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Duane Morris Takeaway:This week’s episode features Duane Morris partner Jerry Maatman and associates Olga Romadin and Elizabeth Underwood with their discussion of a key ruling in the Southern District of New York denying certification of an FLSA collective action.
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Episode Transcript
Jerry Maatman: Thank you, loyal blog listeners and readers, for joining us for the next episode of our weekly podcast series, The Class Action Weekly Wire. I’m Jerry Maatman, a partner at Duane Morris, and joining me today on the podcast are my colleagues Elizabeth Underwood and Olga Romadin. Thanks so much for being here.
Elizabeth Underwood: Great to be here, thank you for having me.
Olga Romadin: Thanks, Jerry. Always good to be on the podcast.
Jerry: Today, we’re going to unpack a major recent decision from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that’s getting quite a bit of attention in the wage and hour area. It involves a failed attempt by a plaintiff’s counsel to conditionally certify an FLSA collective action against a medical school. Elizabeth, could you set the stage for our listeners on this case?
Elizabeth: Sure, Jerry. This case involves a study coordinator who sued a medical school and related entities, claiming they misclassified him and others as learned professionals, exempt from overtime compensation under the FLSA. He wanted to bring a collective action on behalf of similarly situated research and study coordinators who allegedly weren’t paid overtime.
Jerry: And as I understand it, the ruling at question involved not a preliminary preemptive motion to dismiss, but rather a motion for conditional certification of a collective action, to, in essence, certify this wage in our case.
Olga: Exactly. The case had already gone through some discovery, and that’s important because it affected the standard the court applied when evaluating whether to conditionally certify the collective.
Jerry: Let’s talk about the standard, Elizabeth. I know that that standard around the United States is in flux. What did the Southern District of New York opine on in terms of that standard?
Elizabeth: Sure, so typically at step one of the FLSA certification process, plaintiffs just need to make a modest factual showing that they, and others, are similarly situated. But here, because discovery had already taken place, the court applied a more demanding modest plus standard.
Jerry: That’s not quite, then, like, a Rule 56 summary judgment standard, but it’s certainly more than the usual kind of ‘breathe on a mirror’ standard, where plaintiffs have enjoyed, from the analytics we keep, about an 80% success factor.
Olga: Right. The court expected more developed evidence, not just general allegations or a couple of declarations.
Jerry: In this particular case, what did the plaintiffs offer in support of their motion to conditionally certify the collective action?
Elizabeth: They relied on two declarations and six job descriptions to argue that coordinators were uniformly misclassified and performed similar duties.
Jerry: That’s a little thin, doesn’t sound like much, given the scope that the plaintiff was aiming for in terms of the size of the case.
Olga: It wasn’t. He was trying to represent hundreds of employees across dozens of departments. The court found that his evidence just didn’t capture that breadth or demonstrate meaningful similarity in job duties.
Elizabeth: The defendants came in with much more robust evidence, including 49 job descriptions, showing a wide range of responsibilities. Some coordinators were doing basic data collection, while others were designing clinical studies, making medical recommendations, or interacting directly with patients.
Olga: And the court emphasized that those differences mattered. The roles varied in terms of intellectual rigor, autonomy, and educational requirements, and all this was relevant to whether the learned professional exemption applies.
Jerry: By my way of thinking, having done this for about 35 years, that’s a really key point, because often an employer will ascribe a label to a certain job and classify everyone under that label in the same way, and for the court to determine that simple matter of labeling doesn’t render everybody similarly situated, I think it’s a very key finding by the court.
Olga: Yeah, and it kind of backfired. The plaintiff relied on testimony from the employer’s vice president of human resources, but that testimony actually reinforced the idea that job duties varied widely across coordinators.
Elizabeth: So instead of showing uniformity, it highlighted differences. And the court specifically noted that this undermined the plaintiffs’ argument for collective treatment.
Jerry: So, the bottom line with the court ruling is no conditional certification.
Olga: Correct. The court denied conditional certification, finding the plaintiff failed to meet even the modest plus standards.
Jerry: Let’s turn to the implications of this ruling and the broader meaning of it in terms of the wage and hour space. What should the employers take away from this particular decision?
Elizabeth: So, one big takeaway is the importance of detailed, accurate job descriptions. The employer’s ability to produce dozens of descriptions showing meaningful differences across roles was critical in this case.
Olga: And not just having them – maintaining and organizing them so they can be used effectively in litigation.
Jerry: What about the strategy on the defense side in terms of encountering and opposing these sorts of motions?
Elizabeth: This case highlights the value of pushing for pre-certification discovery. If you can develop a factual record early, you may be able to trigger that higher modest plus standard. And, once you’re there, submitting your own evidence, such as varied job descriptions or testimony, can be very effective in defeating certification. Plaintiffs need more than surface-level evidence to move forward collectively.
Olga: And for employers, this is a reminder that variability in roles, if properly documented, can be a strong defense against collective actions.
Jerry: Well, those are great insights and analysis, Elizabeth and Olga, so thanks so much for joining us on our podcast this week, and I urge all of our listeners to keep checking the Duane Morris Class Action Defense Blog for updates such as this ruling, and we’ll make sure to keep everyone on top of new developments in both the wage and hour space and across the board on class action rulings. So, thanks for being here, and thanks to our listeners for tuning in.
Elizabeth: Thanks for having me, and thanks to the listeners for being here.
Olga: Thanks, everyone. Great to be here.
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