Futrell v. Cargill, Incorporated
- John Tunheim
- 0:22-cv-00969
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 17
In Futrell v. Cargill, Judge Tunheim denied dismissal of four wage claims but granted dismissal without prejudice of the Wisconsin claim.
The named plaintiffs and proposed FLSA, New York, and Wisconsin groups of Cargill workers affected by the alleged timekeeping and wage-payment practices. The federal and New York claims remained pending; the Wisconsin claim was dismissed without prejudice.
What happened
In Futrell v. Cargill, Incorporated, James Futrell, April Brown, and Chris Rogers accused Cargill of failing to accurately track hours during a Kronos outage and failing to pay some workers all wages and overtime on time. They brought federal, New York, and Wisconsin wage claims as a proposed collective and class action.
The court ruled that the allegations were enough to support the federal overtime claim and Rogers’s New York claims for wages, wage notices, and wage statements. But the plaintiffs agreed that Brown had not worked overtime, so she had not shown an injury supporting the Wisconsin claim for the proposed Wisconsin class.
Judge Tunheim granted Cargill’s motion to dismiss in part and denied it in part. He denied dismissal of the federal and New York claims and granted dismissal without prejudice of the Wisconsin claim.
The detailed version
- Futrell v. Cargill, Incorporated · No. 0:22-cv-00969
- John Tunheim
- Mar. 15, 2023
Background
James Futrell, April Brown, and Chris Rogers sued Cargill, Incorporated, alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), Wisconsin’s Wage Payment and Overtime Law, and several provisions of the New York Labor Law (NYLL). They sought unpaid wages, overtime, liquidated damages, statutory penalties, and equitable relief for themselves and proposed groups of similarly situated workers.
Cargill used timekeeping software and hardware operated and maintained by Kronos. The complaint alleged that a ransomware attack on Kronos beginning around December 11, 2021, interfered with Cargill’s timekeeping systems. The plaintiffs alleged that Cargill estimated employees’ hours using methods such as scheduled hours or prior paychecks, resulting in some employees not being paid for all hours worked, including overtime. Rogers separately alleged that Cargill failed to provide New York employees with required wage notices and wage statements.
Cargill moved to dismiss the entire action for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and failure to state a claim. A subject-matter jurisdiction challenge asks whether the federal court has authority to hear a claim. A failure-to-state-a-claim challenge asks whether the complaint alleges enough facts to make a legally plausible claim.
Court’s Analysis
The court held that the plaintiffs had alleged enough injury to establish standing for the FLSA claims at the motion-to-dismiss stage. The plaintiffs alleged that they were not paid all overtime wages they were owed, or that the wages were not paid on time. The court treated alleged monetary harm from late or incomplete wage payments as sufficient at this stage, regardless of whether the plaintiffs would ultimately prove the amount owed.
The court rejected Cargill’s argument that later $250 inconvenience payments and “true-up” payments for identified underpayments eliminated the FLSA claims. The court concluded that those payments did not change the alleged failure to pay wages and overtime properly in the first place.
The court dismissed the Wisconsin claim because Brown was the only named plaintiff connected to the Wisconsin claim, and the plaintiffs conceded that she did not work overtime during the relevant period. Because Brown therefore had not alleged a personal injury supporting standing, the court granted dismissal of Count 2 without prejudice.
The court concluded that Rogers had standing for the NYLL claims because he alleged that Cargill failed to pay him proper wages and overtime and failed to provide required wage notices and statements. The court also held that the complaint contained sufficient factual allegations to support the FLSA and NYLL claims, including allegations that Cargill failed to keep accurate time records and failed to pay for actual hours worked.
Disposition
The court ordered that Cargill’s motion to dismiss was granted in part and denied in part. It denied the motion as to Count 1, the FLSA violations; Count 3, the NYLL minimum-wage and overtime violations; Count 4, the NYLL wage-notice violations; and Count 5, the NYLL wage-statement violations. It granted without prejudice the motion as to Count 2, the Wisconsin Wage Payment and Overtime Law violations.
The ruling addressed whether the claims could proceed based on the allegations at the pleading stage. The court stated that the plaintiffs would later need to prove that they worked the claimed overtime hours and that Cargill failed to pay them fully and on time. Judge John R. Tunheim issued the order.
Read the full 17-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.