Koehler v. Freightquote.Com, Inc.

93 F. Supp. 3d 1257, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 182887, 2015 WL 1242035
CourtDistrict Court, D. Kansas
DecidedMarch 18, 2015
DocketCase No. 12-cv-2505-DDC-GLR
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 93 F. Supp. 3d 1257 (Koehler v. Freightquote.Com, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Koehler v. Freightquote.Com, Inc., 93 F. Supp. 3d 1257, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 182887, 2015 WL 1242035 (D. Kan. 2015).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

DANIEL D. CRABTREE, District Judge.

Among other claims, plaintiffs in this lawsuit allege that defendant Freight-quote.com, Inc. violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) by failing to pay overtime to three categories of employees. This matter comes before the Court on plaintiffs’ Motion for Conditional Class Certification (Doc. 17) of their FLSA claims. Plaintiffs’ motion seeks conditional certification of their FLSA claims as a collective action under 29 U.S.C. § 216(b), as well as several other forms of relief related to conditional certification. For the following reasons, the Court grants conditional certification but grants in part and denies in part the remaining aspects of plaintiffs’ motion.

I. Facts and Procedural History

Plaintiffs Nancy Koehler, Regina Brisbane, John Smith, and Scott Matney are all former employees of defendant.1 Defendant 2 is a logistics and shipping broker, which means that defendant advises its customers about ways to ship their products and then arranges shipments with carriers to meet customer needs. Plaintiffs seek to represent subclasses comprised of current or former Freight-quote.com employees who, in the three-year period preceding this Order, have worked in one of the following three job categories: (1) Account Representatives/Sales Representatives, (2) Customer Activation Specialists, and (3) Truckload Coverage Specialists. Plaintiffs allege that defendant violated the FLSA by classifying these employees as exempt from the FLSA’s overtime requirements, thereby denying them overtime pay due for time they worked in excess of 40 hours per week.

Plaintiffs filed their, motion for conditional class certification over two years ago, on January 4, 2013. Since that time, the parties have taken substantial discovery. On March 29, 2013, Judge Rushfelt issued a Scheduling Order (Doc. 39) dividing discovery into two separate phases. “Early discovery” (or “Phase 1”) ended, after several extensions, on August 24, 2014, and focused only on “claims of the named Plaintiffs and matters related to conditional certification.” Doe. 39 at 4. Over the course of Phase 1 discovery, the parties served Rule 26(a) disclosures, conducted extensive written discovery, and took depositions of the four named plaintiffs as well as five corporate representatives of defendant.

On September 25, 2014, plaintiffs filed a Motion for Class Certification under Rule 23 (Doc. 140) and a Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Doc. 145), and defendants — Freightquote.com along with Freightquote.com 401(k) Plan — filed a Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 141). In addition, and of particular relevance to this Order, plaintiffs sought leave on September 25 to file a Supplemental Memorandum in Support of their Motion for Conditional Class Certification (Doc. 144), which the Court granted (Doc. 147). De[1261]*1261fendant filed a Supplemental Memorandum in Opposition to plaintiffs’ Motion for Conditional Class Certification (Doc. 160) on November 24, 2014. Plaintiffs filed a Reply (Doc. 166) on January 20, 2015. This Order addresses plaintiffs’ motion for conditional class certification.

II. Legal Standard

Under § 216(b) of the FLSA, a group of employees may bring claims against their employer on behalf of employees who are “similarly situated” to plaintiffs. 29 U.S.C. § 216(b). Unlike class actions under Rule 23, “[n]o employee shall be a party plaintiff 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.” Id. In other words, any putative class members who wish to join this lawsuit must affirmatively “opt-in” to do so.

Section 216(b) does not define the term “similarly situated.” However, the Tenth Circuit has approved a two-step approach for determining whether plaintiffs in a proposed opt-in collective action are “similarly situated” for purposes of § 216(b). Thiessen v. Gen. Elec. Capital Corp., 267 F.3d 1095, 1105 (10th Cir.2001). Under this approach, a court makes an initial “notice stage” determination about whether a group of plaintiffs are similarly situated. Id. at 1102. “That is, the court determines whether a collective action should be certified for purposes of sending notice of the action to potential class members.” In re Bank of Am. Wage & Hour Emp’t Litig., 286 F.R.D. 572, 576 (D.Kan.2012). The Court must certify this case conditionally as a collective action before plaintiffs may send notice to putative class members of their right to opt-in. Folger v. Medicalodges, Inc., No. 13-1203-MLB, 2014 WL 2885363, at *2 (D.Kan. June 25, 2014).

For conditional certification at the notice stage, courts “ ‘require nothing more than substantial allegations that the putative class members were together the victims of a single decision, policy, or plan.’ ” Thiessen, 267 F.3d at 1102 (quoting Vaszlavik v. Storage Tech. Corp., 175 F.R.D. 672, 678 (D.Colo.1997)). As a result, the standard for certification at the notice stage is lenient and typically results in certification. In re Bank of Am. Wage & Hour Emp’t Litig., 286 F.R.D. at 576.

The second stage occurs after discovery is complete. Thiessen, 267 F.3d at 1102-03; Folger, 2014 WL 2885363, at *2. At this stage, the defendant may file a motion to decertify, and courts then apply a stricter standard to determine whether plaintiffs are similarly situated. Thiessen, 267 F.3d at 1102-03. During the second stage, courts review several factors, including the disparate factual and employment settings of the individual plaintiffs, the various defenses available to the defendant which appear to be individual to each plaintiff, and fairness and procedural considerations. Id. at 1103.

III. Analysis

A. The Court Applies the Notice Stage Certification Standard

Plaintiffs’ motion seeks only notice stage certification of their FLSA claims. However, defendant argues that the Court should apply a stricter standard, more akin to the second stage of the certification analysis in Thiessen, because the parties have taken significant discovery in this ease. Defendant argues that “when the parties have participated in substantial discovery and evidence is available to the Court to weigh and consider, courts have consistently determined a more stringent ‘similarly situated’ standard is applied.” Doc. 160 at 26.

[1262]*1262The Tenth Circuit has not addressed whether courts should apply a higher standard to conditional certification decisions before the end of discovery. However, our Court uniformly has rejected defendant’s argument. See, e.g., Garcia v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 255 F.R.D. 678, 686 (D.Kan. 2009) (Lungstrum, J.) (declining to apply a stricter standard, even though the parties had conducted a significant amount of discovery, because discovery was not yet complete); Gieseke v. First Horizon Home Loan Corp., 408 F.Supp.2d 1164, 1167 (D.Kan.2006) (Murguia, J.) (same); Folger, 2014 WL 2885363, at *4 (Belot, J.) (same).

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Bluebook (online)
93 F. Supp. 3d 1257, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 182887, 2015 WL 1242035, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/koehler-v-freightquotecom-inc-ksd-2015.