Beeche v. Steak N Shake Operations, Inc.

904 F. Supp. 2d 1289, 2012 WL 5473753, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 162804
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Georgia
DecidedSeptember 27, 2012
DocketCivil Action No. 1:11-CV-4102-ODE
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 904 F. Supp. 2d 1289 (Beeche v. Steak N Shake Operations, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Beeche v. Steak N Shake Operations, Inc., 904 F. Supp. 2d 1289, 2012 WL 5473753, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 162804 (N.D. Ga. 2012).

Opinion

ORDER

ORINDA D. EVANS, District Judge.

This ease, involving claimed minimum wage and overtime violations under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq., is before the Court on: Plaintiffs’ Motion and Renewed Motion for Conditional Collective-Action Certification and Class Notice [Doc. 23; Doc. 41]; Defendant’s Notice of Objections to, and Motion to Strike, Evidentiary Exhibits Submitted in Support of Plaintiffs’ Motion for Conditional Collective-Action Certification and For Court-Approved Notice to the Collective Action Class [Doc. 51]; Defendant’s Motion to Stay Discovery [Doc. 55]; and Plaintiffs’ Motion for Leave to Exceed Page Limit as to Plaintiffs’ Reply in Support of their Motion for Conditional Certification and Court-Supervised Notice to Opt-in Plaintiffs [Doc. 70].

For the reasons stated herein, the Court finds as follows: Plaintiffs’ Motion for Conditional Collective-Action Certification and Class Notice [Doc. 23] is DISMISSED AS MOOT; Plaintiffs’ Renewed Motion for Conditional Collective-Action Certification and Class Notice [Doc. 41] is DENIED; Defendant’s Notice of Objections to, and Motion to Strike, Evidentiary Exhibits Submitted in Support of Plaintiffs’ Motion for Conditional Collective-Action Certification and For Court-Approved Notice to the Collective Action Class [Doc. 51] is DENIED; Defendant’s Motion to Stay Discovery [Doc. 55] is DENIED AS MOOT; and Plaintiffs’ Motion for Leave to Exceed Page Limit as to Plaintiffs’ Reply in Support of their Motion for Conditional Certification and CourNSupervised Notice to Opt-in Plaintiffs [Doc. 70] is GRANTED.

I. Factual Background

Defendant Steak N Shake Operations, Inc. (“Steak N Shake,” “SnS,” or “Defendant”) has over 400 corporate restaurants,1 or stores, throughout the country [Doe. 50 at 3]. The stores are divided into five “Group Markets”: (1) Chicago/Detroit, (2) Cleveland/Dallas, (3) Indianapolis, (4) Orlando/Atlanta, and (5) St. Louis [Id.]. Defendant subdivided these Group Markets into groups of three to ten stores, known as “Districts,” which are overseen by a [1291]*1291district manager [Id.]. Each store has one or more managers and a spectrum of hourly-paid positions, including: production team members, consisting of grillers, fryers, sandwich dressers, dishwashers, fountain drink operators, and like positions; service team members, or servers and server trainers; and operations supervisors, who assist managers [Id. at 3-4]. Of these hourly-paid positions only servers and server trainers can receive tips [Id. at n

Defendant’s stores all utilize the same system, the Point of Sale (“POS”) system, for employees to report their hours worked and tips received. Specifically:

[Associates are required to clock in and clock out of [the] POS system when they start and end work. Tipped associates are required to enter their cash tips into the POS system when they clock out. The system automatically captures the credit card tips that each associate earns during his or her shift. When an associate completes the clock out process, [the] POS system prints a report, which is also referred to as a “chit,” reflecting the hours and total tips that associate recorded for the job or for the current clock in/out record. These chits provide the associates a means of comparing what they recorded in the Company’s time and tip recording system to the information on their paychecks.

[Deel. of Mark Doerr, Manager of Point of Sale Systems, Doc. 50-17 ¶ 3].

The local store manager or its operations supervisor can check each employee’s punch-in record [Doc. 50 at 10]. The manager or operations supervisor may determine that the clock in/clock out times do not correctly reflect the hours actually worked, and in such an instances is authorized to change the times for payroll purposes, no later than the Wednesday following the end of the pay period [Doc. 50-17 ¶ 5; Doc. 50 at 7-8, 10-12], Also, if the reported tips are too low, an upward adjustment may be made which could avoid the need for a minimum wage differential payment [Doc. 50 at 11]. When these changes are made, Defendant’s records, specifically the Audit-Trail Reports, retain the information as to hours and tips originally claimed by the employees, plus any adjustments made by a supervisor [Doc. 50-17 ¶¶ 5-6],

Defendant employs “approximately 18,-000 hourly employees at any given time” [id.] and has paid “more than $18 million in overtime compensation and more than $1.3 million in minimum wage differential payments” since November 2008 [Doc. 50-4 ¶ 4]. Moreover, based on employee records, Defendant estimates it has employed approximately 65,000 hourly employees since November 2008 [Id.]

II. Procedural History

A. Plaintiffs’ Suit against Steak N Shake

Plaintiffs Justin Beecher and Priscilla Cain (“Plaintiffs”) brought this action against Defendant for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq. Plaintiffs worked at Defendant’s Woodstock Road store in Roswell, Georgia, and Plaintiff Cain also worked at the Barrett Parkway store in Kennesaw, Georgia [Doc. 19 ¶¶ 15-16]. Plaintiff Beecher “performed every hourly-paid position including, but not limited to, operations supervisor, production trainer and server,” and Plaintiff Cain worked as a server and server trainer [Id.].

Plaintiffs submitted declarations stating they were not paid proper overtime compensation when they worked in excess of forty hours a week [Doc. 41-6 ¶ 6; Doc. 42-1 ¶ 8]. Plaintiffs further declare that their managers were aware- of this unpaid [1292]*1292overtime, but failed to take action [Doc. 41- 6 ¶ 6; Doc. 42-1 ¶ 8]. Plaintiffs also state that at times they were paid less than minimum wage [Doc. 41-6 ¶ 7; Doc. 42- 1 ¶ 9]. Plaintiff Cain adds:

Each day of my employment at STEAK N SHAKE, I clocked-in at the beginning of my scheduled shift and clocked-out when I was finished working. However, the number of hours for which STEAK N SHAKE paid me each week was less than the hours I actually worked each week based on when I clocked in and clocked out each day.

[Doc. 41-6 ¶ 5]. Plaintiffs allege this lack of receipt of overtime compensation or minimum wage resulted from Defendant’s store management “ma[king] incorrect and false adjustments” to records by deleting hours worked [Doc. 41-6 ¶ 7a; Doc. 42-1 ¶¶ 10-11].

Plaintiff Cain also claims that when she worked as a server and server trainer, Defendant failed to pay her a minimum wage differential, which she was entitled to when her wages and tips combined fell below minimum wage [Doc. 41-10 ¶ 10]. Furthermore, Plaintiff Cain alleges that when she had such a wage shortfall, Defendant “incorrectly and falsely inflated” her weekly tips, so that it appeared Defendant paid her minimum wage [Id. at 11]. Plaintiffs claim Defendant’s “Audit-Trail Report” shows such alterations [Doc. 19 ¶ 33].

Plaintiffs sued Steak N Shake on behalf of themselves and other employees pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 216

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Bluebook (online)
904 F. Supp. 2d 1289, 2012 WL 5473753, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 162804, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/beeche-v-steak-n-shake-operations-inc-gand-2012.