YANG v. VILLAGE SUPERMARKETS, INC. et al

Filing 45

OPINION AND ORDER denying Defendants' 30 Motion for Reconsideration, etc. Signed by Judge William H. Walls on 05/14/2019. (ek)

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
YING YANG, on behalf of himself and all other
persons similarly situated,
Plaintiff,

OPNION & ORDER

V.

1 $-cv- 10486 (WHW)(CLW)
VILLAGE SUPER MARKET, INC., VILLAGE
SUPER MARKET Of NJ, LP, RONALD L.
GOLEY, HUA HUANG, JOAQUIM BATISTA
IMPROPERLY NAMED AS JACK BATISTA, et
al.,
Defendants.
Walls, Senior District Judge
On March 20, 2019, this Court conditionally certified a class of hourly paid, nonmanagerial individuals who alleged they were not paid overtime pay as required under the fair
Labor Standards Act (“fLSA”), 29 U.S.C.

§

216(b), et seq. (2013), while employed by Village

Super Market, Inc. d/b/a ShopRite, Village Super Market of NJ, L.P. d/b/a ShopRite, Ronald L.
Goley, Hua Huang, Jack Batista, and certain fictitious individuals and entities (collectively the
“Defendants”), See ECF Nos. 2$ & 29. Defendants request the Court reconsider its decision. ECF
No. 30. Decided without a hearing pursuant to fed. R. Civ. P. 78, the motion is denied.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
The critical facts involving this motion were fully briefed in the Opinion & Order that
Defendants ask the Court to reconsider. See ECF No. 2$. Directly relevant to this motion: Plaintiff
Ying Yang was hired as a chef for the Chinese food outlet of ShopRite in Livingston, New Jersey
on about September 20, 2016, and remained employed there until April 27, 2018. first Amended
Complaint (“fAC”) (ECF No. 4) at

¶

32. Plaintiff claimed he was entitled to recover unpaid

overtime wages of at least one-and-a-half times the regular pay at which they were employed for

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
every hour worked in excess of forty hours in a single workweek. See Motion for Conditional
Class Certification (ECF No. 18-11) at 3. Plaintiff filed a Collective Class Action Complaint in
this Court on June 12, 2018. See ECF No. 1. He then moved for conditional certification of all
hourly paid, non-managerial individuals employed by Defendants for their failure to pay overtime
pay as required under the FLSA. The Court engaged in the standard two-step certification analysis
as directed by the Third Circuit. See

Ying Yang v.

Viii.

Super Mkt.,

Inc., No.

I8CV1O486WHWCLW, 2019 WL 1275059 (D.N.J. Mar. 20, 2019). After finding that Yang had
“made a modest factual showing” and produced evidence ‘beyond pure speculation of a factual
nexus between the manner in which the employer’s alleged policy affected him and the manner in
which it affected other employees,” resulting in him being “similarly situated to the putative class
through record evidence suggesting that the Prospective Collective Action Members were subject
to the same employment practices,” the Court conditionally certified the class. Id. at *2 (internal
quotations omitted). Defendants ask the Court to reconsider its Opinion and Order, contending that
the Court’s finding as to Plaintiff being similarly situated to other members of the putative class
“was in error.” ECF No. 30 at 1.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
Local Civil Rule 7.1(1) allows a party to seek a motion for reconsideration within 14 days
after entry of the judgment, and directs the party seeking reconsideration to submit “a brief
setting forth the matter or controlling decisions which the party believes the Judge.

.

.

has

overlooked.” The Third Circuit has held that the “purpose of a motion for reconsideration is to
correct manifest errors of law or fact or to present newly discovered evidence.” Max ‘s Seafood
Cafe ex ret. Lou-Ann v. Quinteros, 176 F.3d 669, 677 (3d Cir. 1999) (citation omitted).

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Reconsideration motions, however, may not be used to relitigate old matters, nor to raise
arguments or present evidence that could have been raised before the entry ofjudgment. Charles
A. Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Mary Kay Kane, federal Practice and Procedure

§ 2$ 10.1. “A

party seeking reconsideration must show more than a disagreement with the Court’s decision,
and recapitulation of the cases and arguments considered by the court before rendering its
original decision fails to carry the moving party’s burden.” Gutierrez v. Ashcroft, 289 F. Supp.
2d 555, 561 (D.N.J. 2003). Such motions will only be granted where (1) an intervening change in
the law has occurred, (2) new evidence not previously available has emerged, or (3) the need to
correct a clear error of law or prevent a manifest injustice arises. North River Ins. Co. v. CIGNA
Reins. Co., 52 F.3d 1194, 121$ (3d Cir. 1995). Because reconsideration of ajudgment after its
entry is an extraordinary remedy, requests pursuant to these rules are to be granted “sparingly,”
and only when “dispositive factual matters or controlling decisions of law” were brought to the
court’s attention but not considered. Yurecko v. Port Auth. Trans-Hudson Corp. 279 F. Supp. 2d
606, 608-609 (D.N.J. 2003).
DISCUSSION
Defendants claim that the court erred in certifying a class of all non-managerial employees
rather than limiting the class “to other salaried chefs who worked in the Asian food section of the
ShopRite stores in Livingston and Union.” ECF No. 30 at 4. Defendants posit that because Plaintiff
Yang’s position is that he was improperly categorized as an “exempt” employee under the FLSA
when he was not, he needed to demonstrate he was “similarly situated” to other improperly
categorized employees, and that he did not. Id. at 4-5. Defendants likewise argue that even if
Plaintiff has shown he is similarly situated to other class members, they are not subject to an actual
“uniform policy to deprive non-managerial employees of overtime compensation.” Id. at 6.

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Defendants request the Court reconsider its motion “and limit any collective action to salaried
Chinese food chefs who worked at Village’s Livingston and Union stores.” Id. at 6.
“Defendants are impermissibly repeating old arguments that [the Court] ha[s] already
rejected.” ChengXia Wang v. Shun Lee Palace Rest., Inc.. No. 17-CV-00840 (VSB), 2019 WL
1146437, at *4 ($.D.N.Y. Mar. 13, 2019) (denying motion to reconsider FLSA conditional class
certification). First, the Court engaged in an analysis as to whether Yang was similarly situated to
other members of the collective action. See Yang, 2019 WL 1275059 at *2..*3 (ECF No. 28). After
reviewing Yang’s declaration, as well as that of Chunling Li (a fellow prospective class member),
the Court found that the record evidence “set forth the duties [Yang] performed, the hours he
worked, and the amount and manner in which he was paid,” and that Yang “observed other
employees working a similar number of hours per week as he worked, and discussed with them
Defendants’ failure to pay overtime wages while naming other employees who were also not paid
overtime.” Id. at *2 (internal brackets omitted). The Court found that Yang had “shown that he is
similarly situated to the putative class through record evidence suggesting that the Prospective
Collective Action Members were subject to the same employment practice.” ECF No. 28 at *2.
The Court then discussed what it found to be a sufficient allegation by Yang that “his
deprival of overtime pay was not isolated, but rather a policy and practice of Defendants,” and that
he did this by “list[ing] three other Prospective Collective Action Members who were similarly
situated with respect to their claims under Defendants’ unlawful policy and practices.” Id. As such,
“[a]lthough petitioner may not like the way the Court ruled, his arguments were explicitly
addressed in the joint Opinion and Order.” Ramirez v. United States, No. 05 CIV. 4179, 2013 WL
247792, at *2 ($.D.N.Y. Jan. 22, 2013) (denying motion for reconsideration). See also Gutierrez
V.

Johnson & Johnson, No. 01 5302 WHW, 2007 WL 1101437, at *4 (D.N.J. Apr. 10, 2007) (“This

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is not the purpose of a motion for reconsideration. A party is not entitled to a second bite at the
apple”).
Importantly, the Court found that when reviewing the record evidence, Plaintiffs duty to
demonstrate a modest factual showing had been recently described as a “very low burden,” Portilla
v. Bridgehampton Stone, Inc., No. CV172549, 2019 WL 1128364, at *9 (E.D.N.Y. Mar. 12,2019),
and that “[t]his lenient standard is typically easily met and usually results in conditional
certification,” Taylor v. Pilot Corp., No. 14-CV-2294-SHL-TMP, 2015 WL 12001270, at *2
(W.D. Tenn. June 16, 2015). See also Woodard v. fedEx freight F., Inc., 250 F.R.D. 178, 191
(M.D. Pa. 200$) (a motion to conditionally certify an FLSA class at step one “usually results in
conditional certification”); Steinberg v. TD Bank, NA., No. 10-CV-5600 RMB-JS, 2012 WL
2500331, at *9 (D.N.J. June 27, 2012) (describing a modest factual showing as an “extremely
lenient standard”). The motion for reconsideration does not grapple with the Court’s discussion
about the low bar Plaintiff had to hurdle.
Likewise, Courts in this District have noted that motions for reconsideration on conditional
certification decisions in FLSA cases are especially disfavored because “[a]1l of the contentions
Defendants attempt to introduce at this point in the litigation will be properly dealt with in Stage
2 of the certification process.” Ornelas v. Hooper Holmes Inc., No. CIV.A. 12-3106 JAP, 2013
WL 3146887, at *2 (D.N.J. June 19, 2013). See also Aquilino v. Home Depot, Inc., No. CIV A 04CV-4100 PGS, 2006 WL 2583563, at *1 (D.N.J. Sept. 7, 2006) (denying appeal of magistrate
order conditionally certifying class upon noting that “the standard for step one notice is lenient”).
Defendants finally contend that if the Court does not reconsider its decision in its entirety
then it should certify a more limited class. But having relegated this suggestion to a footnote in
their original opposition brief, now “is not the time to propose new class definitions or to make

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new arguments.” Gutierrez, 2007 WL 1101437, at *4 (denying motion to reconsider wherein the
Court was asked “to certify a narrower class than the one initially proposed in the event that the
Court denies [the] motion for reconsideration”).

CONCLUSION
Having not met their burden to demonstrate a clear error of law, Defendants’ Motion for
Reconsideration (ECF No. 30) is hereby DENIED.

DATE: /f/2f
William H.
Senior United States District Court Judge

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