Kincheloe v. American Airlines, Inc.
- Beth Freeman
- 5:21-cv-00515
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Kincheloe v. American Airlines, Inc., Judge Freeman denied American Airlines’s request to pause class-certification briefing while its transfer motion was pending.
American Airlines, Inc. and Robert Kincheloe; the ruling concerns the timing of briefing on conditional class certification, not whether certification should be granted.
What happened
In Kincheloe v. American Airlines, Inc., American Airlines asked the court to pause briefing on Robert Kincheloe’s request for conditional class certification until the court decided American’s motion to transfer the case. Kincheloe opposed the request.
The court briefly examined the transfer motion and applied a test used for deciding whether to pause discovery while a potentially case-ending motion is pending. American argued that different standards for certain collective actions in the Ninth and Fifth Circuits made the transfer decision important to the certification briefing. Kincheloe argued that the transfer motion was unlikely to succeed and that pausing the briefing would cause unnecessary delay.
The court found that Kincheloe’s arguments against transfer appeared strong and denied American Airlines’s motion to stay the briefing. Judge Beth Labson Freeman did not decide the transfer motion or the request for conditional class certification in this order.
The detailed version
- Kincheloe v. American Airlines, Inc. · No. 5:21-cv-00515
- Beth Freeman
- Apr. 13, 2021
Background
American Airlines moved to stay, or pause, briefing on Robert Kincheloe’s motion for conditional class certification. American Airlines asked the court to keep that briefing paused until the court resolved its motion to transfer the case. Kincheloe opposed the requested stay and argued that the forum-selection clause supporting the transfer motion was invalid.
Court’s analysis
The court adapted a test used in the Northern District of California for deciding whether to stay discovery while a potentially dispositive motion is pending. The test requires a preliminary review of the pending motion’s merits to determine whether a stay is justified.
American Airlines argued that the standards for conditional certification in Age Discrimination in Employment Act and Fair Labor Standards Act collective actions differed substantially between the Ninth and Fifth Circuits. It argued that the certification briefing therefore depended substantially on where the case would proceed. Kincheloe argued that the Fifth Circuit decision cited by American Airlines might not apply and that a stay would cause unnecessary delay.
After reviewing the parties’ briefing on the motion to transfer, the court found that Kincheloe’s arguments opposing transfer appeared strong. The court therefore determined that pausing the conditional-certification briefing was not warranted.
Disposition and scope
The court denied American Airlines’s motion to stay briefing on Kincheloe’s motion for conditional class certification. This order did not decide the motion to transfer or the motion for conditional class certification. Judge Beth Labson Freeman signed the order on April 13, 2021.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.