18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

162 Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition (viii) Eighth Circuit Adams, et al. v. City Of Kansas City, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 61435 (W.D. Mo. March 30, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of firefighters, filed a collective action alleging that Defendant erroneously calculated overtime pay in violation of the FLSA. Plaintiffs previously had filed a motion for conditional certification of a collective action consisting of all current and former firefighters who received incentive pay from January 10, 2016 to the present, and the Court granted the motion. After discovery, Defendant subsequently filed a motion to decertify the collective action, and the Court denied the motion. Following dissemination of notice to potential opt-in Plaintiffs, 474 individuals submitted consent forms. Defendant argued that collective-wide treatment was not appropriate because: (i) individual defenses predominated; (ii) a collective action would not procedurally efficient; and (iii) collective adjudication would violate Defendant’s right to due process. The Court disagreed with all three arguments. First, the Court found that all collective action members were affected by the same policy, which entitled them to a higher rate of pay based on completed certifications, advanced education, executing special duties, and/or fulfilling certain responsibilities. The Court opined that there was evidence establishing the collective action members’ pay was determined in the same manner and pursuant to the same policy, thus making them similarly-situated. Plaintiffs contended that any individual damages assessments would be available through Defendant’s pay records. The Court reasoned that Defendant’s defenses all pertained to the issue of damages, but noted that individual damages calculations should not be a barrier to collective-wide treatment, as differences in injuries would not disprove the claim that Defendant had a policy that violated the FLSA. The Court further noted that if it were to decertify the collective action, over 400 opt-ins would need to continue litigation on an individual basis after the parties had already expended over two years of litigation, several rounds of motions, depositions, discovery, and engagement of an expert witness. The Court concluded that collective adjudication would reduce the burden on Plaintiffs through the pooling of resources and would resolve common issues of law and fact most efficiently. For these reasons, the Court denied Defendant’s motion to decertify the collective action. Albelo, et al. v. Epic Landscape Products , 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 120219 (W.D. Mo. June 28, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of landscape laborers, some with H-2B work visas and some without, filed a class and collective action alleging that Defendant failed to pay overtime compensation in violation of state and federal labor laws. Plaintiffs filed a motion for class certification of the state law claims pursuant to Rule 23, which the Court denied. Plaintiffs sought to certify a class consisting of all “persons who worked for Defendant as Landscape Laborers in Kansas and Missouri and who supervised less than two full-time employees from October 19, 2012 to the present, and who performed work for the Defendant for more than 40 hours in workweek without proper compensation.” Id . at *5. The Court noted that the class definition had two problems, included: (i) the phrase "without proper compensation" arguably defined the class as an impermissible "fail-safe" class; and (ii) the class definition did not provide for subclasses, which was problematic because a sub-set of the proposed class, the H-2B workers, had additional breach of contract claims that could be certified as a class. Id . at *6. The Court also found that the class failed to meet the commonality requirement, as Plaintiffs brought claims of two state law causes of action (breach of contract and unjust enrichment) under that laws of Kansas and Missouri. The Court ruled that whether the parties formed any contract to pay overtime would differ among the various class members and require individualized assessments. The Court also held that Plaintiffs failed to meet the typicality requirement because they could not bring claims for unjust enrichment, quantum meruit or breach of contract, while members of the punitive class would have claims under those theories. For the same reason, the Court concluded that Plaintiffs were not adequate class representatives. Finally, the Court determined that Plaintiffs failed to meet the predominance requirement of Rule 23(b). The Court observed that the putative class could not prove their breach of contract claims with common evidence, as some class members could argue that Defendant agreed to pay them overtime wages by admitting evidence of the advertisements they saw or heard, while some will try to prove Defendant agreed to pay them overtime by admitting the forms it submitted to the federal government as part of the H-2B visa approval process. The Court reasoned that these arguments would require different pieces of evidence for the same cause of action such that common questions of law or fact did not predominate. For these reasons, the Court denied Plaintiffs’ motion for class certification. Baker, et al. v. APC PASSE, LLC, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 177033 (E.D. Ark. Sept. 17, 2021). Plaintiff, an hourly paid care coordinator supervisor, filed a collective action alleging that Defendant failed to pay overtime