Arnold et al v. DirecTV, Inc. et al

Filing 475

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendants Daubert Motion to Preclude the Tesitmony of L. Scott Baggett, Ph.D. [ 313 ] is DENIED as moot. Signed by District Judge John A. Ross on 3/31/17. (JAB)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI
EASTERN DIVISION

JAMIE ARNOLD, et al.,

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Plaintiffs,
v.
DIRECTV, LLC, et al.,
Defendants.

No. 4:10-CV-352 JAR

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This matter is before the Court on Defendants’ Daubert Motion to Preclude Plaintiffs’
Proposed Expert L. Scott Baggett, Ph.D. from Testifying or Otherwise Proffering the Opinions
and Calculations Contained in his Proposed Expert Report (Doc. No. 313). The motion is fully
briefed and ready for disposition.
Plaintiffs are former satellite installation and service technicians classified as W-2
employees of one of DirecTV’s Home Services Providers (“HSPs”) - MasTec, Multiband,
DirectSat, DirecTV Home Services, and DTV Home Services II, LLC (and its predecessor
entities). Plaintiffs allege the piece rate pay system used throughout DirecTV’s provider network
fails to compensate them for work deemed nonproductive in violation of the Fair Labor
Standards Act (“FLSA”), 29 U.S.C. §§ 201 et seq., and the Missouri Minimum Wage Law
(“MMWL”), Mo. Rev. Stat. §§ 290.500 et seq.
Plaintiffs contend the existence of uncompensated time resulting in technicians being
underpaid can be resolved on a class-wide basis to show that the class members were damaged.
Plaintiffs have retained statistician L. Scott Baggett, Ph.D., as an expert witness to analyze
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documents, computer data and sworn questionnaire responses to calculate, among other things,
the amount of unpaid wages owed to Plaintiffs. (See Baggett Report, Doc. No. 385-3) The use of
representative evidence to prove damages is justified only where it is reasonable to believe that
the testifying witnesses’ experiences are sufficiently similar to those of the rest of the nontestifying plaintiffs. See Rousell v. Briker Int’l, Inc., CIV.A.H-05-3733, 2008 WL 2714079, *22
(S.D. Tex. July 9, 2008). In light of the Court’s rulings herein denying summary judgment and
decertifying the FLSA subclasses,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendants’ Daubert Motion to Preclude the
Tesitmony of L. Scott Baggett, Ph.D. [313] is DENIED as moot.

Dated this 31st day of March, 2017.

JOHN A. ROSS
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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