18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

266 Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition and when they complained about the money owed, Defendants retaliated against them by having them jailed and removed from the United States. Defendants contracted with Vasquez Citrus & Hauling, Inc. (“VCH”), a farm labor contractor that recruited Plaintiffs. Defendants moved to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), and the Court granted the motion in part and denied it in part. In rendering its decision that Defendants were joint employers under the FLSA, the Court applied the six factors of the economic realities test, including: (i) the permanency of the relationship between the parties; (ii) the degree of skill required for the rendering of the services; (iii) the workers’ investment in equipment or materials for the task; (iv) the workers’ opportunity for profit or loss; (v) the degree of the alleged employer’s right to control the manner in which the work is performed; and (vi) whether the service rendered was an integral part of the alleged employer’s business. Because Plaintiffs’ work for Four Star did not require a high degree of skill, their capital investment was dwarfed by Four Star’s investments, they were paid at a fixed rate without any ability to increase their compensation through increased skill or efficiency (while Four Star exercised control over almost every aspect of Plaintiffs’ work), the Court concluded that Defendants were Plaintiffs’ joint employer under the FLSA. Further, the Court ruled that the FLSA violations that allegedly occurred more than two years, but less than three years before Plaintiffs commenced the action, were not barred by the statute of limitations because Plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged that the violations were willful within the meaning of the FLSA. Additionally, the Court determined that Plaintiffs had plausibly stated a claim for retaliation and denied the motion to dismiss that claim. For the same reasons that the Court concluded that Four Star and Smith were Plaintiffs’ joint employers under the FLSA, the Court found that Plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged that Four Star was their joint employer under the AWPA and the WOWA, and it denied Defendants’ motion to dismiss those claims on that basis. Finally, the Court found that Plaintiffs’ claims under the TVPRA failed, primarily because the complaint failed to provide factual support for Plaintiffs’ conclusory assertions that Defendants knew or should have known of the alleged abuses by VCH. For these reasons, the Court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss in part and denied it in part. (xxii) Motor Carrier Act Issues In FLSA Collective Actions Frapanpina, et al. v. Garda CL Great Lakes, Inc., 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 53366 (N.D. Ill. March 22, 2021). Plaintiff, a driver/messenger, filed a class and collective action alleging that Defendant failed to pay overtime compensation in violation of the FLSA and the Illinois Minimum Wage Law (“IMWL”). Defendant filed a motion for summary judgment on Plaintiff’s claims on the grounds that he was exempt from the overtime requirements of the FLSA and the IMWL under the Motor Carrier Act (“MCA”) exemption. The Court granted in part and denied in part the motion. Drivers/messengers employed by Defendant regularly transported currency to and from Milwaukee and Indianapolis. In 2008, Congress passed the Technical Corrections Act (“TCA”), which amended the scope of the motor carrier exemption by designating a class of employees for which the exemption did not apply. Id . at *5. Under the TCA, a "covered employee" must meet several criteria, including that they only performed duties on motor vehicles weighing 10,000 pounds or less. The parties did not dispute any material facts pertinent to the motion, including that Plaintiff worked in interstate commerce, that he served as a driver for a motor carrier, and that he drove both small and large vehicles. Id . at *6. Plaintiff, however, asserted that he was not a covered employee under the TCA because he drove both small and large vehicles. Defendant argued that the TCA exception only applied to employees who drove small vehicles exclusively. The Court noted that the Seventh Circuit had not yet addressed how to categorize mixed fleet vehicles under the TCA, but that the majority of case law authorities agreed with the Third and Fourth Circuits that the TCA’s plain text contemplates employees who drive mixed fleet vehicles. Id . at *7-8. The Court opined that the plain text of the TCA exception clearly and unambiguously provided that, if an employee’s work involved, at least in part, the operation of small vehicles, the FLSA entitled that employee to overtime pay. Id . at *11. The Court therefore ruled that because the undisputed record showed that Plaintiff drove mixed fleet vehicles, Plaintiff’s FLSA claim was viable, and thus it denied Defendant’s motion to dismiss the FLSA claim. Defendant also sought summary judgment on Plaintiff’s IMWL claim. The Court reasoned that the Illinois state legislature has not enacted a state law corollary to the federal TCA that would allow drivers of mixed fleet vehicles an exception to the MCA. Accordingly, the Court ruled that Defendant was entitled to summary judgment on Plaintiff’s IMWL claim. The Court therefore granted in part and denied in part Defendant’s motion for summary judgment. White, et al. v. United States Corrections, LLC, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 13144 (5th Cir. May 3, 2021). Plaintiff, a driver for Defendant’s private prison transportation company, filed a collective action alleging that Defendant misclassified her as an exempt employee and thereby failed to pay overtime compensation in