Court decisions resolving FLSA conditional certification motions are relatively commonplace.  However, far fewer decisions are available addressing FLSA class certification at the post-discovery stage of litigation.  These decisions usually arise in response to the defendant’s motion to “decertify” the FLSA class.

I recently wrote a brief responding to a decertification motion.  In the process, I came across four decisions in which federal courts in Pennsylvania have refused to decertify the FLSA class.  These decisions are briefly discussed below:

In Lockhart v. Westinghouse Credit Corp., 879 F.2d 43 (3d Cir. 1989), the Third Circuit applied §216(b)’s “similarly situated” requirement to an ADEA claim alleging that workers were discriminatorily terminated from their jobs.  Id. at 46.  The individual class members were “from different divisions of the company” and “different areas of the country” and “reported to different managers,” id. at 61 (Garth, J., dissenting), so, in opposing collective treatment, the company emphasized the “individualized explanations” for each plaintiff’s termination, id. at 62.  Even so, the Third Circuit majority held that the suit was properly tried as a collective action because there was “sufficient homogeneity among the plaintiffs,” id. at 52 n.10, all of whom alleged they were terminated as a result of a “common pattern, plan, or practice” and sought the same type of relief, id. at 52.

In Bunnion v. Consolidated Rail Corp., 1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7727 (E.D. Pa. May 14, 1998), Chief Judge Bartle found employees similarly situated notwithstanding the employer’s arguments that “the employees worked at various facilities in various jobs,” that each “facility made its own individual decisions,” and that its “defenses as to each individual plaintiff in the class would be individualized.”  Id. at 55-56.  Even though each class member was subjected to individual factual circumstances, the court rejected the argument that such individual evidence precludes certification under § 216(b).

In Moss v. Crawford & Co., 201 F.R.D. 398 (W.D. Pa. 2000), the defendant employer “devoted much attention to differences in the named and opt-in plaintiffs’ job duties, geographic assignments and hourly billing rates.”  Id. at 410.  The court “acknowledge[d] [the defendant’s] intention to examine each opt-in plaintiff’s background and personal knowledge.”  Id.  Still, the court found:  “Irrespective of these differences, each of the plaintiffs assert a common claim.”  Id. (emphasis supplied).  The court reasoned that “variations in the plaintiffs’ duties, job locations and hourly billing rates do not differentiate the collective basis of the class to the extent that it defeats the primary objectives of a § 216(b) action,” which include “lower costs to the plaintiffs through the pooling of resources” and “limit[ing] the controversy to one proceeding which efficiently resolves common issues of law and fact.”  Id.

In Chabrier v. Wilmington Financial, Inc., 2008 U.S.Dist. LEXIS 27761, *8 (Apr. 4, 2008), a class of mortgage loan officers purported to be misclassified as exempt from the FLSA’s overtime mandate.  The defendant moved to decertify the FLSA class, arguing that “individual factual determinations are necessary to resolve their claims and the case consequently will be unmanageable.”  Id. ar *8.  Judge Shapiro rejected the defendant’s arguments, after noting that the class members, inter alia, shared the same job titles and were subjected to a common pay practice.  See id. at *3-4.  The Court observed that “[a] showing that there are elements of plaintiffs’ claims that differ, or that a small number of current plaintiffs are excluded, cannot override the similarities present in most plaintiffs’ claims and circumstances,” id. at *9, and that “[t]here are means to aid in making individualized fact determinations such as bifurcation for liability and damages, designating subclasses, and appointment of a special master,” id.

In Evans v. Lowe’s Home Centers, Inc., 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 32104, *15 (M.D. Pa. May 18, 2006), the defendant sought to decertify an FLSA class consisting of almost 500 retail store workers employed in 36 separate retail stores throughout Pennsylvania.  See id. at *2-4.  The defendant argued that collective treatment of the plaintiffs’ claims would entail an overly-individualized inquiry into the employment practices at 36 separate retail locations.  The court rejected the argument, emphasizing that the plaintiffs’ FLSA claims required an analysis of “objective rather than subjective evidence and thus, class certification is appropriate as to the FLSA plaintiffs.”  Id. at *12.  The court concluded:  “Finding out the method utilized by Defendant’s thirty-six Pennsylvania stores, however, does not provide such an undue hardship as to bar certification of Plaintiff’s FLSA’s claim. I agree that the objective of FLSA’s section 216(b) of lowering cost and limiting the controversy to one proceeding to efficiently resolve the common issues of law and fact will be met by certifying the FLSA plaintiffs.”  Id. at *15.

Tags: class action, collective action, decertification, FLSA

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