Trujillo v. Mediterranean Kitchens, Inc. dba Pita Inn et al

Filing 19

MEMORANDUM Opinion and Order Signed by the Honorable John J. Tharp, Jr on 7/11/2017: For the reasons stated in the accompanying Memorandum Opinion and Order, defendants' motion to dismiss 11 is granted without prejudice. Plaintiff is granted leave to replead by 8/11/17. Mailed notice(air, )

Case: 1:17-cv-01887 Document #: 19 Filed: 07/11/17 Page 1 of 4 PageID #:41

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
FIDEL TRUJILLO, individually and on
behalf of other similarly situated
employees,
Plaintiff,
v.
MEDITERRANEAN KITCHENS, INC.
d/b/a PITA INN and FALAH TABAHI,
Defendants.

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No. 17-CV-01887
Judge John J. Tharp, Jr.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Plaintiff Fidel Trujillo alleges that he worked more than 40 hours a week without
adequate overtime pay in one or more weeks during his ten year tenure as a dishwasher and
busboy for defendant Pita Inn in violation of state and federal law. The defendants have moved
to dismiss for failure to state a claim because the complaint lacks sufficient facts. The Court
agrees and grants the motion to dismiss without prejudice.
BACKGROUND
The Court accepts, as it must on a motion to dismiss, all well-pleaded factual allegations
as true. Brooks v. Ross, 578 F.3d 574, 581 (7th Cir. 2009). Plaintiff Fidel Trujillo worked for Pita
Inn 1 from May 2006 to late August 2016 as a dishwasher and busboy. Compl. ¶ 17-18. During
this time, Trujillo alleges he was paid for the first forty hours of work by check and “all other
hours” in cash. Id. at ¶ 19. He further alleges that he worked “more than forty (40) hours weekly
in one or more individual work weeks” during this ten year period. Id. at ¶ 23. Trujillo alleges he
was not paid the statutorily required one and a half times the regular pay rate for his overtime. Id.
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Defendant Falah Tabahi is the owner of defendant Mediterranean Kitchens, Inc. d/b/a
Pita Inn. Compl. ¶ 9. For simplicity, the Court refers to both defendants as “Pita Inn.”

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at ¶ 24. According to Trujillo, Pita Inn did not keep records of his hours or the wages they paid
him. Id. at ¶ 14-15. Pita Inn has moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim.
DISCUSSION
The Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) requires (with exceptions not relevant here) that
employers pay employees one and a half times the normal hourly rate for work beyond forty
hours per week. 29 U.S.C. § 207(a). Pita Inn argues that the complaint has failed to allege
sufficient facts to state a claim. To state a claim under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), a complaint must
contain sufficient facts to provide the grounds for the plaintiff’s entitlement to relief,
disregarding legal conclusions. Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). “[A]
formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Id.
The courts of this district have generally agreed that a plaintiff must plead details beyond
having worked more than 40 hours without overtime to state a claim under the FLSA. See
Hughes v. Scarlett's G.P., Inc., No. 15-CV-5546, 2016 WL 4179153, at *2 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 8,
2016) (collecting cases). Exactly how many more details is unclear – the Eleventh Circuit and
one court of this district have found that indicators of frequency (such as that a defendant
“repeatedly” or “routinely” worked overtime) are sufficient. See Secretary of Labor v. Labbe,
319 F. App'x 761, 763 (11th Cir. 2008); Sanchez v. Haltz Const., Inc., No. 09 C 7531, 2012 WL
13514, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 4, 2012). This Court has previously indicated that properly alleging a
specific week in which the FLSA was violated would be sufficient in the minimum wage
context. See Hirst v. Skywest, Inc., No. 15 C 02036, 2016 WL 2986978, at *6 (N.D. Ill. May 24,
2016) (“To state a FLSA claim under the workweek averaging approach, then, the plaintiffs must
plausibly allege at least one workweek for which the compensation they received, divided by
their total compensable time, failed to meet the FLSA minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.”); see

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also DeJesus v. HF Management Services, 726 F.3d 85, 89 (2d Cir. 2013) (allegations that
plaintiff worked over forty hours in “some or all weeks” insufficient because at least one given
week must be alleged); Pruell v. Caritas Christi, 678 F.3d 10, 12 (1st Cir. 2012) (allegation that
plaintiffs “regularly worked” more than 40 hours a week in sufficient). The Court need not
resolve that question here, however, because Trujillo has failed to allege any further details. He
does not allege specific weeks (even by way of example) in which he worked more than forty
hours per week. Nor has he made any allegations as to the frequency of the overtime, only
alleging it occurred “in one or more individual work weeks.” Compl. ¶ 23. This merely states an
element of an FLSA claim, it does not give the defendants any idea of the scope of Trujillo’s
claim or a place to begin investigating his allegations. Indeed, in pleading that he worked
overtime in “one or more” weeks over the course of his decade of employment, Trujillo could
mean there was a single week more than a decade ago for which he was not payed overtime, or
that there have been more than 520 such weeks, or something in between those extremes.
Further, the complaint acknowledges that Trujillo was paid some amount for hours in excess of
40, but provides no information about the rate paid. See Weston v. Illinois Dep’t of Human
Services, 433 Fed. App’x 480, 482 (7th Cir. 2011) (affirming dismissal of FLSA claim where
complaint failed to plausibly allege violation in view of all payments plaintiff received). These
allegations are too conclusory and too vague to provide fair notice or to state a plausible claim.
Without an FLSA claim to provide jurisdiction, the Court declines to exercise supplementary
jurisdiction over the Illinois Minimum Wage Law claim. See 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3).
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For the reasons stated above, the motion to dismiss is granted without prejudice. Trujillo
is granted leave to replead by August 11, 2017.

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_______________
John J. Tharp, Jr.
United States District Judge

Dated: July 11, 2017

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