18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition 203 dismissal pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) on January 24, 2020, and the Court issued the dismissal order on October 16, 2020. Accordingly, the Court found that Plaintiffs had the opportunity to seek leave to amend once they were alerted to Defendant’s rationale for dismissal and prior to issuance of the Court’s final order. For these reasons, the Court ruled that Plaintiffs failed to offer any compelling explanation for failing to amend or seeking leaving to amend and denied the motion. Sullivan-Blake, et al. v. FedEx Ground Package System, Inc., 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 151672 (W.D. Penn. Aug. 12, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of delivery drivers, brought a nationwide collective action alleging that Defendant violated the FLSA by failing to pay overtime. Plaintiffs asserted that Defendant employed the drivers through intermediary employers to perform delivery services on Defendant’s behalf. After the Court had conditionally certified a collective action, Plaintiffs sought leave to file an amended complaint to add additional named Plaintiffs in the FLSA collective action, and also to assert Rule 23 state law overtime class action claims on behalf of drivers who worked in Arkansas, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Defendant opposed the motion. At the outset the Court pointed out that its case management order (“CMO”) provided that the parties shall move to amend the pleadings or add new parties no later than 60 days prior to the close of fact/merits discovery. The Court found that the CMO dictated the deadline for motions to amend the pleadings in this case, and that Plaintiffs’ motion was filed well before that deadline. Because the motion to amend was filed before the deadline, the Court concluded that the review of the matter was governed by the liberal standard for amendment provided by Rule 15(a). Thus, the Court reasoned that Defendant bore the burden of establishing prejudice, bad faith, undue delay, or futility as a basis to deny the motion. Defendant asserted that Plaintiffs’ motion to amend should be denied because: (i) Plaintiffs’ delay in bringing their motion was undue; (ii) the amendment would result in considerable prejudice to Defendant and place a burden on the Court; and (3) Plaintiffs’ proposed amendment was futile as to many of the state law claims. Plaintiffs contended that the amendment was proper because their request was made in good faith and because the amendment would not cause undue delay or prejudice to Defendant as the discovery stage was in its early phases. Plaintiffs further asserted that the additional state law claims mirrored the FLSA claim already pled and did not add any new factual allegations to the case, and that the proposed Rule 23 state law classes covered thousands of drivers who were protected by state overtime laws but who did not opt-in to the FLSA action. Moreover, Plaintiffs argued that judicial efficiency and the remedial purpose of overtime protections favored permitting the filing of the amended complaint, so that the additional Plaintiffs could pursue a remedy on behalf of these drivers through Rule 23 class actions. The Court sided with Plaintiffs, finding that despite Defendant’s stated preference to incur the costs of defending against the proposed claims in separate state court actions, judicial economy was better served by granting the motion given the common questions of fact and law that needed to be resolved. Further, the Court was persuaded that the delay was not undue, because in prior status reports the parties indicated that additional time was required to determine the identities of the approximately 30,000 opt-ins, and that delays in ascertaining the identities of the opt-ins due to remote work necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, the Court rejected Defendant’s assertion that futility was an adequate basis on which the Court should deny Plaintiffs’ motion to amend at this time. Accordingly, the Court determined that Defendant had not carried its burden of establishing prejudice, bad faith, undue delay, or futility, and therefore it granted Plaintiffs’ motion to amend the complaint. Vaccaro, et al. v. Amazon.com LLC , 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49978 (D.N.J. March 17, 2021). Plaintiff, a warehouse worker, filed a class action alleging that Defendant failed to pay for time spent undergoing mandatory security screenings and for meal breaks in violation of the New Jersey Wage & Hour Law ("NJWHL"). The Court previously had granted Defendant’s motion for judgement on the pleadings with respect to the meal break claim, but allowed the security screening claim to proceed. Plaintiff filed a motion to amend the pleadings to add another named Plaintiff who alleged that Defendant failed to pay for time spent undergoing COVID-19 screenings. The Court granted the motion. Defendant argued that the time spent undergoing COVID- 19 screenings was not work, and therefore not compensable under the NJWHL. Plaintiff contended that the screenings were compensable under the plain terms of the statute, which requires employers to pay for "all time the employee is required to be at his or her place of work or on-duty." Id . at *3. The Court explained that because of the lack of definition of “place of work” in the NJWHL, it looked to the framework described in the FLSA, which provides that the phrase “place of work” means any place where two prongs are met, including: (i) an activity is performed that is controlled or required by the employer; and (ii) such activity serves to primarily