piece-rate system under which they were paid by the number of goods produced each shift. Defendant had a policy that stated that employees were not permitted to work during break periods and should fill out a form and submit the form to their supervisor in the event they perform work off-the-clock. Plaintiffs argued: (i) that the 20 minute meal break was an insufficient amount of time to eat a regular meal and thus was not a bona fide meal break under the FLSA; (ii) that Defendant had a policy of non-enforcement of its meal break policies; and (iii) Defendant failed to communicate its missed meal break policies to piece-rate employees. Id . at *9. As to the first contention, the Court determined that the evidence submitted by the parties showed disparate factual and employment settings of individual opt-in Plaintiffs, as the meal habits varied widely depending on an employee’s plant, their location within that plant, and their department’s meal break rules. Id . at *11. The Court found that although Plaintiffs could have worked through their break times, it was not done under a policy that Defendant utilized, and in fact, the actual policy was contrary to allowing any off-the-clock work. The Court further reasoned that any questions regarding an employees’ understanding of the handbook and company policies were highly individualized and would require testimony from all 316 Plaintiffs. Accordingly, the Court held that the members of the conditionally certified collective action were not similarly-situated. The Court concluded that since each Plaintiffs’ experience would be individualized, Defendant’s defenses to each would also be just as disparate, such that they would