Dreyer v. Baker Hughes Oilfield Operations, Inc.

Filing 28

ORDER granting in part 9 Motion to Certify Class; denying as moot 23 Motion to Strike. Proposed notice and consent form due 12/19/08. (Signed by Magistrate Judge Stephen Wm Smith) Parties notified. (jmarchand)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS HOUSTON DIVISION DA V ID DREYER AND KATHERINE STEWART,
IN D IV ID U A LLY AND ON BEHALF OF OTHER E M P L O Y E E S SIMILARLY SITUATED

Plaintiffs, v. BA KER HUGHES OILFIELD OPERATIONS, INC., D/B/A BAKER HUGHES BUSINESS SUPPORT SE R V I C E S , Defendant.

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CIV IL ACTION H-08-1212

M E M O R A N D U M AND ORDER T h is Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) lawsuit is before the court on plaintiffs David D re ye r and Katherine Stewart's motion for conditional certification of a collective action (D k t. 9). Defendant Baker Hughes Oilfield Operations opposes the motion (Dkt. 17). H a v in g carefully considered the briefing by both sides, the court grants the motion in part.1 B a c k gro u n d D re ye r and Stewart worked as Information Technology (IT) Technical Analysts in the IT Services Department of Baker Hughes, a large oilfield services company. At the time D re ye r and Stewart were employed, Baker Hughes's IT Department was, and still is, divided in to four groups: (1) the Planning and Design Center, (2) the Customer Services Group, (3) th e Network Operations Group, and (4) the Network Services Group. The Network Services G r o u p was, then as now, further subdivided into three teams: (1) the Enterprise Server Team,

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In light of the court's order, plaintiffs' pending motion to strike (Dkt. 23) is denied as moot.

(2 ) the Tools Team, and (3) the Messaging and Active Directory Team. Dreyer and Stewart both worked on the Enterprise Server Team of the Network S e rv ic e s Group at one of Baker Hughes's offices in Houston, Texas. As members of the E n terprise Server Team, their principal duties were to maintain and provide technical support f o r servers. Specifically, among other things, Dreyer and Stewart were responsible for o rd e rin g new servers, discarding old servers, installing and updating server software, backing u p servers, monitoring server performance, and fixing servers when they malfunctioned. T h e y also responded to reports (called "tickets") that server users submitted when they e n c o u n te r e d problems using the servers. D re ye r and Stewart, who were both salaried employees, claim that they frequently w o rk e d more than forty hours a week and were not paid overtime as required by the FLSA. S e e k in g to represent a class of similarly situated workers, they filed this motion for c o n d itio n a l certification of an FLSA collective action. A n a ly sis T h e FLSA allows one or more employees to sue their employer on behalf of th e m s e lv e s and other "similarly situated" employees. 29 U.S.C. § 216(b) (2006). When e m p lo ye e s do so, the resulting lawsuit is called a "collective action." See, e.g., Ryan v. Staff C a r e , Inc., 497 F. Supp. 2d 820, 823 (N.D. Tex. 2007). An FLSA collective action, unlike a class action, requires potential plaintiffs to opt-in to the lawsuit. But, like a class action, a collective action must first be certified by the court. Id.

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In deciding whether to certify an FLSA collective action, district courts within the F if th Circuit generally follow a two-stage approach. Id. at 823-24. At the first stage, called th e "notice stage," the court determines whether potential collective action members should b e notified. See, e.g., Simmons v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., No. H-06-1820, 2007 WL 210008, a t *4 (S.D. Tex. Jan. 24, 2007); Prater v. Commerce Equities Mgmt. Co., No. H-07-2349, 2 0 0 7 WL 4146714, at *3 (S.D. Tex. Nov. 19, 2007). Review at this stage is lenient; the p lain tiff s must show only that there is some factual basis for trying their cases together with th e cases of other potential members. See, e.g., Simmons, 2007 WL 210008, at *4; Prater, 2 0 0 7 WL 4146714, at *3. If the court finds that this standard has been met, it conditionally c e rtif ie s the collective action and allows notice to be sent to potential plaintiffs. See, e.g., R y a n , 497 F. Supp. 2d at 824. The second stage, called the "certification stage," occurs after d is c o v e ry is largely complete and the defendant moves to decertify the collective action. Id. a t 824. At that stage, the court, which ideally has more information before it than it did at th e notice stage, finally determines whether the representative plaintiffs and the plaintiffs w h o have opted in are sufficiently similarly situated so that the lawsuit can proceed as a c o lle c tiv e action. See, e.g., Prater, 2007 WL 4146714, at *4. B a k e r Hughes advances five arguments for why the court should not conditionally c e rtif y the plaintiffs' proposed collective action. The court finds none of them persuasive. F irs t, Baker Hughes argues that conditional certification is inappropriate because the c o u rt would need to conduct an individualized inquiry to determine whether each opt-in

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p la in tif f should be a member of the class. It cites numerous cases that stand for the p r o p o s itio n that when a collective action is defined in terms of specific job duties, c o n d itio n a l certification is unwarranted because the court must examine the job duties of all p o te n tia l members to decide whether they belong in the action. See, e.g., Holt v. Rite-Aid C o r p ., 333 F. Supp. 2d 1265, 1274-75 (M.D. Ala. 2004); Mike v. Safeco Ins. Co. of Am., 274 F . Supp. 2d 216, 221 (D. Conn. 2003). T h is argument is far too sweeping. If a need to inquire into job duties defeated c o n d itio n a l certification, then employers could completely avoid FLSA collective actions by g iv in g numerous different job titles to employees with the same duties. Thus, to the extent th a t these cases suggest than any inquiry into job duties defeats conditional certification, the c o u rt rejects them. Instead, the court prefers to adopt a rule that hews more closely to the s ta tu t o ry "similarly situated" standard: if the job duties among potential members of the class v a ry significantly, then class certification should not be granted. Cf. Harris v. Fee Transp. S e r v s ., No. Civ.A.3:05CV0077-P, 2006 WL 1994586, at *5 (N.D. Tex. May 15, 2006) (n o tin g the "significant" differences between the job duties of potential plaintiffs); Aguirre v . SBC Commc'ns, Inc., No. H-05-3198, 2007 WL 772756, at *9 (S.D. Tex. Mar. 12, 2007) (no tin g that plaintiffs are not similarly situated if their job duties vary "substantially"). E m p lo yin g this standard, the court finds on the record before it that the job duties of IT employees who worked outside of the Enterprise Server Team are too dissimilar to the job d u tie s performed by Dreyer and Stewart. The IT employees who come closest to being

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s im ila rly situated are those employed in the Customer Services Group. But, though Dreyer a n d Stewart valiantly argue that these employees are similar to them because they also re sp o n d to user queries regarding computer hardware problems, this similarity is too abstract. T h e evidence shows that IT workers in the Customer Services Group are principally r e sp o n s ib l e for providing technical support for users of desktop personal computers, in c lu d in g the software that runs on them. This type of work is fundamentally different from th e more complex server-side work that Dreyer and Stewart performed. At the same time, the court disagrees with Baker Hughes's contention that the job d u tie s of IT employees on the Enterprise Server Team varied so significantly as to preclude c la ss certification. While members of the Enterprise Server Team may have had to work on d if f ere n t projects from time to time, their basic duties appear to have been the same. G iv e n the court's understanding of the job duties of the plaintiffs and those of other B a k e r Hughes IT employees, the current proposed class definition does not encompass only " sim ilarly situated" employees. As in the class-action context, this court has the power to m o d if y an FLSA collective action definition on its own. See, e.g., Baldridge v. SBC C o m m c 'n s , Inc., 404 F.3d 930, 931-32 (5th Cir. 2005) (noting the court's power to "limit the sc o p e " of a proposed FLSA collective action). The court concludes that a more appropriate c la s s definition would be limited to employees on the Enterprise Server Team. S e c o n d , Baker Hughes argues that in order to be similarly situated, the named and p o te n tia l plaintiffs must have been victims of a single decision, policy, or plan. See, e.g.,

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A g u ir r e v. SBC Commc'ns, Inc., No. H-05-3198, 2007 WL 772756, at *9 (S.D. Tex. Mar. 12, 2 0 0 7 ). According to Baker Hughes, the only common decision, policy, or plan identified by th e plaintiffs is the company's alleged misclassification of them as FLSA exempt employees, w h ic h is insufficient to support certification. See, e.g., Trinh v. JP Morgan Chase & Co., No. 0 7 -C V -16 6 6 , 2008 WL 1860161, at *4 n.2 (S.D. Cal. Apr. 22, 2008). T h e court recognizes that many courts have viewed a single decision, policy, or plan a s necessary for employees to be similarly situated. It respectfully disagrees. While the p rese n ce of a single decision, policy, or plan is often good evidence that employees are s im ila rly situated, it should not be a requirement. If it were, then subgroups of employees w h o share the same duties would be denied collective action treatment as long as their em p loyer makes decisions, policies, and plans for only the larger groups of which they are a part. The remedial purpose of the FLSA's collective action mechanism should not be so e a sily evaded. As long as plaintiffs are able to show that other employees are "similarly situ a ted ," the lack of a common decision, policy, or plan should not be fatal. T h ird , Baker Hughes claims that an FLSA collective action can be conditionally c e rtif ie d only if the plaintiffs prove that others are interested in opting in to the lawsuit. See, e .g ., Rodgers v. CVS Pharm., Inc., No. 8:05-CV770T-27MSS, 2006 WL 752831, at *3 (M.D. F la . Mar. 23, 2006). But this is not a statutory requirement, and several courts have rejected it. See, e.g., Heckler v. DK Funding, LLC, 502 F. Supp. 2d 777, 780 (N.D. Ill. 2007).Reab v . Elec. Arts, Inc., 214 F.R.D. 623, 629 (D. Colo. 2002). Moreover, such a requirement is

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a t odds with the Supreme Court's command that the FLSA be liberally construed to effect its purposes. See Tony & Susan Alamo Found. v. Sec'y of Labor, 471 U.S. 290, 296 (1985). B a k er Hughes's fourth argument is that the potential applicability of several FLSA e x e m p tio n s -- s u c h as the administrative, computer employee, and highly compensated e m p lo yee exemptions--counsels against conditional certification because the court would n e e d to examine each employee's job duties to determine whether each exemption applies. T h is argument fails because exemptions are merits-based defenses to an FLSA claim. See, e .g ., Foraker v. Highpoint Sw., No H-06-1856, 2006 WL 2585047, at *4 n.16 (S.D. Tex. S e p t. 7, 2006). Consequently, the possible applicability of one or more of them cannot defeat c o n d itio n a l certification. Id. F i n a ll y, Baker Hughes contends that the plaintiff's proposed class definition is too v a g u e . Because the court has redefined the class, this argument is now moot. T h e court emphasizes that its decision to conditionally certify a collective action at this f ir s t stage does not prevent Baker Hughes from filing a motion to decertify the class at the se c o n d stage after additional discovery has occurred. Final certification at that stage will e n ta il greater scrutiny than the court has given here. F o r these reasons, plaintiffs' motion is granted in part. The following class is c o n d itio n a lly certified for purposes of this FLSA collective action: A ll current and former U.S. based employees of Baker Hughes Oilfield O p e ra tio n s , Inc., d/b/a Baker Hughes Business Support Services, who held nonm a n a g eria l positions in the Network Services Group on the Enterprise Server T e a m at any time between April 18, 2005 and the present and who were not 7

p a id for hours worked in excess of forty (40) in any given work week at onea n d -a -h a lf (1.5) times their regular rate. It is therefore ORDERED that the parties submit a proposed notice and consent form b y December 19, 2008 containing (1) consent to magistrate judge jurisdiction and (2) a fortyf iv e day response deadline. If the parties cannot agree on the balance of the notice and c o n se n t form by that date, each may submit its proposed notice supported by a letter brief no lo n g e r than two pages.2 S ig n e d at Houston, Texas on December 11, 2008.

Samples of notices the court has previously approved may be found on PACER in the following cases: Bolick v. Mgmt. by Skylane, LLC, H-07-2261 (Dkt. 16) and Guerrero v. Habla Commc'ns, Inc., H-05-3620 (Dkt. 48). 8

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