Longlois et al v. Stratasys, Inc.
Filing
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ORDER: The Order of May 7, 2014 32 is AFFIRMED as to paragraphs 1 and 3 on page 11, and REVERSED as to paragraph 2. The Plaintiffs' Motion Regarding their Objection to the Magistrate Judge's Order of May 7, 2014 34 is DENIED AS MOOT. (Written Opinion) Signed by Judge Joan N. Ericksen on June 18, 2014. (CBC)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA
Charles Longlois and Duane Schwarze,
Plaintiffs,
v.
No. 13-cv-3345 (JNE/SER)
MEMORANDUM
AND ORDER
Stratasys, Inc.,
Defendant.
On May 7, 2014, the United States Magistrate Judge ordered that Plaintiff Duane
Schwarze’s claim against Defendant Stratasys be severed from this case under Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 21 and filed as a separate action. ECF No. 32. The Plaintiffs objected, and the
Defendant responded. For the reasons discussed below, the order is affirmed in part and
reversed in part.
Background
Stratasys manufactures and distributes 3D printers, and it employs technicians, known as
Field Service Engineers, to travel to customers’ sites to install and maintain the machines. In
2012, one of those Field Service Engineers, Greg Holaway, brought a putative collective action
in this District, alleging that Stratasys misclassified Field Service Engineers as exempt from
FLSA’s overtime-pay requirements. The case, Holaway v. Stratasys, No. 12-cv-998
(PAM/JSM), was heard by United States District Judge Paul A. Magnuson.
The FLSA provides that a collective action may be maintained “against any employer . . .
by any one or more employees for and in behalf of himself or themselves and other employees
similarly situated.” 29 U.S.C. § 216(b). Unlike in a class action under Federal Rule of Civil
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Procedure 23, similarly situated employees must expressly opt in to an FLSA collective action
by giving their consent in writing and filing it with the court. Id. “Courts may facilitate this optin process by authorizing the named Plaintiffs to transmit a notice of the lawsuit to potential class
members” on a showing by the plaintiffs “that they are similarly situated to the employees whom
they seek to represent.” Parker v. Rowland Express, Inc., 492 F.Supp.2d 1159, 1163 (D.Minn.
June 25, 2007) (internal quotation and punctuation omitted). This initial “similarly situated”
determination, referred to as a “conditional certification,” is made on a “fairly lenient standard”
because only “minimal evidence” on the issue may be available at the outset of the case. Id. at
1164 (quoting Hipp v. Liberty Nat’l Life Ins. Co., 252 F.3d 1208, 1218 (11th Cir. 2008)). Later
in the litigation, “usually . . . after discovery is largely complete and the matter is ready for trial,”
the court may entertain a motion for “decertification” by the defendant. Id. “At this stage, the
court has much more information on which to base its decision” as to whether the named
Plaintiffs and the other employees who have opted in are actually “similarly situated” such that
the merits of their FLSA claims against the employer should be considered collectively rather
than individually. Id.
In Holaway, the Court granted conditional certification in October of 2012. Notice of the
lawsuit was thereafter given to all Field Service Engineers employed by Stratasys during the
preceding three years. Charles Longlois and Duane Schwarze, a current and former Field
Service Engineer and the co-plaintiffs here, were the only two to opt in. After discovery,
Stratasys moved for decertification.
In October of 2013, the Court granted that decertification motion. In so doing, it
conducted a “fact-intensive inquiry” into whether Holaway, Longlois, and Schwarze are
“similarly situated,” focusing on three primary factors: “(1) the extent and consequences of
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disparate factual and employment settings of the individual plaintiffs; (2) the various defenses
available to defendant which appear to be individual to each plaintiff; and (3) fairness and
procedural considerations.” Finding that Holaway, Longlois, and Schwarze’s claims against
Stratasys would each turn on a “highly individual inquiry” into facts and circumstances that were
distinct to each of them, the Court concluded that there was no efficiency to be gained by
proceeding with the case as a collective action. Longlois and Schwarze were therefore dismissed
from the case without prejudice, and Holaway proceeded with his claims against Stratasys as an
individual plaintiff.
In December of 2013, Longlois and Schwarze filed this action, asserting anew their
FLSA claims against Stratasys. Longlois and Schwarze did not bring this case as a putative
collective action; rather, their complaint pleads a single cause of action under the FLSA for
unpaid overtime wages on behalf of themselves only.
In March of 2014, Stratasys moved for summary judgment against both Longlois and
Schwarze. Soon thereafter, in April of 2014, the Magistrate Judge issued an Order to Show
Cause in which he expressed “concerns regarding whether Longlois and Schwarze are properly
joined” in light of the decertification order in Holaway. He therefore instructed the parties to file
memoranda “addressing why the Court should not drop one of the Plaintiffs from this case under
the authority provided in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 21.” Stratasys’s summary judgment
motion was subsequently withdrawn without prejudice.
After briefing, the Magistrate Judge issued an order in which he declined to analyze
whether Longlois and Schwarze had been properly joined as co-plaintiffs under Rule 20(a),
finding instead that, regardless of that question, “it would be improper for [them] to proceed in
this action together” for the reasons of judicial economy and efficiency discussed in the Holaway
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decertification order. The Magistrate Judge therefore severed Schwarze from this action under
Rule 21 and specified that his case is to proceed, upon payment of the requisite filing fee, as a
separate but “related” action “assigned to the docket of the undersigned in anticipation of
consolidation for purposes of pretrial discovery.”
Discussion
The Plaintiffs timely objected to the Magistrate Judge’s order. Because severance is a
“pretrial matter not dispositive of a party’s claim or defense,” this Court reviews the Magistrate
Judge’s order to determine if it is “clearly erroneous or . . . contrary to law.” Fed. R. Civ. P.
72(a); D.Minn. LR 72.2(a).
As discussed below, the severance of Schwarze’s claim from Longlois’ is affirmed, while
the instruction in the order regarding the assignment of Schwarze’s action as a related case is
reversed.
I.
Severance.
Rule 21 provides that, “[o]n its own, the court may at any time, on just terms, add or drop
a party [or] sever any claim against a party.” The Plaintiffs make no argument that severing
Schwarze’s claim from Longlois’ would cause either of them any prejudice. They do argue,
however, that in ordering severance here, the Magistrate Judge improperly relied upon the
Court’s decertification order in Holaway. 1
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The Plaintiffs also object on two other grounds: (1) that the Magistrate Judge clearly
erred in denying as moot their Motion Supporting Joinder of Named Plaintiffs and construing its
accompanying memorandum as a response to the Order to Show Cause; and (2) that the
Magistrate Judge denied them due process by declining to consider documents they had
submitted to the Court ex parte. Both of these objections are without merit.
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Beyond that, the Plaintiffs’ objection is somewhat muddled. In two sections of their
memorandum, the Plaintiffs fault the Magistrate Judge for not making a finding as to whether
they were properly joined under Rule 20(a)’s standard for permissive joinder, which they believe
they were. 2 In the next section, however, the Plaintiffs accuse the Magistrate Judge of
improperly “conflating and equating” the legal standard for maintaining a collective action under
the FLSA with the Rule 20(a) joinder standard. The Magistrate Judge, however, did no such
thing; in fact, he explicitly acknowledged that the Holaway Court’s “Decertification Order
employed a different standard than Rule 20 . . . .”
But, the Magistrate Judge did determine that in these circumstances, where co-plaintiffs
who had unsuccessfully attempted to opt in to a prior case are jointly asserting FLSA claims
against an employer, the “similarly situated” analysis provided in the prior decertification order –
which necessarily includes considerations of judicial economy and efficiency – may be relevant
to the Court’s decision to sever their claims under Rule 21. 3 Whether that is proper is the heart
of the matter, as the fundamental implication of the Plaintiffs’ objection is that a court may only
sever a co-plaintiff’s claim under Rule 21 if the joinder of that plaintiff was improper under Rule
20(a).
The Court is not aware of any Eighth Circuit precedent that directly addresses the
question in this context. However, the district court has acted under Rule 21 on considerations of
2
Rule 20(a)(1) provides that “[p]ersons may join in one action as plaintiffs if: (A) they
assert any right to relief jointly, severally, or in the alternative with respect to or arising out of
the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences; and (B) any question
of law or fact common to all plaintiffs will arise in the action.”
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The Plaintiffs argue that the Magistrate Judge “establish[es] new precedent” by finding
that a prior decertification order is “determinative” that a subsequent joinder is improper under
Rules 20 and 21. This Court does not read the Magistrate Judge’s order as stating or implying
that a prior decertification dictates that joinder in a subsequent case should always be denied.
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judicial economy and efficiency without first finding joinder to have been improper under Rule
20. See, e.g., Brodkorb v. Minn., No. 12-cv-1958 (SRN/AJB), 2013 WL 588231, at *18
(D.Minn. Feb. 13, 2013); Stark v. Indep. Sch. Dist. No. 640, 163 F.R.D. 557, 563-64 (D.Minn.
Oct. 27, 1995). Those decisions are in line with a number of circuit courts that have similarly
determined that a court may act under Rule 21 even where the parties are properly joined under
the Rule 20 standard. Acevedo-Garcia v. Monroig, 351 F.3d 547, 560 n.5 (1st Cir. 2003) (“[T]he
prevailing rule in our sister circuits is that a finding of misjoinder is not a prerequisite to severing
parties or claims under Rule 21.”); Wyndham Assoc. v. Bintliff, 398 F.2d 614, 618 (2nd Cir.
1968) (“We believe that [Rule 21] authorizes the severance of any claim, even without a finding
of improper joinder, where there are sufficient other reasons for ordering a severance.”); Sporia
v. Penn. Greyhound Lines, 143 F.2d 105, 107-08 (3rd Cir. 1944) (“We are convinced that the
District Court possessed the power” under Rule 21 to sever the claims of two properly joined coplaintiffs, and “all the so-called equities favor it.”); Acevedo v. Allsup’s Convenience Stores, Inc.,
600 F.3d 516, 522 (5th Cir. 2010) (noting that even where plaintiffs satisfy Rule 20, “district
courts have considerable discretion to deny joinder [under Rule 21] when it would not facilitate
judicial economy and when different witnesses and documentary proof would be required for
plaintiffs’ claims.”); Safeco Ins. Co. v. City of White House, 36 F.3d 540, 545-46 (6th Cir. 1994)
(rejecting argument that “Rule 21 pertains only to misjoined parties and does not authorize the
dismissal of parties properly joined”); Coleman v. Quaker Oats Co., 232 F.3d 1271, 1296 (9th
Cir. 2000) (affirming severance of properly joined plaintiffs where “the likelihood of prejudice
and confusion outweighed the gains from judicial economy and any potential prejudice to the
plaintiffs”).
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Whether the Plaintiffs can satisfy the standard for permissive joinder under Rule 20(a) is
thus immaterial. In the Holaway decertification order, the Court found that the factual and
employment settings of the three plaintiffs he considered – Holaway, Longlois, and Schwarze –
were sufficiently distinct that each of their claims would require a “highly individualized
inquiry” into both liability and damages, such that “[t]here are few if any procedural efficiencies
to be gained” by trying them collectively as opposed to individually. The Magistrate Judge
found in that analysis a persuasive reason, based on considerations of judicial economy and
efficiency, for denying joinder to Longlois and Schwarze here under Rule 21.
In the words of the Fifth Circuit in Acevedo, “district courts have considerable discretion
to deny joinder when it would not facilitate judicial economy and when different witnesses and
documentary proof would be required for plaintiffs’ claims.” 600 F.3d at 522. The Magistrate
Judge’s order, insofar as it severs Schwarze’s claim from Longlois’, is therefore neither clearly
erroneous nor contrary to law.
II.
Related cases.
Paragraph 2 of the severance order specifies that “[a]ny separate action arising from this
Order shall be deemed ‘related’ and shall be assigned to the docket of the undersigned in
anticipation of consolidation for the purposes of pretrial discovery . . . .” This aspect of the order
is not consistent with the District of Minnesota’s Order for Assignment of Cases, filed December
19, 2008, and is therefore reversed.
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Based on the files, records, and proceedings herein, and for the reasons discussed above,
IT IS ORDERED THAT:
1. The Order of May 7, 2014 [ECF No. 32] is AFFIRMED as to paragraphs 1 and 3 on
page 11, and REVERSED as to paragraph 2.
2. The Plaintiffs’ Motion Regarding their Objection to the Magistrate Judge’s Order of
May 7, 2014 [ECF No. 34] is DENIED AS MOOT.
Dated: June 18, 2014
s/Joan N. Ericksen
JOAN N. ERICKSEN
United States District Judge
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