Baker v. Michie Co.

93 F.R.D. 494, 25 Wage & Hour Cas. (BNA) 368, 1982 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9518
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Virginia
DecidedFebruary 3, 1982
DocketCiv. A. No. 81-0065-C
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 93 F.R.D. 494 (Baker v. Michie Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Baker v. Michie Co., 93 F.R.D. 494, 25 Wage & Hour Cas. (BNA) 368, 1982 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9518 (W.D. Va. 1982).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

MICHAEL, Judge.

Plaintiff, Leonard L. Baker, brings this action against his former employer, the Michie Company, pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq. Plaintiff alleges that, while in the employment of the defendant, the defendant willfully miscalculated the number of hours registered on plaintiff’s time card, so that said time card indicated that the plaintiff worked less time in excess of forty hours per week than he actually did. Plaintiff asserts that defendant’s actions, in improperly calculating the number of hours he worked, caused plaintiff to be awarded less overtime pay than he was entitled to. As permitted in 29 U.S.C. § 216, plaintiff brings this action in his name and all those similarly situated who authorize suit on their behalf.

On August 13,1981, the court entertained argument on behalf of both parties on plaintiff’s motions for a preliminary injunction, expedited discovery, and court approval of notice and consent. Subsequent to argument, the court denied plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction, but withheld ruling on the remaining motions in order to allow counsel for both parties an opportunity to brief the issues.

Subsequent to oral argument, plaintiff withdrew his request that the defendant [495]*495produce for copying the time cards of all its employees for the three years prior to the institution of this action. Instead, plaintiff requests that defendant produce only the time cards of plaintiffs who join in this action. Finding no one to have filed a written consent to becoming a party plaintiff in this action, the court finds it unnecessary, at this time, to act on plaintiff’s motion as amended.

The sole issue remaining for discussion at this time is whether the court should permit the circulation of a court approved notice to all potential class members informing them of their right to “opt in” to the action. Two Court of Appeals have addressed that issue in FLSA cases and have reached opposite results. Compare Kinny Shoe Corporation v. Vorhes, 564 F.2d 859 (9th Cir. 1977) (notice not permitted)1 with Braunstein v. Eastern Photographic Laboratories, Inc., 600 F.2d 385 (2nd Cir. 1978), cert, denied, 441 U.S. 944, 99 S.Ct. 2162, 60 L.Ed.2d 1046 (1979) (notice permitted)2. To date, our own Court of Appeals has not been called on to decide the question.

Kinney and Braunstein agree that such notice is certainly not required by due process, because unnamed class members are not bound by any decision of the court. Thus, if a federal court is empowered to authorize notice under § 216(b), that power must be inferred from statutory interpretation. The language of the statute itself dealing with this question is as follows:

An action to recover the liability prescribed in either of the preceding sentences may be maintained against any employer (including a public agency) in any Federal or State court of competent jurisdiction by any one or more employees for and in behalf of himself or themselves and other employees similarly situated. No employee shall be a party piaintiff to any such action unless he gives his consent in writing to become such a party and such consent is filed in the court in which such action is brought.

Nowhere else in this voluminous and carefully thought-out Act is there anything on the subject of “opting in” which goes beyond the language above-quoted, or which may bear even tangentially on the question.

Reference to the legislative history, as cited in articles and opinions, likewise is barren of any treatment of the question at issue here.

The remedial nature of the Act, coupled with its extensive statement of Congressional findings and declaration of policy in § 202, gives every warrant to give to the Act a liberal construction.

Thus, given the considerations set out above, the first question becomes whether Congress intended to permit courts to fashion a mechanism for the giving of such notice, or whether Congress, by its' silence on the subject, intended not to authorize such a fashioning by the court of such a mechanism.

Certainly, Congress must, in considering this point, be assumed to have known of the ancient and time-honored prohibition against the stirring up of litigation, referred to variously as a prohibition against barratry, champerty and maintenance, running and capping, etc. Knowing of that doctrine, any statutory change to it would be expected to be set out in detail by the legislature. The inference to be drawn is that Congress did not intend to abolish or modify that doctrine in adopting the Act. Again by inference, it may be that Congress felt that such evils as those sought to be controlled by the Act would be widely enough known in the employee group to permit each individual, potentially a plain[496]*496tiff, to exercise his choice to “opt in” to the filed suit. This would be particularly applicable to the smaller employer, with a smaller number of relatively stable, long-time employees, such as in the case before the court.

In a case involving nothing else, it might be argued that the statutory language quoted above could as readily be construed to authorize the court to construct the notice mechanism as it could be construed not to do so. If that were the sole consideration, then a liberal construction would lead to the former conclusion, and not the latter. As is always the case, the court does not have before it an issue so pure and undefiled.

At least two factors must be placed in the equation setting out the “pure” alternatives. The first of these is Congressional awareness of the ancient and strong policy considerations barring the stirring up of litigation, mentioned supra. A second and more important factor is the existence of Rule 23, Fed.R.Civ.P., with its notice provisions. While that Rule came into its formal state at about the same time as the Act, the Rule simply codified in rule form, with some changes not relevant to this point, the existing practices in the federal courts in class action suits and in the giving of notice to members of the class in such actions. While Rule 23 deals with an “opt-out” procedure, certainly Congress was aware of procedures for the giving of notice to class members and could readily have constructed its own mechanism for the “opt-in” (situation set out in the Act.

In the face of these considerations, the silence of Congress on the subject speaks its own message, that being that Congress did not intend a notice mechanism to be used with the Act. The cases discussed ante deal with the different approaches which have been made to this question.

In Kinney Shoe, the court barred notice under FLSA § 16(b), 29 U.S.C. § 216(b), reasoning that if notice is not required by due process, neither court nor plaintiff should be involved “in the stirring up of litigation in solicitation of claims”. 564 F.2d at 863. That notion was rejected in Braunstein (600 F.2d at 336):

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93 F.R.D. 494, 25 Wage & Hour Cas. (BNA) 368, 1982 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9518, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/baker-v-michie-co-vawd-1982.