Green et al v. Drake Beam Morin, Inc.

Filing 110

ORDER denying without prejudice as premature 104 Plaintiffs' Unopposed Motion To Approve Collective Action Settlement and Memorandum in Support. By Judge Robert E. Blackburn on 11/8/12. (kfinn, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Judge Robert E. Blackburn
Civil Case No.11-cv-01063-REB-CBS
JOHN GREEN, and
ELIZABETH ENRIGHT, individually and on behalf of others similarly situated,
Plaintiffs,
v.
DRAKE BEAM MORIN, INC.,
Defendant.

ORDER RE: PLAINTIFFS’ UNOPPOSED MOTION
TO APPROVE COLLECTIVE ACTION SETTLEMENT
Blackburn, J.
The matter before me is Plaintiffs’ Unopposed Motion To Approve Collective
Action Settlement and Memorandum in Support [#104],1 filed September 28, 2012. I
deny the motion without prejudice.
The parties inform the court that they have reached a settlement of the Fair
Labor Standards Act claims brought in this lawsuit. They ask the court to approve the
settlement. However, although the court previously conditionally certified a collective
action in this matter and directed that notice be provided to all putative plaintiffs (see
Order Granting Plaintiffs’ Motion for Conditional Collective Action
Certification [#44], filed December 6, 2011), there has been no motion to “decertify” the
class, see Thiessen v. General Electric Capital Corp., 267 F.3d 1095, 1102 (10th Cir.
1

“[#104]” is an example of the convention I use to identify the docket number assigned to a
specific paper by the court’s electronic case filing and management system (CM/ECF). I use this
convention throughout this order.

2001), cert. denied, 122 S.Ct. 2614 (2002); Brown v. Money Tree Mortgage, Inc.,
222 F.R.D. 7676, 679-80 (D. Kan. 2004),2 nor any provision made for notification of optin plaintiffs of the terms of the settlement and procedures for filing any objections
thereto.
Because the court cannot assess the fairness of, and thus cannot approve, the
proposed settlement unless and until these prerequisites have been met, the motion is
premature and must be denied without prejudice on that basis.
THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiffs’ Unopposed Motion To Approve
Collective Action Settlement and Memorandum in Support [#104], filed September
28, 2012, is DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE as premature.
Dated November 8, 2012, at Denver, Colorado.
BY THE COURT:

2

The conditional certification of a collective action is assessed under a more lenient standard
than that used to analyze a motion to decertify. See Thiessen, 267 F.3d at 1102-03; Brown, 222 F.R.D.
at 679.

2