Galt v. Eagleville Hospital
Galt v. Eagleville Hospital
Opinion of the Court
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Named Plaintiffs Adrienne Galt and Nancy Murphy, former Registered Nurses at Defendant Eagleville Hospital, and opt-in Plaintiff Nina Johnson, a former Nursing Assistant at Eagleville, bring this case under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”).
I. BACKGROUND
Plaintiffs allege that Defendant violated the FLSA by requiring them to work during 30-minute unpaid meal breaks and then automatically deducting that time from their shift totals, depriving them of compensation, including overtime pay.
II. LEGAL STANDARD
Plaintiffs alleging FLSA violations may bring a collective action on behalf of similarly situated employees provided that such employees give their consent in writing to become a party to the lawsuit.
To qualify for conditional certification, Plaintiffs must make a “modest factual showing” that they and the proposed opt-in employees are similarly situated.
III. ANALYSIS
Defendant argues both that Plaintiffs have failed to make a modest-factual showing that the proposed opt-in employees are similarly situated and that Plaintiffs’ proposed class is overbroad.
A. Whether Plaintiffs Have Made a Modest Factual Showing that Proposed Class Members Are Similarly Situated
Defendant argues that Plaintiffs have not made a modest factual showing that the proposed collective members are similarly situated because Plaintiffs’ motion is based largely on Plaintiffs’ own declarations, which Defendant claims do not show that other employees suffered
Plaintiffs’ declarations provide sufficient details that, if true, would tend to show that other proposed collective members wefe forced to work through meal breaks without-compensation and thus were similarly situated. The declarations explain that Defendant’s timekeeping system left employees with no ■ method of tracking meal' breaks, allowing their supervisors to require them to work through breaks with little recourse.
Defendant points to cases in which declarations by plaintiffs were insufficient to establish conditional certification, but these cases are inapposite because they concerned situations where the plaintiffs either offered no proof of a factual nexus between their claims and those of potential collective members or relied upon assertions that were far more generalized than those here. For example, in White v. Rick Bus Co., the court denied the plaintiffs motion for conditional certification because the plaintiff failed to identify any other similarly situated employees and relied entirely upon his own conclusory assertion that others had suffered a similar, harm.
Defendant also argues, based on the declarations of two of its supervisors, that employees were encouraged to take full, uninterrupted meal breaks, and thus that Plaintiffs’ claims are unique rather than representative of all employees in the proposed collective action.
B. Whether the Court Should Prospectively Limit the Proposed Class
Defendant also argues that even if Plaintiffs’ proposed class is conditionally certified, it should be limited in scope and time.
The Court declines to limit the scope of the class at this stage, as that issue is more appropriate for final certification.
Regarding temporal limits to the collective action, the parties appear to agree that Defendant’s automatic deduction policy began in January 2014, but do not agree whether the collective action period should begin on January 1, 2014 or January 9, 2014.
C. Form of Notice and Plaintiffs’ Discovery Requests
District courts have an obligation to monitor notice to potential collective members to “ensure that it is timely, accurate, and informative.”
IV. CONCLUSION
For the reasons set forth above, Plaintiffs’ motion is granted. An appropriate Order follows.
. 29U.S.C. §201 etseq.
. Doc. No. 27-2 (Plaintiffs’ Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion for Order Authorizing Notice to Similarly-Situated Persons) at 1-5.
.Doc. No. 1 (Complaint) ¶ 10; Doc. No. 1-2 (Ex. A) (Employee Handbook) at 14, 34; Doc. No. 27-2 at 2-3.
. Doc. No. 1 ¶¶ 11-15, 46-49; Doc. No. 27-2 at 3-4.
. Doc. No. 27-2 at 1.
. Bellaspica v. PJPA, LLC, 3 F.Supp.3d 257, 259 (E.D. Pa. 2014) (citing 29 U.S.C. § 216(b)).
. Id. (citing Barrios v. Suburban Disposal, Inc., Civ. No. 12-03663 WJM, 2013 WL 6498086, at *2 (D.N.J. Dec. 11, 2013)).
. Id.(citing Hoffmann-La Roche, Inc. v. Sperling, 493 U.S. 165, 170, 110 S.Ct. 482, 107 L.Ed.2d 480(1989)).
. Id.; accord Titchenell v. Apria Healthcare, Inc., Civil Action No. 11-563, 2011 WL 5428559, at *3 (E.D. Pa. Nov. 8, 2011). As the parties note, there are outlier cases holding that a lower quantum of proof is required for conditional certification, but the clear trend in this District is to require a “modest factual showing” and the Court therefore applies that standard. E.g., Bellaspica, 3 F.Supp.3d at 259; Bamgbose v. Delta-T Grp., Inc., 684 F.Supp.2d 660, 667-68 (E.D. Pa. 2010) ("Courts typically require a ‘modest factual showing’ that the putative class members are similarly situated, particularly when the parties have engaged in some discovery.”) (citations omitted).
. Bellaspica, 3 F.Supp.3d at 259 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
. Id. (citations omitted).
. Doc. No. 28 (Defendant’s Reply to Plaintiffs’ Motion for Order Authorizing Notice to Similarly-Situated Persons) at 2-5.
. Doc. No. 27-3 (Declaration of Adrienne Galt) ¶¶ 4-5; D.oc. No. 27-4 (Declaration of Nancy Murphy) ¶¶ 4-5; Declaration of Nina Johnson ¶¶ 4-5.
. Galt Decl. 11116-8; Mutphy Decl, ¶¶ 6-8; . Johnson Decl, ¶¶ 6-8.
. Galt Decl. ¶¶ 8-9; Murphy Decl, ¶¶ 8-9; Johnson Decl. ¶¶ 8-9,
.. Galt Decl. ¶ 3; Murphy Decl. II3; Johnson Decl. ¶ 3,
,See Holley v. Erickson Living, Civil Action No. 11-2444, 2012 WL 1835738, at *6 (E.D. Pa. May 21, 2012) (granting conditional certification motion in similar FLSA meal-break case where plaintiff’s declaration showed that defendant automatically deducted 30 minutes of meal time from employees' shifts even if the employees were forced to work during the break); Williams v. Owens & Minor, Inc., Civil Action No. 09-00742, 2009 WL 5812596, at *3 (E.D. Pa. Oct. 9, 2009) (conditionally certifying class for FLSA meal-break claim based on plaintiffs' sworn declarations and deposition testimony); Taylor v. Pittsburgh Mercy Health Sys., Inc., Civil Action No. 09-377, 2009 WL 2003354, at *2 (W.D. Pa. July 7, 2009) (finding plaintiffs’ declarations were sufficient to conditionally certify class based on unwritten policy that meal-break time was deducted from employees paychecks even if employees worked during meal breaks),
. 743 F.Supp.2d 380, 388-89 (D.N.J. 2010).
. Civil No. 06-2393 (RBK), 2007 WL 7186177, at *3-4 (D.N.J. Sept. 25, 2007).
. See, e.g., Holley, 2012 WL 1835738, at *5; Williams, 2009 WL 5812596, at *3; Taylor, 2009 WL 2003354, at *2.
. Doc. No. 28-2 (Declaration of Chris Smith); Doc. No. 28-3 (Declaration of Harriet Hovington).
. Resch v. Krapfs Coaches, Inc., Civil Action No, 11-6893, 2012 WL 2500623, at *3 (E.D. Pa. June 29, 2012) (citation omitted) (conditionally certifying collective action and declining to weigh defendant's evidence that plaintiffs were not similarly situated to other potential opt-in collective members); see. also Mott v. Driveline Retail Merch., Inc., 23 F.Supp.3d 483, 490 (E.D. Pa. 2014) (finding "defense that Plaintiff's claims are too individualized to be litigated collective is unavailing at” the conditional certification stage); Williams, 2009 WL 5812596, at *3 (rejecting challenge to plaintiffs claims based on the declarations of defendant's employees and explaining that "precedent makes clear that, in ruling on the motion for conditional certification, it is not appropriate to adjudicate plaintiffs’ claims on the merits”).
. Doc. No, 28 at 6-8.
. E.g., Titchenell, 2011 WL 5428559, at *8 (“The Court defers ruling on the size and scope of any class until discovery is complete and the issue of final certification is before the Court."). Defendant cites cases in which courts have limited the scope of the collective action at conditional certification, but in those cases the proposed collective actions were plainly overbroad and thus distinguishable from the proposed collective action here. See Burkhart-Deal v. Citifinancial, Inc., No. 07-1747, 2010 WL 457127, at *5 (W.D. Pa. Feb. 4, 2010) (limiting plaintiffs' proposed collective action, which would have covered "approximately 2,200 branch offices nationwide,” to certain locations); Craig v. Rite Aid Corp., No. 08-cv-2317, 2009 WL 4723286, at
. See Employee Handbook at 14.
. Doc. No. 28 at 7; Doc. No. 29 at 8-9.
. Hoffmann-La Roche, 493 U.S. at 172, 110 S.Ct. 482.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Adrienne GALT v. EAGLEVILLE HOSPITAL
- Cited By
- 3 cases
- Status
- Published