Chicken Proccessor Donning And Doffing Class Certified Under FLSA
RALEIGH, N.C. - A federal district court agreed on June 8, 2011 to grant class certification in a wage-and-hour suit filed against a chicken-processing company accused of failing to compensate its workers for time spent donning and doffing, sanitizing their safety gear and walking to and from worksites (Mario P. Romero, et al. v. Mountaire Farms, Inc., No. 09-190 (E.D. N.C. 2011)).
In support of its ruling, the District Court stated: "Although there may be certain factual differences among the individual class members, the class members' claims and the named Plaintiffs' claims arise from the same course of conduct . . ., raise common questions of law and fact . . ., and are based on the same legal theories."
However, the District Court determined that the plaintiffs' unpaid minimum wage claims filed under the North Carolina Wage and Hour Act were preempted by the Fair Labor Standards Act and therefore dismissed the state law claims.
The District Court also agreed with the defendant's argument that the class needed to be narrowed as required under the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals' holding in Sepulveda v. Allen Family Foods, Inc. (591 F.3d 209 (4th Cir. 2009)). "Because the Allen Family Foods Court definitively rejected claims based on allegedly unpaid time that an employee spends donning and doffing before and after unpaid meal periods, the Court finds that Plaintiffs' claims must be limited to pre-and post-shift donning and doffing only. All claims related to pre-meal and post-meal donning and doffing are hereby dismissed."
However, the District Court rejected a request by defendant that all putative class members provide their dates of employment, Social Security numbers and name of department and shift to which they were assigned. While defendant argued that the information would expedite the proceedings because employees often use names that differ from their actual names, the Court opined that it was unaware of any other case where such a request had been granted. "Because putative class members here should not be made to feel that they must take some type of action before determining their eligibility to participate in the action, the Court denies Mountaire's request for further identifying information."
(Abstract of Article from LexisNexis® Mealey's™ Litigation Report Employment Law, Vol. 7, Issue #11, June 2011).