Duane Morris Class Action Review - 2023 - Report - Page 229
plaintiffs did not offer any viable proof as to alleged FLSA violations across
geographically diverse work environments with different job responsibilities and different
management.
C.
Rulings Denying Conditional Certification Based On Procedural Defenses
Procedural defenses, when available, are a powerful tool to successfully defeat or
substantially limit conditional certification of a collective action. These defenses can
include challenging jurisdiction or forcing the plaintiffs to arbitrate.
The decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., et al. v. Superior Court Of California, 137 S.
Ct. 1773, 1781 (2017), has resulted in FLSA defendants challenging jurisdiction to limit
the scope of collective actions brought under the FLSA. Currently, The Third, Sixth, and
Eight Circuits have held that courts lack jurisdiction over the forum’s non-resident
plaintiffs in FLSA collective actions if general or specific jurisdiction cannot be
established over the defendant under the principles recognized by the U.S. Supreme
Court in Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Speight, et al. v. Labor Source, LLC, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71218 (E.D.N.C. Apr. 19,
2022), is one of the hallmark defendant-friendly decisions of 2022 limiting the scope of
collective actions on jurisdictional grounds. In that case the plaintiff, an employees of a
staffing agency defendant, alleged violations of the FLSA and North Carolina Wage and
Hour Act due to the defendant’s improper travel and lodging deductions and inaccurate
reporting of hours, which resulted in the alleged failure to pay minimum wage and
overtime. The plaintiff filed a motion to conditionally certify a collective action under the
FLSA of all similarly-situated non-exempt workers across the country, and the
defendant filed a partial motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. Id. at *1. The
court, after extensively considering Bristol-Myers, its progeny, the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure and the U.S. Constitution, concluded that jurisdiction over the FLSA claims of
individuals residing outside of North Carolina required general or specific jurisdiction
over the defendant. Id. at *24. Finding that the workers of the proposed nationwide
collective action had no relation to the forum state, the court declined to certify a
nationwide collective action when it would subsequently have to dismiss the claims of
any individual outside of the forum state. Id. at *25-26. The court granted the
defendant’s partial motion to dismiss, and denied without prejudice the plaintiff’s motion
for conditional certification.
Similarly, in Hood, et al. v. Capstone Logistics LLC, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 435934
(W.D.N.C. Dec. 2, 2022), the plaintiff, an unloader for the logistics company, filed a
putative collective action alleging that the defendant failed to pay him and other
similarly-situated current and former employees across the nation the minimum wage
and all overtime hours, in violation of the FLSA. The defendant filed a motion to dismiss
or strike the plaintiff’s nationwide collective action claims, asserting that the court lacked
jurisdiction over all collective action members residing outside of North Carolina. The
court agreed. It held that since the defendant was headquartered in Delaware and has
its principal place of business in Georgia, the court could not assert general jurisdiction
as to claims against the defendant. Further, relying on the reasoning set forth in Bristol228
© Duane Morris LLP 2023
Duane Morris Class Action Review – 2023
