Flores v. Mission Ceviche, LLC

Background

Daniela Flores moved under Section 216(b) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for conditional certification of an employee collective. The proposed collective consisted of all non-exempt employees employed by the defendants at any location on or after October 19, 2017. Flores also requested approval of proposed notice and consent documents, distribution of those documents, production of information about potential collective members, workplace posting, and tolling of the FLSA limitations period. The defendants did not file an opposition.

Court’s Analysis

For conditional certification, the court required a “modest factual showing” that Flores and potential opt-in plaintiffs were victims of a common policy or plan that violated the law. The court stated that Flores clearly met this low standard of proof.

Rulings

The court granted the motion for conditional collective certification. It approved the proposed consent form and notice and allowed them to be distributed to covered employees by mail, email, or text message. Opt-in plaintiffs could send their consent forms directly to Flores’s counsel.

The court granted in part Flores’s request for defendants to produce, in Excel format, information about covered employees. Defendants were required to produce the names, titles, compensation rates, employment dates, last known mailing addresses, email addresses, and known telephone numbers by December 9, 2024. The court denied the request for Social Security numbers without prejudice because Flores had not shown with specificity that the sensitive information was necessary at that stage.

The court required Flores’s counsel to post the notice and consent form at the defendants’ places of business where covered employees worked by December 3, 2024. It also tolled, or paused, the FLSA limitations period from October 19, 2023, through the end of the opt-in period. The clerk was directed to terminate the motions at Docket 39 and Docket 47.