Baker et al v. Amsted Rail Co., Inc.

Filing 16

ORDER denying 13 Motion to Consolidate Cases: For the reasons explained in the attached Order, the Court DENIES AT THIS TIME Plaintiffs' motion to consolidate and for entry of Plaintiffs' proposed case management order. The undersigned J udge SETS an in-Court STATUS CONFERENCE at 1:00 pm on Friday, February 8, 2013, to discuss (in general terms) scheduling in this case. The Honorable Stephen C. Williams will participate in the Status Conference along with the undersigned Judge. See Order for details. Signed by Judge Michael J. Reagan on 1/30/13. (soh )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
KEITH BAKER, et al.,
Plaintiffs,
vs.
AMSTED RAIL COMPANY, INC.,
Defendant.

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Case No. 12-cv-1245-MJR-SCW

MEMORANDUM and ORDER
REAGAN, District Judge:
Resolution of a pending motion in this case begins with reference to a previous
lawsuit in this Court -- Marshall, et al. v. Amsted Rail Co., Inc., Case No. 10-cv-0011MJR-SCW. Marshall was a suit by 478 hourly workers at Defendant Amsted’s Granite
City plant who sought to recover unpaid wages, overtime compensation and liquidated
damages under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

The undersigned Judge

conditionally certified the case as a collective action. Discovery proceeded, motions
were filed, extensively briefed, heard and ruled on, and the case progressed.
Ultimately, the undersigned Judge denied final certification (i.e., granted Amsted’s
motion for class/collective decertification), allowing only the claims of the two named
plaintiffs to proceed to trial in Marshall. 1

The parties consented to disposition of Marshall by Magistrate
Judge Donald G. Wilkerson. Docket information indicates that the case
(i.e., the claims of named Plaintiffs Marshall and Whitby) will proceed to
trial February 25, 2013 before Judge Wilkerson.
1

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In refusing to permit the claims of all 478 plaintiffs to proceed in one trial in
Marshall, the undersigned Judge found the following:
(a)
The undeniable differences in the 478 plaintiffs’ job titles, job
duties, compensation plans, and other employment circumstances
produce highly particularized claims requiring fact-specific inquiries
which render it inappropriate to try them collectively.
(b)
There is no required series of events that begins or ends all
plaintiffs’ work days, and there is no common routine among the
plaintiffs in terms of their pre- and post-shift actions. To the contrary, the
plaintiffs differ both in what they do before and after their shifts and in
what their principal activities are.
(c)
This is not a case in which the defendant’s defenses can be applied
“across the board” to all plaintiffs’ claims.
(d)
Proceeding via collective action with all 478 Plaintiffs raises fairness
concerns and presents serious manageability problems for the Court.
Thus, on November 13, 2012, the Court decertified the action, after finding the various
plaintiffs’ claims dissimilar and a collective jury trial inappropriate and unmanageable
(see Doc. 243). The claims of the 476 opt-in plaintiffs were dismissed without prejudice.
Since then, four new lawsuits were filed in this Court, each one by a group of 20
or so plaintiffs dismissed out of the original Marshall suit. The civil cover sheets filed
by counsel in the four new actions did not reference Marshall as a “related case,” so the
Clerk’s Office had no way to know the cases grew out of Marshall, and the cases were
randomly assigned to different Judges. Upon learning of the filings two weeks ago, the
undersigned Judge alerted the other involved District Judges, and all four cases were
reassigned to the original District and Magistrate Judge from Marshall, the
undersigned and Magistrate Judge Stephen C. Williams.
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That reassignment was in keeping with the practice in this District Court, and the
Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals’ directive, that related cases filed within the same
District Court should be handled by a single District Judge. See, e.g., Smith v. Check-NGo of Illinois, 200 F.3d 511, 513 n.1 (7th Cir. 1999); Blair v. Equifax Check Services, 181
F.3d 832, 839 (7th Cir. 1999). This discourages judge-shopping, safeguards against
inconsistent rulings, and promotes judicial economy.
With that backdrop in mind, the Court turns to a motion filed yesterday by
Plaintiffs in the first of the “new” batch of Amsted cases – Keith Baker, et al. v. Amsted
Rail Co., Inc., 12-cv-1245-MJR-SCW.

Plaintiffs ask that this District Judge

(a) consolidate the four new cases, plus “all related cases filed in the future” by current
or former Amsted employees into Case No. 12-cv-1245 (i.e., re-filing all the complaints
and henceforth filing any other pleadings from all cases in Case No. 12-cv-1245), and
(b) enter a proposed Case Management Order that, inter alia, divides the consolidated
mass into a series of separate bellwether trials, with counsel selecting which plaintiffs
from which cases shall be tried together in which sequence.
Plaintiffs’ counsel suggest that bellwether trials would allow them to “obtain the
informed verdict of independent juries,” better gauge “the strengths and weaknesses of
Plaintiffs’ claims, Defendants’ defense, and jury perceptions,” and assist in evaluating
claims for settlement (Doc. 13, p. 2). Additionally, the motion notes that individual
trials in the cases “would take years of trial time,” involve “countless attorney dollars,”
and result in unproductive or duplicative discovery (Doc. 13, pp. 7-8).
The Court DENIES AT THIS TIME the motion for consolidation (Doc. 13).
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Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 42 authorizes a district court to consolidate two or more
actions with common factual or legal issues for discovery, for trial, or both. There clearly
are common issues of law and fact in the series of Amsted FLSA cases filed by Plaintiffs.
But that alone does not merit consolidating scores or hundreds (possibly 476 of the
originally dismissed Plaintiffs) into a single action (Case No. 12-cv-1245) with all filings,
motions, and rulings for all those Plaintiffs being made in one case.

Counsel have

chosen to file (to date) four separate actions with 20 or 25 Plaintiffs each. At this point,
Plaintiffs have identified no reason warranting all filings for all Plaintiffs from all cases
being made in one case file. Furthermore, Plaintiffs anticipate filing additional cases
with additional sets of Plaintiffs. Those cases are not yet filed, those Plaintiffs are not
yet named, and the claims are not yet pled. There may be merit in the suggested
approach, but it is premature to declare all cases, parties, and claims suited for
consolidation under Rule 42.
That having been said, the undersigned District Judge already had considered
(and discussed with Judge Williams) a coordinated pretrial discovery schedule being
entered in each of the four cases on file (Case Nos. 12-cv-1245, 13-cv-0006, 13-0031 and
13-0064) -- or perhaps a Master Scheduling and Discovery Order for all Marshall spinoff cases. The Court intends to solicit counsel’s input as to appropriate jury trial dates
for the four existing actions and to look to Judge Williams to fashion an acceptable
pretrial discovery schedule based on those trial dates. And if the parties have a joint
plan for staggered discovery (e.g., working off the jury verdict in Marshall) or a joint
proposal for a sequence of trials, the Court will consider such ideas.
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But the Court is disinclined to consolidate into a single case hundreds of claims
which Plaintiffs have elected to present via separate actions and which the undersigned
Judge exhaustively examined and found unsuitable for collective trial.
Accordingly, the Court DENIES AT THIS TIME Plaintiffs’ motion to
consolidate (Doc. 13) and SETS A STATUS CONFERENCE to discuss the broad
parameters of scheduling in these cases. Counsel shall appear in Court before the
undersigned Judge at 1:00 pm on Friday, February 8, 2013 – the first available slot on
this Judge’s docket. Judge Williams will participate in the status conference. Counsel
should be prepared to address discovery scheduling with Judge Williams (and may
continue the status conference before Judge Williams at 1:30 pm, in Judge Williams’
courtroom).
IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED January 30, 2013.

s/ Michael J. Reagan
Michael J. Reagan
United States District Judge

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