Timothy Coleman v. Amazon.com, Inc.; Amazon Logistics, Inc.; Amazon.com Services, Inc.; JARS TD, Inc.

CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Tennessee
DecidedOctober 31, 2025
Docket2:21-cv-02200
StatusUnknown

This text of Timothy Coleman v. Amazon.com, Inc.; Amazon Logistics, Inc.; Amazon.com Services, Inc.; JARS TD, Inc. (Timothy Coleman v. Amazon.com, Inc.; Amazon Logistics, Inc.; Amazon.com Services, Inc.; JARS TD, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Timothy Coleman v. Amazon.com, Inc.; Amazon Logistics, Inc.; Amazon.com Services, Inc.; JARS TD, Inc., (W.D. Tenn. 2025).

Opinion

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE WESTERN DIVISION

) TIMOTHY COLEMAN, ) ) Plaintiff, ) ) ) v. ) No. 2:21-cv-02200-SHM-atc ) AMAZON.COM, INC.; AMAZON ) LOGISTICS, INC.; AMAZON.COM ) SERVICES, INC.; JARS TD, ) INC., ) ) Defendants. ) ) ORDER GRANTING FINAL APPROVAL OF AMENDED SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT AND AWARDING ATTORNEYS’ FEES. Before the Court are two motions. The first is a Joint Motion for Final Approval of Amended Collective Action Settlement Agreement (ECF No. 99), filed on September 29, 2025. That Motion is brought by Plaintiff Timothy Coleman and Defendants Amazon.com, Inc., Amazon Logistics, Inc., Amazon.com Services, Inc., (collectively “Amazon”) and JARS TD, Inc. (“JARS,” together with Amazon, “Defendants”). The second Motion is Plaintiffs’ Unopposed Motion for Approval of Attorneys’ Fees and Costs and General Release Payment to Plaintiff, filed on September 30, 2025. (ECF No. 101.) For the following reasons, both motions are GRANTED. I. Background Plaintiff worked as a delivery driver for JARS, a contractor for Amazon that provided “last mile” delivery services for Amazon packages in Memphis, Tennessee. (ECF No. 1.) Plaintiff alleges

that he regularly worked overtime, but JARS only paid him a daily rate. On April 1, 2021, Plaintiff filed this lawsuit against Defendants on his own behalf. (Id.) On August 19, 2021, Plaintiff filed his First Amended Collective Action Complaint, on behalf of himself and those similarly situated, seeking unpaid overtime wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act (the “FLSA”), 29 U.S.C. §§ 201-219. (ECF No. 33.) The Amended Collective Action Complaint identifies all delivery drivers or driver associates who worked for Defendants to provide last mile delivery services at any location within the three-year period preceding the filing of the original Complaint. (Id.)

On October 29, 2021, the Parties filed a motion to stay the proceedings pending mediation, which the Court granted. (ECF No. 54.) For several months, the Parties engaged in an extensive alternative dispute resolution process. (ECF No. 99.)

Eventually, the Parties came to an agreement to settle the collective’s claims and filed a proposal with the Court on October 7, 2022. (ECF No. 56.) The Court rejected that initial agreement, citing multiple deficiencies. (ECF No. 70.) The Parties negotiated for another year, agreeing to an Amended Settlement Agreement preliminarily approved by the Court on February 21, 2025. (ECF No. 75.)

The Amended Settlement Agreement required Defendants to pay $1,000,000 into a settlement fund. (ECF No. 73.) $560,000 of that amount would be set aside for claimants. (Id.) The rest of the money would be allocated to a Plaintiff general release payment and attorneys’ fees and costs. (Id.) To determine the amount awarded to each claimant, the agreement set forth a formula that provided a pro rata share of the settlement fund to claimants based on the number of weeks the claimants worked

overtime, in addition to a $25.00 minimum payment. (Id.) By opting in, collective members would release the federal and state law wage claims that accrued during the relevant time period. (Id.) After the Court’s February 21, 2025 Order preliminarily approving the Amended Settlement Agreement, the Parties implemented the agreement. On March 27, 2025, the Court-approved

Settlement Administrator, Analytics LLC, notified the 3,202 potential settlement collective members via mail and email using information provided by Defendant JARS. (ECF No. 99.) The Settlement Administrator also established a telephone number, email address, and website to further inform potential settlement collective members about the Amended Settlement Agreement. (Id.) A total of 3,179 of the 3,202 potential settlement collective members received notice of their ability to opt-in to the settlement (99.28%). (Id.) The Settlement Administrator received

one objection to the pro rata share calculated from a potential settlement collective member who observed that the member’s amount owed had been miscalculated. (Id.) The Settlement Administrator adjusted the potential settlement collective member’s payout accordingly, and the objection was resolved. (Id.) Seven additional individuals contacted the Settlement Administrator of their own accord, requesting to be included among the settlement collective. (Id.) The Parties approved their requests. (Id.) The Settlement Administrator received 1,235 valid consent forms. (Id.) That is a 38.6% opt-in rate. 1 (Id.)

After the opt-in window closed on June 25, 2025, based on the 38.6% opt-in rate, the amount allocated to each settlement collective member increased to 150% of each member’s original estimated individual payment, in accordance with the preliminarily approved Amended Settlement Agreement. (Id.) This means that $443,305.67 of the $560,000 (79.16%) of the net settlement amount allocated to settlement collective members

1 It is unclear whether the seven self-identifying collective members are included in the denominator of the opt-in rate calculation. The Settlement Administrator, Caroline Barazesh, identified a 38.6% opt- in rate in her sworn statement attached as Exhibit 1 in the Joint Motion for Final Approval of the Amended Collective Action Settlement Agreement. (ECF No. 99 and 105.) will be paid to settlement collective members. (Id.) The Settlement Administrator will donate the remaining 20.84% of the fund to the Legal Services Corporation, a 501(c)(3) organization

that fits the agreed-upon definition of a charitable organization in the preliminarily approved Amended Settlement Agreement.2 (Id.) II. Jurisdiction

Plaintiffs allege violations of the FLSA in their Amended Complaint. (ECF No. 33.) The Court has subject matter jurisdiction over FLSA claims under the general grant of federal question jurisdiction. 28 U.S.C. § 1331. III. Settlement Approval A. Legal Standard

Section 216(b) of the FLSA “permits an employee to recover unpaid overtime compensation by suing an employer in behalf of himself and other employees similarly situated.” O’Bryant v. ABC Phones of North Carolina, Inc., No. 2:19-cv-02378, 2020 WL 4493157, at *5 (W.D. Tenn. Aug. 4, 2020) (quoting 29 U.S.C. § 216(b), internal quotation marks omitted); see also Comer v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 454 F.3d 544, 546 (6th Cir. 2006).

2 This amount may increase if settlement collective members who opted-in do not cash their settlement checks. Ordinarily, an employee’s right to overtime compensation under the FLSA is “mandatory” and “not subject to bargaining, waiver, or modification by contract or settlement.” Carr v. Bob Evans

Farms, Inc., No. 1:17-cv-1875, 2018 WL 7508650, at * 2 (N.D. Ohio Jul. 27, 2018); see also Dillworth v. Case 8 Farms Processing, Inc., No. 5:08-cv-1694, 2010 WL 776933, at *5 (N.D. Ohio Mar. 8, 2010) (citing Brooklyn Sav. Bank v. O’Neil, 324 U.S. 697 (1945)). FLSA claims may be settled in two ways. See Lynn’s Food Stores, Inc. v. United States, 679 F.2d 1350, 1352-53 (11th Cir.

1982). First, the Secretary of Labor can supervise a settlement. See Robinson v. Sheppard Performance Group, No. 19-cv-12228, 2020 WL 619603, at *1 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 10, 2020) (quoting Wolinsky v. Scholastic Inc., 900 F.Supp.2d 332, 335 (S.D.N.Y. 2012)).

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Timothy Coleman v. Amazon.com, Inc.; Amazon Logistics, Inc.; Amazon.com Services, Inc.; JARS TD, Inc., Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/timothy-coleman-v-amazoncom-inc-amazon-logistics-inc-amazoncom-tnwd-2025.