Garcia v. Vertical Screen, Inc.

387 F. Supp. 3d 598
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedJuly 22, 2019
DocketCIVIL ACTION NO. 18-4718
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 387 F. Supp. 3d 598 (Garcia v. Vertical Screen, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Garcia v. Vertical Screen, Inc., 387 F. Supp. 3d 598 (E.D. Pa. 2019).

Opinion

DuBois, J.

I. INTRODUCTION

This is a collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"), 29 U.S.C. §§ 201 et seq. Plaintiff was formerly employed as a Researcher by defendant Vertical Screen, Inc., and asserts claims individually and on behalf of similarly situated former and current Researchers and Team Leaders employed by defendant. Plaintiff alleges defendant violated the FLSA by (1) failing to pay Researchers and Team Leaders for the ten to fifteen minutes it took to log in to defendant's timekeeping system each work day and (2) shaving one to two unapproved overtime hours off Researchers' and Team Leaders' recorded work time each month.

Presently before the Court is Plaintiff's Motion for Order Authorizing Notice to Similarly Situated Persons under 29 U.S.C. § 216(b). The Court treats the motion *602as a motion for conditional certification of an opt-in FLSA collective action and the dissemination of opt-in class notice to "all persons who have worked as a full-time, hourly-paid Vertical Screen Researcher or Team Leader during the past three years," based on plaintiff's claims of unpaid log-in time and shaved overtime hours. For the reasons that follow, plaintiff's motion is granted in part and denied in part.

II. BACKGROUND

Defendant Vertical Screen, Inc., is a "family" of four entities specializing in applicant screening and fingerprinting and identity services. Compl. ¶ 6. Defendant controls all "significant business functions" of the four entities, including setting policies and procedures. Id. Defendant employs approximately 900 hourly-paid Researchers and Team Leaders responsible for running pre-employment background checks on individuals applying for work with defendant's clients. Id. ¶ 5. Plaintiff William Garcia was employed as a full-time, hourly Researcher from August 2013 to August 2018. Id. ; Pl. Mot., Ex. B, Pl. Decl. ("Pl. Decl.") ¶ 2.

Plaintiff alleges that defendant's policies require hourly-paid Researchers and Team Leaders to track their time through the ADP timekeeping system. Compl. ¶ 8. According to plaintiff, logging into the ADP system took about ten minutes each day because "hardware and software problems ... often require[d] them to perform updates, reconfigure passwords, and/or repeat the log-in process one or more times until their log-in [was] accepted." Id. When problems with the system prevented logging in altogether, plaintiff states that defendant required Researchers and Team Leaders to spend an additional five minutes emailing their supervisors to "describe[e] their log-in problems and advis[e] they were at work." See id. The time stamp of this email would then serve as the start time for their work day. Id. Plaintiff claims that defendant did not pay wages for the ten to fifteen minutes it took to log in each day, resulting in about two to four hours of unpaid time each month. See id. ¶ 9. Plaintiff further asserts that he and other Researchers and Team Leaders informed their supervisors, department managers, and the human resources department about issues logging into the ADP system, but nothing was done to address the problem. See id. ¶ 10; Pl. Decl. ¶¶ 8-9.

In addition, defendant's policies required hourly-paid Researchers and Team Leaders to get approval from a supervisor before working overtime. Pl. Reply 6; Pl. Mot., Ex. D, Vertical Screen Employee Handbook 2011 ("Employee Handbook"), at 26. Plaintiff avers that defendant's policies required department managers and supervisors to review Researchers' and Team Leaders' work hours weekly and remove "unapproved" overtime hours, for which no wages were paid. Pl. Mem. Supp. Mot. Notice ("Pl. Mem. Mot.") 4; see Compl. ¶ 8. Plaintiff maintains that this process resulted in about one to two overtime hours being cut from hourly-paid Researchers' and Team Leaders' pay each month. See Pl. Mem. Mot. 4; Compl. ¶ 9; Pl. Decl. ¶¶ 10, 12. Plaintiff states that he and other Researchers and Team Leaders spoke with supervisors, department managers, and the human resources department about hours being "shaved" from their weekly work time, but nothing was done to address the problem. See Comp. ¶ 11; Pl. Decl. ¶¶ 11-12.

On November 1, 2018, plaintiff filed the Complaint, alleging violations of the FLSA, alleging defendant (1) failed to pay wages for log-in time and (2) shaved unapproved overtime hours. On February 25, *6032019, plaintiff filed Plaintiff's Motion for Order Authorizing Notice to Similarly Situated Persons Under 29 U.S.C. § 216(b) (Document No. 17), treated as a motion for conditional certification and approval of notice. Following an Initial Pretrial Conference, the Court issued a Scheduling Order for briefing the motion on February 27, 2019 (Document No. 18). On March 22, 2019, defendant responded to plaintiff's motion (Document No. 20), and on April 10, 2019, plaintiff filed a reply (Document No. 21).

On May 22, 2019, the Court conducted a telephone conference with the parties, through counsel, during which the Court stated that it was inclined to conditionally certify the class with respect to plaintiff's claim of unpaid log-in time, but not with respect to the claim of shaved overtime hours. Following the conference, at plaintiff's request, the Court issued an Order requiring additional evidence with respect to the shaved overtime hours claim-at least one additional declaration-demonstrating, inter

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387 F. Supp. 3d 598, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/garcia-v-vertical-screen-inc-paed-2019.