Hall et al v. Plastipak Holdings, Inc et al

Filing 51

OPINION and ORDER Denying Defendants' 47 MOTION for Reconsideration. (TELEPHONIC Status Conference set for 2/21/2017 at 11:30 AM before District Judge Robert H. Cleland, Case Management Scheduling Conference set for 3/9/2017 at 10:00 AM before District Judge Robert H. Cleland) Signed by District Judge Robert H. Cleland. (SBur)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION

ROBERT HALL, et al.,
Plaintiffs,
v.
Case No. 15-11428
PLASTIPAK HOLDINGS, INC., et al.,
Defendants.
/
OPINION AND ORDER DENYING
DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION
Pending before the court is Defendants’ Motion for Reconsideration of this court’s
prior order granting conditional class certification and setting deadlines. (Dkt. #47.)
Plaintiffs have filed a response to the motion. (Dkt. #47.) After reviewing the briefs, the
court concludes that a hearing is unnecessary. See E.D. Mich. LR 7.1(f)(2). For the
following reasons, the court will deny Defendants’ motion.
I. BACKGROUND
The underlying facts of this case were recited in this court’s prior opinion and
order granting conditional certification of a class of Defendants’ employees, familiarity
with which is presumed. (Dkt. #46.) Defendants filed the instant motion for
reconsideration arguing that the class definition is too broad because the challenged
pay practices did not apply to hourly employees and also because the named Plaintiffs
all worked at a single facility and thus are not representative of class members who
work at other facilities. Defendants also argue that the task of identifying the class
members will be unduly burdensome in light of defects in their claims. In response,

Plaintiffs argue that Defendants failed to raise the distinction between hourly and
salaried non-exempt employees in the first instance and have thus waived this
argument on a motion for reconsideration, that the admitted uniformity of pay practices
across facilities renders irrelevant the fact that named Plaintiffs all worked at a common
location, and that no serious undue burden would result from Defendants being forced
to comply with the court’s order.
This court’s previous order required Defendants to identify class members to
Plaintiffs by January 13, 2017. At a status conference held on January 17, 2017, the
parties indicated that Defendants had not complied with this deadline. The court has not
since received any indication that Defendants have so far fulfilled their obligation under
the prior order. Plaintiffs have requested a status conference to resolve this outstanding
issue.
II. STANDARD
Subject to the court’s discretion, a motion for reconsideration shall be granted
only if the movant “demonstrate[s] a palpable defect by which the court and the parties
. . . have been misled” and “show[s] that correcting the defect will result in a different
disposition of the case.” E.D. Mich. L.R. 7.1(h)(3). “A ‘palpable defect’ is ‘a defect that
is obvious, clear, unmistakable, manifest or plain.’” Buchanan v. Metz, 6 F. Supp. 3d
730, 752 (E.D. Mich. 2014) (quoting United States v. Lockett, 328 F. Supp. 2d 682, 684
(E.D. Mich. 2004)). The court “will not grant motions for . . . reconsideration that merely
present the same issues ruled upon by the court.” E.D. Mich. L.R. 7.1(h)(3).

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III. DISCUSSION
A. Hourly Employees
Defendants point out that the practices at issue in this case, which applied to
salaried non-exempt employees, did not apply to hourly employees. Thus, they are not
similarly situated. This account is supported by the “Associate Handbook” which shows
that hourly employees were paid normal overtime instead of the floating rate which is
the subject of the instant suit. (Dkt. #47-5, Pg. ID 923.) Defendants also point to
language in the court’s prior opinion which incorrectly stated that Defendants had
admitted to “using the same compensation scheme across all of their hourly and
salaried non-exempt employees[.]” They had admitted to using the same practices with
salaried non-exempt employees.
Plaintiffs argue that Defendants failed to articulate a reason for treating hourly
and salaried non-exempt employees differently in the first instance, and that the more
inclusive language is really aimed at preventing Defendant from using “semantic
arguments” to redefine ex post as “hourly” employees who were truly salaried nonexempt, thus reducing the size of the class. During the status conference, Plaintiffs
suggested that they would stipulate that the definition of the class truly covers only
those employees that were subject to the pay practices at issue in this case–specifically
the re-calculation of base pay rate based on total hours worked.
It appears that all parties are essentially in agreement that employees who were
truly hourly were not subject to the pay practices at issue in this case and indeed not
proper plaintiffs under the facts alleged. Rather than fruitlessly analyze which
arguments have been waived and whether the court’s statements about Defendants’
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admissions constitute a “palpable defect,” the court will now simply clarify its prior
order’s class definition consistent with the view that it covers only those employees who
were subject to the pay practices at issue in this case, normally called “salaried nonexempt.” This clarification supplies Defendants with the relief that they requested and
thus renders moot their motion for reconsideration on this question. The court will
therefore deny the motion on the basis of mootness.
B. Facilities
Defendants rely on Syrja v. Westat, Inc., for their argument that, because the
named Plaintiffs all are from the Westland Facility, they are not similarly situated to
class members in other facilities. 756 F. Supp. 2d 682, 687 (D. Md. 2010). However,
even setting aside the fact that this case represents merely persuasive rather than
binding authority, its pertinent facts are critically distinguishable from those at issue
here. Importantly, Defendants maintained uniform pay practices across their facilities.
Compare that with the pay practices in Syrja:
Moreover, aside from his own assertions and those of members of the
putative class, [Plaintiff] has offered no evidence that even begins to
suggest that [Defendant] currently maintains, or that it ever maintained, a
uniform national policy of denying appropriate compensation for employee
hours worked over 40 in a given week. In fact, the only concrete evidence
before the Court relevant to a national policy with respect to overtime pay
is [Defendant’s] official policy to the effect that it will compensate its
employees for all overtime hours worked, even when such hours are
unauthorized.
Id. at 687-688. Such is not the case here. As the court has no reason to think that pay
practices differed in any meaningful respect across Defendants’ facilities, no “palpable
defect” as to this question exists in the order granting class certification. Thus, the court
will deny Defendants’ motion.
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C. Undue Burden
Defendants argue that calculating the amount paid to each class member under
the “fluctuating work week” system as well as the amount that would have been paid
had they adopted a different practice is too burdensome in light of what they view as
defects in Plaintiffs’ case-in-chief. Defendants’ position seeks to reanimate arguments
which this court already rejected when it denied their motion to dismiss the amended
complaint. (Dkt. #35.) Additionally, the court is not convinced that the burden which
normal class discovery imposes upon Defendants is undue. The process described for
calculating the wages at issue is something akin to deriving formulas related to those it
already uses to pay its employees and feeding the requisite values into a spreadsheet.
D. Class Discovery
At the status conference this court indicated that it expected the parties to
proceed in discovery normally with the assumption that the motion for reconsideration
would be denied. Whether this has occurred remains to be seen, but the court will hold
a telephonic status conference on February 21, 2017 at 11:30 a.m. to discuss the
progress that has been made in discovery thus far.
IV. CONCLUSION
IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiffs’ “Motion for Reconsideration of the Opinion and
Order Granting Plaintiffs’ Motion for Conditional Class Certification ” (Dkt. #47) is
DENIED.

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IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that counsel for the parties appear before the court
for a case management conference on March 9, 2017 at 10:00 a.m. in the Federal
Courthouse at 526 Water St., Port Huron, MI 48060.
s/Robert H. Cleland
ROBERT H. CLELAND
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Dated: February 8, 2017

I hereby certify that a copy of the foregoing document was mailed to counsel of record
on this date, February 8, 2017, by electronic and/or ordinary mail.
s/Shawna C. Burns
Case Manager Generalist
[phone]

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