18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition 269 have been used throughout the case was minimal. The Court therefore approved the short-form class names proposed by Plaintiffs. Finally, the Court ruled that to the extent that the domain name proposed by Defendants was available, Plaintiffs should use that domain name as it was very close to the domain name that was used without objection for the FLSA collective action members and would not give rise to any confusion as to whether MiLB is a party in the case. (xxiv) Pay Policies And Bonuses In FLSA Collective Actions Ayala, et al. v. Nissan North America , 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 104249 (M.D. Fla. June 3, 2021). Plaintiff, a mechanic, filed a collective and class action alleging that Defendants failed to pay overtime compensation in violation of the FLSA and Florida’s Minimum Wage Act ("FMWA"). Defendant Nissan filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the individual dealerships were Plaintiff’s employer, and not Nissan. Nissan also argued that Plaintiff failed to comply with pre-suit requirements of the FMWA which requires that a Plaintiff notify his employer of his intent to file suit before initiating litigation. The Magistrate Judge recommended that the motion be granted. Per Rule 72, Plaintiff objected to the Magistrate Judge’s recommendation on pre-suit notice issue. The Court sustained the objection and adopted the Magistrate Judge’s recommendation. The Court found that the Magistrate Judge’s reliance on certain case law was not appropriate, but that the ultimate conclusion was the same. The Court reasoned that Plaintiff must comply with the pre-suit notice requirement of the FMWA, and thereby it dismissed the claim without prejudice so that Plaintiff could provide pre-suit notice. The Court also observed that Plaintiff’s notice may seek unpaid wages on behalf of both himself and the class, and any tender of unpaid wages to Plaintiff individually would not moot the class claims. Id. at *5-6. For these reasons, the Court adopted the findings of the Magistrate Judge and dismissed the claims. Ayala, et al. v. U.S. Xpress Enterprises, Inc., Case No. 16-13 (9th Cir. June 22, 2021). Plaintiff, a truck driver, brought a class action alleging that Defendant’s piece-rate compensation system violated California’s wage & hour laws by failing to pay drivers for time spent on certain work tasks. The District Court found that Defendant’s piece-rate compensation system – which paid by number of miles driven based on a certain route, not the number of hours worked – properly accounted for pay for all activities related to delivering customers’ cargo. The District Court concluded that the drivers were told up front about the fixed fee in Defendant’s 2013 driver handbook such that there was no plausible argument that a driver who knew the dollar amount of his mileage pay in advance of the trip could think that he was being compensated only for actual miles driven. Thus, the District Court granted summary judgment in favor of Defendant for claims of non-production work after the handbook was issued, but denied Defendant’s motion for summary judgment in all other respects. On Plaintiffs’ appeal of the grant of Defendant’s summary judgement motion, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the ruling. The Ninth Circuit explained that § 226.2 of the California Labor Code requires an employer who pays by the piece to provide separate compensation for “other non-productive time.” Id . at 2. Plaintiffs argued that “other non- productive time” must be defined by reference to the pay formula alone. The Ninth Circuit disagreed. It held that the compensation owed employees was a matter determined primarily by contract, and § 226.2 permitted an employer and its employees to define the scope of its piece-rate compensation system. Id. Accordingly, the Ninth Circuit concluded that the District Court did not err in looking to the understanding of the parties to determine the scope of the piece-rate pay. The Ninth Circuit ruled that Plaintiffs’ own testimony demonstrated their understanding of the scope of the piece-rate pay, and therefore, summary judgment was appropriate for the time period following the publication of the 2013 handbook. Bradford, et al. v. Team Pizza, Inc. , 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 99413 (S.D. Ohio May 26, 2021). Plaintiff, a pizza delivery driver, filed a collective action alleging that Defendant failed to properly claim a tip credit from the wages of pizza delivery drivers and required delivery drivers to pay for automobile expenses and other job-related expenses out of pocket without reimbursement in violation of the FLSA and Ohio wage & hour laws. The parties filed cross-motions for partial summary judgment on the issue of whether reimbursement based on a reasonable approximation of the actual vehicle costs was allowed under the FLSA. Plaintiff argued that 29 C.F.R. § 531.35 was genuinely ambiguous and for an employer to sufficiently reimburse its delivery driver employees for vehicle- related costs under the FLSA, the employer must either reimburse drivers’ actual costs or reimburse drivers using the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") mileage reimbursement rate. The Magistrate Judge rejected Plaintiff’s position. The Magistrate Judge concluded that in order for an employer to sufficiently reimburse its pizza delivery driver employees for vehicle-related costs under the FLSA, the employer must either reimburse