Johnson v. Siemens Industry, Inc.

Background

Brandon Johnson sued Siemens Industry, Inc., his former employer, under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), alleging that Siemens failed to pay overtime wages. He brought the case for himself and a proposed nationwide, opt-in group of employees. The complaint did not state Johnson’s residence or workplace. Siemens submitted an uncontested declaration stating that Johnson was employed in Orange County, which is in the Central District of California.

Johnson was represented by Lebe Law, APLC. In an earlier related proceeding, the firm had filed a nearly identical FLSA action in the Central District on behalf of another named plaintiff. That earlier court dismissed the FLSA claim without prejudice because the complaint did not plead enough facts. The earlier court also declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over state-law claims after finding it lacked jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act over those claims. The earlier federal case was closed, although an appeal concerning the state-law claims was pending.

Transfer standards

Siemens sought transfer under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), which permits transfer for the convenience of the parties and witnesses and in the interest of justice, and under the first-to-file rule. That rule allows a court to transfer, stay, or dismiss a later-filed action when a similar action was filed earlier in another federal court. The court considers the timing of the actions, the similarity of the parties, and the similarity of the issues.

Court’s analysis

The court concluded that the ordinary convenience factors did not strongly favor either side. However, Johnson’s choice of the Northern District of California received little weight because his employment and the alleged misconduct were connected to the Central District. The fact that the case was brought as a proposed group action also reduced the weight given to the named plaintiff’s forum choice.

The court found that the first-to-file rule strongly supported transfer. Although the named plaintiffs in the two cases differed, the same law firm was attempting to bring substantially the same claims on behalf of the same group of employees. The complaint in Johnson’s case was nearly word-for-word identical to the complaint previously dismissed for failure to state a claim. The court found that filing essentially the same complaint in a new district, instead of amending it in the earlier case, created an inescapable appearance of seeking a different result. The fact that the earlier case was closed did not prevent applying the first-to-file rule because the concern about inconsistent results and forum shopping remained.

Disposition

Judge Seeborg granted Siemens’s motion to transfer the action to the Central District of California. The court did not decide Johnson’s motion for conditional certification of an FLSA collective or Siemens’s motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). The order stated that those motions could be re-noticed or refiled after transfer under the Central District’s rules and the assigned judge’s directions.