18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

442 Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition class." Id. at 328. The Fifth Circuit opined that whether ADT was vicariously or secondarily liable was a relevant factor, and that it must place emphasis on the "real target" of the litigation. Id . Since Plaintiffs sought to represent a class of individuals seeking millions in recovery for the alleged invasion of their privacy, and the offending employee was incarcerated, ADT, having properly intervened, must be considered a primary Defendant under the CAFA. For these reasons, the Fifth Circuit reversed the District Court’s ruling granting Plaintiffs’ motion to remand. White, et al. v. Bastrop Energy Partners, LP, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 179716 (S.D. Tex. Sept. 21, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of Texas residents, filed a state court class action against Defendants, over 100 power generation and power transmission or distribution companies, alleging negligence and gross negligence, breach of contract, product liability and strict liability based on an abnormally dangerous activity, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, civil conspiracy, breach of a continuing duty to warn, and breach of express and implied warranties in connection with their failure to prepare their grid for freezing temperatures and the failure to let consumers know of the potential for power interruption. Defendants removed the action pursuant to the CAFA. Plaintiffs filed a motion to remand, and the Court granted the motion. Plaintiffs argued that remand was proper under both the "single event" exclusion and the "local controversy" exception to the CAFA’s removal jurisdiction provisions. Id . at *11. Plaintiffs based the lawsuit on the power generators’ and the power distributors’ "individual and collective failures to implement long known and recommended measures to weatherize their power generating facilities/stations and equipment to protect against foreseeable cold weather to avoid a catastrophe just like Texas suffered in February 2021 and because of their individual and collective operational failures during the February 2021 cold weather." Id . at *6-7. The Court ruled that the allegations as to the failure of the grid during the freeze alleged only a single harm-causing event or occurrence – the grid failure during the freeze – caused by actions and omissions that occurred over several years. Id . at *17. The Court reasoned that neither the alleged harm nor the acts causing it were limited to something that happened in a discrete moment in time. Id . The Court ruled that the complaint showed independent, but connected, actions and omissions in failing to prepare the electrical generation and distribution facilities for sustained sub-freezing conditions, which resulted in a single occurrence during the February 2021 storm – the Texas electrical power grid failure – that allegedly injured all Plaintiffs. Id . at *17. The Court thus found that the actions were part of a single event, and therefore the mass-action exclusion to removal under the CAFA applied. Alternatively, the Court determined that even if there was no single event or occurrence, the local controversy exception would require the Court to decline jurisdiction, as Plaintiffs sought significant relief from at least one in-state Defendant, whose alleged failure to winterize the grid provided a significant basis for the injuries that Plaintiffs sustained. For these reasons, the Court granted Plaintiffs’ motion to remand. (vi) Sixth Circuit Thomas, et al. v. Amazon , 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 180411 (N.D. Ohio Sept. 22, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of fulfillment center employees, filed a class action alleging that Defendant failed to pay them for time spent undergoing security screenings before lunch breaks in violation of the Ohio Minimum Fair Wage Standards Act (“MFWSA”). Defendant filed a motion for summary judgment, but the Court found that it lacked jurisdiction over the action, and therefore dismissed the lawsuit. After the Court ruled on Defendant’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, the Court consolidated this case with Gorie v. Amazon.com Services, LLC , Case No. 20-CV-1387, which alleged the same violation of the MFWSA as well as FLSA violations. With respect to conditional certification of a collective action in Gorie , the parties left the timing of a motion to Plaintiff but deferred "notice until after a final determination on the merits of the Thomas named Plaintiffs’ claims." Id . at *4. Subsequently, Plaintiffs in this action opted-in to the Gorie action. In order to establish jurisdiction with only one claim of state law violations, Plaintiff invoked the CAFA, and contended that the amount-in-controversy exceeded $75,000, exclusive of interest and costs. However, the Court calculated that even assuming that both named Plaintiffs in Thomas worked 40 hours per week for two years at a rate of $15 per hour and were not paid 20 minutes per shift in connection with mandatory security screenings as alleged, even rounding those calculations up amounted to less than $10,000 in controversy, well below the amount needed to confer federal jurisdiction. Id . at *7. Defendants contended that the CAFA conferred federal jurisdiction because with approximately 21,870 hourly workers during the alleged class period with an average hourly rate of $15.49, and 188,243 workweeks where these employees worked at least 40 hours, the potential exposure was in excess of $5 million. The Court rejected this argument. It held that Defendant’s calculation misread the complaint, as Defendant’s calculation