Murphy v. Labor Source, LLC

Background

Plaintiffs Marcquise Murphy and Ratanya Rogers sued Labor Source, LLC, doing business as Catstaff and One Source Staffing and Labor, and BluSky Restoration Contractors, LLC. The plaintiffs brought wage-related claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the Minnesota Fair Labor Standards Act (MFLSA), including minimum-wage and recordkeeping claims. The opinion addresses the defendants’ partial motion to dismiss and objections to Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Cowan Wright’s March 12, 2020 Report and Recommendation.

Court’s Review of the Report and Recommendation

After conducting a review of the record, the court adopted the Report and Recommendation except for its last paragraph addressing the plaintiffs’ recordkeeping claim. The court replaced that paragraph with its own analysis.

The court held that the plaintiffs sufficiently pleaded an MFLSA recordkeeping claim. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants created false timesheets, reduced the hours recorded, refused to record actual hours worked, and made some wage payments without BluSky submitting timesheets to One Source. The court concluded that these allegations were enough to state a claim at this stage of the litigation.

Rulings on the Partial Motion to Dismiss

The court granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ partial motion to dismiss.

The court denied the motion insofar as it sought:

- Dismissal, for lack of personal jurisdiction, of claims by potential FLSA collective plaintiffs who did not work in Minnesota, as to BluSky. - Dismissal, for failure to state a claim, of Count II of the plaintiffs’ First Cause of Action and Count I of their Second Cause of Action, which asserted minimum-wage claims against One Source and BluSky. - Dismissal, for failure to state a claim, of Count V of the plaintiffs’ Second Cause of Action, which asserted the recordkeeping claim against One Source and BluSky.

The court granted the motion insofar as it sought:

- Dismissal, for lack of personal jurisdiction, of claims by potential FLSA collective plaintiffs who did not work in Minnesota, as to One Source. - Dismissal, for failure to state a claim, of the collective claims in Counts I and II of the plaintiffs’ First Cause of Action, which asserted FLSA claims against One Source and BluSky.

Disposition

The order adopted the Report and Recommendation with the stated exception, granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ partial motion to dismiss, and gave the plaintiffs 21 days from the date of the order to file an amended complaint.