18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

156 Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition situated to the membership of the proposed collective action. For these reasons, the Court granted Plaintiff’s motion for conditional certification of a collective action. Ford, et al. v. MIJ, Inc. , 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 99197 (N.D. Ind. May 25, 2021). Plaintiff, an exotic dancer at an adult night club, filed a collective action alleging that Defendant misclassified dancers as independent contractors and thereby failed to pay them minimum wages and overtime compensation in violation of the FLSA. Plaintiff filed a motion for conditional certification of a collective action, which the Court denied. Plaintiff contended that Defendant maintained the authority to control and direct all aspects of dancers’ job duties, including customer pricing for performances, scheduling, enforcing rules and policies, disciplinary actions, and hiring and terminating dancers. In support of her motion, Plaintiff submitted her own declaration, in which she largely detailed the allegations found in the complaint. The Court found that, without more, Plaintiff’s unsupported allegations were insufficient to carry Plaintiff’s burden under 29 U.S.C. § 216(b). The Court held that Plaintiff’s vague, uncorroborated, conclusory statements were insufficient to establish that similarly-situated individuals existed. For these reasons, the Court denied Plaintiff’s motion for conditional certification of a collective action. Francis, et al. v. Manpower Group US, Inc., Case No. 16-CV-1477 (E.D. Wis. Jan. 26, 2021). Plaintiff, a recruiter, 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 the Court granted in part. Defendant, a recruitment and training company, employed two types of recruiters, including: (i) hourly, non- exempt Associate Recruiters (“ARs”); and (ii) salaried, exempt Senior Recruiters (“SRs”) in providing services to clients through its Recruiting Process Outsourcing (“RPO”) program. Plaintiff worked for Defendant for four years as an AR and for five months as a SR in the Comcast West RPO Program. All recruiters in the program were required to follow the policies articulated in a handbook created and distributed by their director Rachel Boyd. As an AR, Plaintiff contended that Boyd limited her to reporting only eight hours of work each workday even though she often worked longer than eight hours and on weekends. As a salaried Senior Recruiter, Plaintiff alleged that she regularly worked more than 40 hours a week and performed essentially the same job duties she had as an AR. Plaintiff sought to certify two collective actions, including: (i) all current and former non-exempt hourly ARs over the previous three years and; (ii) all current and former salaried RSs over the previous three years. Plaintiff contended that Defendant subjected all ARs to ambitious quotas that could not be met in the time given while also imposing a de facto prohibition on overtime compensation. Id. at 5. Plaintiff also asserted that all SRs were misclassified as exempt from earning overtime compensation, despite having essentially the same duties as ARs. Defendant argued that management policies between different RPO divisions were individualized to that program, and not similar across all ARs and SRs. Defendant further argued that the duties of ARs and SRs varied significantly between RPO programs. The Court found that, based on the record, Plaintiff failed to establish that there was a common policy or nexus with either of her proposed collective actions. The Court determined that Defendant sufficiently demonstrated that the RPO Programs were all run and managed on an individualized basis such that Plaintiff was not similarly-situated to all ARs or SRs across the company. However, the Court opined that the record did sufficiently establish that Plaintiff was similarly-situated to other ARs and SRs in the Comcast West Program. The Court opined that there was a common governing policy, i.e. , Boyd’s handbook, which uniformly applied to all ARs in the program, and all were required to meet the same performance quotas. As to SRs in the Comcast West Program, the Court reasoned that they were all subject to the same performance quotas and governing policies articulated in the Boyd handbook and all had the same job duties. Accordingly, the Court granted Plaintiff’s motion for two limited collective actions, one consisting of ARs in the Comcast West Program and one consisting of SRs in the Comcast West Program. Haugen, et al. v. Roundy ’ s Illinois, LLC, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 146896 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 5, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of grocery store employees, 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, and 28 opt-in Plaintiffs joined the action. Following discovery, Defendant thereafter filed a motion to decertify the collective action, and the Court granted the motion. Plaintiffs were previously employed as People Service Managers ("PSMs") that were responsible for human resource functions at the store. PSMs were classified as exempt employees under the administrative exemption to the FLSA and therefore were not paid overtime compensation for hours worked over 40 hours in a workweek. Plaintiffs