Schumann et al v. Collier Anesthesia, P.A. et al

Filing 363

ORDER accepting Defendants' proposed amount of back wages as to plaintiff Christine Vinas; directing the Clerk to enter final judgment for Defendants on Plaintiffs' overtime claim, and for Plaintiffs on their claim for back wages and liquidated damages. Signed by Judge John E. Steele on 9/6/2017. (KP)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
FORT MYERS DIVISION
BILLY
SCHUMANN,
DUSTIN
ABRAHAM,
on
behalf
of
themselves
and
others
similarly situated, LAUREN
TIDWELL, JEANIE HAKENEWERT,
STEPHANIE
ALANA
MARIE
BENJAMIN,
CHRISTOPHER
M.
BOURN, DEREK WHITE, LAHOMA
J.
NACHTRAB,
LANNETTE
GIBSON,
DANIEL
PENTON,
DENISE
ARMINIO,
OFELIA
BIAGAN, SHEILA SMITH, CELINE
VIDAURRI, CHRISTINA VINAS,
RICARDO ROSADO, PATRICK C.
HARRELL,
RACHEL
GOODE,
JAMIESON
WISHMAN,
PAUL
CALOIAN, STEVEN TODD LITTLE,
JESSICA
LINCOLN,
CHRISTOPHER JALACKI, JOHN
WOODLAND,
and
JESSICA
ZOCCOLI,
Plaintiffs,
v.

Case No:

2:12-cv-347-FtM-29CM

COLLIER ANESTHESIA, P.A., a
Florida corporation, WOLFORD
COLLEGE,
LLC,
a
Florida
limited liability company,
THOMAS
L.
COOK,
an
individual, and LYNDA M.
WATERHOUSE, an individual,
Defendants.
ORDER ON DAMAGES
This matter comes before the Court on the parties' Joint
Statement Regarding Damages (Doc. #362) filed on July 7, 2017, in
response to the Court’s June 8, 2017 Order (Doc. #356) directing
the

parties

to

meet

and

confer

and

thereafter

file

a

joint

statement

on

damages,

whether

stipulated

or

not.

Although

Defendants disagree with the Jury’s May 4, 2017 verdict – which
found that each plaintiff was an “employee” at some time during
his or her SRNA clinical internship (Doc. #355) - and believe no
damages are warranted, for purposes of permitting the Court to
enter a final judgment, Defendants have agreed to the amount of
back wages and liquidated damages that twenty-four of the twentyfive plaintiffs will recover if that verdict stands. 1

The parties

now ask the Court to resolve a disagreement regarding the proper
amount of damages for the remaining plaintiff, Christine Vinas. 2
I.
According to the Joint Statement, in evaluating the amount of
back wages each plaintiff will recover, the parties engaged in “a
week-by-week analysis of each Student’s schedule to determine the
number of days a Student was scheduled at a [Collier Anesthesia]staffed site.”

(Doc. #362, p. 5 n.5.)

To recover wages for a

certain week, that plaintiff needed to be scheduled at a Collierstaffed site “for an agreed minimum number of days.” 3

(Id.)

1

The Jury found that no plaintiff worked more than 30 hours per
week and thus impliedly rejected Plaintiffs’ claim for overtime.
2

The parties dispute the total number of weeks for which plaintiff
Vinas is entitled to collect unpaid wages. However, they do agree
with the correctness of each other’s math and thus ask only that
the Court choose between Plaintiffs’ and Defendants’ proposed back
wages amounts - $8,000.20 and $3,190.00, respectively – not that
the Court perform its own calculations.
3

The Joint Statement does not indicate what that number is.
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Applying this formula was a straightforward task for twenty
of

the

plaintiffs,

internship

since

schedules.

the

record

However,

contains

their

complete

record

lacks

complete

the

schedules for the remaining five plaintiffs, including plaintiff
Vinas. 4

For three of those plaintiffs (Jessica Lincoln, Celine

Vidaurri, and Jessica Zoccoli), the parties have agreed that the
lack of schedules prohibits an award of any damages for the period
for which there are no schedules, since those students neither
testified at trial nor “supplement[ed] the record with other
evidence regarding what he or she did during the time period for
which a schedule was not available.”

(Id. p. 5.)

The parties have also agreed that, in contrast, plaintiff
Dustin Abraham will recover back wages for the March-November 2011
period for which Defendants did not produce his schedules.
least

in

Defendants’

view,

the

reason

for

the

At

differential

treatment is that plaintiff Abraham “both testified at trial[] and
. . . . introduced copies of his own personal schedules that
covered the time period from March to November 2011.”

(Id.)

As

such, there exists an independent “evidentiary basis” to support
an award of back wages for that period. 5

4

Defendants
admittedly
produced
discovery. (Doc. #362, p. 3.)
5

(Id.)

incomplete

schedules

in

Plaintiffs’ position is that the parties have simply “agreed” on
the amount of unpaid wages plaintiff Abraham is entitled to
recover. (Id.)
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That leaves plaintiff Vinas.

Plaintiffs contend that despite

the lack of schedules, plaintiff Vinas is entitled to collect wages
for the March-November 2011 time period because she testified at
her deposition that she was employed by Defendants between October
2010 and November 2011, and this testimony was read into evidence
at trial without objection.

In Plaintiffs’ view, this provides

an adequate independent evidentiary basis on which to award wages
for that entire period of time - particularly since Defendants
have made

no

attempt

to

“negative

the

reasonableness

inference to be drawn from [Plainitffs’] evidence.”

of

the

(Id. p. 4

(quoting Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680, 687–
88 (1946)).)
Defendants believe plaintiff Vinas should instead be treated
like Plaintiffs Lincoln, Vidaurri, and Zoccoli.

Specifically,

Defendants dispute that plaintiff Vinas’s trial “testimony” – an
out-loud reading of the portion of her deposition in which she
simply confirmed her answer to the Court’s Interrogatory regarding
her alleged employment dates - suffices to raise a reasonable
inference that she indeed worked for Defendants the minimum number
of days every single week between March and November 2011; Absent
that inference, the Mt. Clemens burden never shifted to Defendants
to demonstrate that plaintiff Vinas was not actually scheduled to
work at a Collier-staffed facility during one or more of those
weeks.

Defendants also stress that Plaintiffs’ approach treats

plaintiff Vinas more favorably than all of the other plaintiffs by

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“blindly” awarding her damages for the entirety of the disputed
period, including any weeks she did not work or was on vacation.
II.
It is undisputed that Defendants – Plaintiffs’ employers –
produced incomplete schedules for plaintiff Vinas.

Under Mt.

Clemens,

inures

to

“just

and

determining

plaintiff

Vinas’s

whether

benefit

this

turns

evidentiary

on

whether

gap

it

is

reasonable” to infer from the evidence that she was scheduled at
a Collier-staffed facility for at least the agreed minimum number
of days, for each week between March and November 2011.

See Morgan

v. Family Dollar Stores, Inc., 551 F.3d 1233, 1279 (11th Cir. 2008)
(observing that the question under Mt. Clemens is “whether there
is,

statistically

speaking,

enough

evidence

to

support

the

inference [of the amount of worked performed], and to shift the
burden of proof on an element of the plaintiffs' case (the number
of hours worked) to the employer”).
The Court finds that it is not “just and reasonable” to so
infer.

In reality, the sole piece of “evidentiary support” for

Plaintiffs' contention that plaintiff Vinas worked for Defendants
from

March

to

November

2011

is

her

answer

to

the

Court’s

Interrogatory (Doc. #57-1) as to her alleged dates of employment. 6
However, like plaintiff Vinas, plaintiff Vidaurri filed notarized

6

Though true that plaintiff Vinas was deposed and portions of that
testimony were read into evidence at trial without objection (Doc.
#362-1), the specific testimony to which Plaintiffs point merely
confirms her notarized Interrogatory answer.
- 5 -

Interrogatory Answers (Doc. #56-1) in which she too alleged she
worked for Defendants between October 2010 and November 2011. 7
agreeing

that,

notwithstanding

her

answer,

plaintiff

By

Vidaurri

cannot recover wages for the weeks for which there are no schedules
in

the

record,

Plaintiffs

have

effectively

conceded

that

Interrogatory answers are not a sufficient evidentiary basis on
which to premise an award of back wages.

The Court conceives of

no principled reason for treating plaintiff Vinas differently.
On these facts, it is therefore unreasonable to infer that
plaintiff Vinas worked for Defendants for the entire period between
March and November 2011.

Plaintiff Vinas is thus entitled to

recover back wages only for the qualifying pre-March 2011 weeks
for which there are schedules, which the parties agree totals
$3,190.00, plus an equal amount of liquidated damages, pursuant to
29 U.S.C. § 216(b). 8
Accordingly, it is hereby
ORDERED:
1.
wages

in

Plaintiff Christine Vinas is entitled to recover back
the

amount

of

$3,190.00,

plus

an

equal

amount

in

liquidated damages, for a total of $6,380.00.

7

Plaintiffs Lincoln and Zoccoli opted-in to the case later and
did not file answers to the Court’s Interrogatories.
8

This is not to say that the Court agrees with this all-or-nothing
approach to damages for the March-November 2011 period. However,
the Court abides by the parties’ joint request that it select one
of the two damage amounts set forth in the Joint Statement.
- 6 -

2.

The

Clerk

is

directed

to

enter

final

judgment

for

judgment

for

Defendants on Plaintiffs’ claim for overtime wages.
3.

The

Clerk

is

directed

to

enter

final

Plaintiffs on their claim for back wages and liquidated damages in
the total amount of $417,925.10, divided as follows among the
individual plaintiffs, per agreement of the parties:
Student Name

Total Back Wages + Liquidated Damages

Dustin Abraham

$13,368.80

Denise Arminio

$12,985.60

Stephanie Benjamin

$10,440.00

Ofelia Biagan

$4,350.00

Christopher Bourn

$28,710.00

Paul Caloian

$27,405.00

Lannette Gibson

$29,580.00

Rachel Goode

$9,652.40

Jeanie Hakenwert

$18,270.00

Patrick Harrell

$15,219.40

Christopher Jalacki

$11,600.00

Jessica Lincoln

$9,135.00

Steven Little

$19,720.00

Lahoma Nachtrab

$26,970.00

Daniel Penton

$13,093.50

Ricardo Rosado

$29,580.00

Billy Schumann

$27,520.80

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Sheila Smith

$29,145.00

Lauren Tidwell

$17,793.60

Celine Vidaurri

$4,785.00

Christine Vinas

$6,380.00

Derek White

$21,319.20

Jamieson Wishman

$6,976.80

John Woodland

$5,220.00

Jessica Zoccoli

$18,705.00

DONE and ORDERED at Fort Myers, Florida, this 6th day of
September, 2017.

Copies:
Counsel of Record

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