Justia Class Action Opinion Summaries

Appellants appealed from an order granting summary judgment to appellee on a claim arising under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act ("WARN"), 29 U.S.C. 21202, and dismissing without prejudice supplemental state law claims. Appellants alleged that appellee hired them as temporary workers in the midst of a strike and then summarily dismissed them at the strike's conclusion without providing the notice required under the WARN Act. The court held that the district court properly weighed the evidence when determining how to classify the striking workers and did not err in determining that appellants had failed to provided a viable legal theory on which to base its calculations. Moreover, though appellants complained that it was unrealistic to think that 32 striking workers would depart voluntarily, they produced no evidence supporting an alternative scenario. Therefore, appellants' conclusory statements on these issues failed to create a genuine issue of material fact and did not preclude the grant of summary judgment. The court also rejected appellants' claim that the district court erred in considering and rejecting only two of the four theories it proffered where the district court may not have addressed each theory they put forth, but it clearly rejected them all by concluding that the reduction in force was insufficient to satisfy the numerosity threshold. Therefore, the court agreed with the district court that the various theories offered by appellants failed, as a matter of law, to establish that a mass layoff occurred that would trigger notice requirements of the WARN Act. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Plaintiff, an employee of defendant, filed this action on behalf of herself and similarly-situated employees to recover wages and liquidated damages under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 ("FLSA"), 29 U.S.C. 201, et. seq., for time spent donning and doffing protective gear during the workday at defendant's poultry processing plants. At issue was whether the district court properly held that the activities identified by the employees were compensable as "work" under the FLSA and that defendant's failure to pay the employees for these activities constituted a violation of the FLSA. The court agreed with the district court in substantial part and held that the time spent donning and doffing protective gear at the beginning and end of each workday was compensable as "work" under the FLSA. The court held, however, that based on the court's decision in Sepulveda v. Allen Family Foods, Inc., decided after the district court entered judgment in the present case, the court was required to hold that the mid-shift donning and doffing of protective gear at the employees' meal break was not compensable. The court additionally affirmed the district court's holding that defendant's violations of the FLSA were not "willful" and, accordingly, a two-year statute of limitations was applicable to the employees' claims for "back pay." Lastly, the court affirmed the district court's holding that defendant acted in good faith and its resulting decision declining to award liquidated damages to the employees.

Respondents, on behalf of beneficiaries of the CIGNA Corporation's ("CIGNA") Pension Plan, challenged the new plan's adoption, claiming that CIGNA's notice of the changes was improper, particularly because the new plan in certain respects provided them with less generous benefits. At issue was whether the district court applied the correct legal standard, namely, a "likely harm" standard, in determining that CIGNA's notice violations caused its employees sufficient injury to warrant legal relief. The Court held that although section 502(a)(1)(B) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ("ERISA"), 29 U.S.C. 1022(a), 1024(b), 1054(h), did not give the district court authority to reform CIGNA's plan, relief was authorized by section 502(a)(3), which allowed a participant, beneficiary, or fiduciary "to obtain other appropriate relief" to redress violations of ERISA "or the [plan's] terms." The Court also held that, because section 502(a)(3) authorized "appropriate equitable relief" for violations of ERISA, the relevant standard of harm would depend on the equitable theory by which the district court provided relief. Therefore, the Court vacated and remanded for further proceedings.

In 1995 the city gave an examination for positions in its fire department and rated applicants on a scale between highly qualified and not qualified, based on scores. "Qualified" applicants were told that they were unlikely to be hired. From 1996 through 2001, the city hired random batches from the well-qualified pool. In 1997 a person in the qualified pool filed a charge of discrimination, claiming disparate impact on African-American applicants (42 U.S.C. 2000(e)). After receiving right-to-sue letters from the EEOC, applicants filed a class action in 1998. After a trial, the court rejected a business necessity defense and ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. On remand, after the Supreme Court held that most of the claims were timely, the Seventh Circuit affirmed. The city conceded that the cut-off score in the ranking system had a disparate impact, so each "batch" hiring had a similar impact. While hiring according to a list, perhaps hiring highest scorers first, might have served a business necessity, the random selection of batches amounted to repeated "use" of a tool that created disparate impact.

Petitioners, registered nurses ("RNs") employed in the region, filed a complaint alleging that various hospital owners and operators in the Albany-Schenectady-Troy metropolitan area had conspired to depress the compensation of RNs in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C. 1. A petition for leave to appeal was filed well outside the limitations period but filed within the fourteen days of the district court's denial of the motion to amend the class certification. At issue was whether such a denial constituted "an order granting or denying class-action certification" for purposes of Federal Rule of Civil Procedures 23(f). The court dismissed the petition and held that petitioners failed to timely petition with respect to an order reviewable pursuant to Rule 23(f) where an interlocutory appeal under Rule 23(f) could not properly be taken from an order denying amendment to a previous order granting class certification, at least when the motion to amend was filed fourteen days after the original order granting class certification.

Plaintiff and defendant, the United Parcel Service, Inc. ("UPS"), appealed a jury verdict awarding plaintiff unpaid overtime, meal, and rest-period wages. The district court originally certified a class comprised of full-time supervisors employed by UPS under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 and appointed plaintiff as class representative under California's Industrial Welfare Commission ("IWC") Wage Order No. 9, Cal. Code Regs. tit. 8 11090. At issue was whether the district court erred in subsequently decertifying the class on the ground that plaintiff failed to establish that common issues of law or fact predominated over individual ones. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in decertifying the class where the district court held that plaintiff had not established predominance, had relied heavily on a survey that was neither reliable nor representative of a class, that his remaining evidence similarly was not representative of the class, and did not address the "primarily engaged" element of the exemptions under the IWC Wage Order No. 9.