OConner v. Agilant Solutions, Inc.
- Sarah Cave
- 1:18-cv-06937
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Oconner v. Agilant Solutions, Inc., Judge Woods approved a lawsuit notice, rejected some employer language, and extended discovery deadlines.
The plaintiffs, Agilant Solutions, Inc., and people who may receive or consider joining the collective action were affected by the notice requirements and schedule extensions.
What happened
In Oconner v. Agilant Solutions, Inc., the parties disputed the wording of a proposed notice to people who might join the lawsuit. The dispute included language about arbitration agreements, possible recovery of the defendant’s costs, the defendant’s denial of wrongdoing, use of a claims administrator, the notice period, and whom potential participants should contact.
The court approved the plaintiffs’ proposed notice with a modification. It allowed the arbitration language, rejected the defendant’s proposed warning about costs and disbursements, required the defendant’s agreed sentence denying wrongdoing, approved a 90-day notice period, and declined to require a third-party claims administrator or contact with the defendant’s lawyers or human-resources department. The court also approved extensions of the fact-discovery, deposition, expert-discovery, summary-judgment, and case-management deadlines.
Judge Gregory H. Woods issued the order on December 17, 2019. The order addressed notice and case scheduling and did not decide the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- OConner v. Agilant Solutions, Inc. · No. 1:18-cv-06937
- Sarah Cave
- Dec. 17, 2019
Background
The plaintiffs brought the lawsuit individually and on behalf of others similarly situated. The parties submitted a joint letter dated December 9, 2019, concerning the proposed notice to potential members of the collective action and proposed extensions to the discovery schedule.
Notice Dispute
The defendant objected to the plaintiffs’ proposed language about arbitration agreements. The court found that language reasonable and consistent with authority from the Southern District of New York and other federal courts. The court stated that whether an arbitration agreement is enforceable is a fact-specific merits issue that should not be decided during the first stage of approving notice for a conditional collective action. Because the court had not yet decided whether the arbitration agreement was enforceable, it declined to find factually incorrect the proposed statement that the agreement did not prohibit joining the lawsuit.
The court rejected the defendant’s proposal to tell potential participants that the defendant intended to seek recovery of costs and disbursements. It reasoned that the language could intimidate recipients in a way disproportionate to the likelihood that such costs or counterclaim damages would occur to a significant degree. The court also agreed that the defendant’s denial of wrongdoing did not need to be repeated throughout the notice. Because the plaintiffs agreed to include the defendant’s proposed sentence in the section explaining what the lawsuit was about, the court directed that sentence to be included.
The court agreed that the plaintiffs were not required to use a third-party claims administrator. It also confirmed that a 90-day notice period was warranted and found no reason to direct potential collective members to contact the defendant or its counsel or human-resources department. The court therefore approved the plaintiffs’ proposed notice with the modifications described in the order.
Scheduling Rulings
The court approved extensions to the discovery schedule. Fact discovery was extended to April 15, 2020, and depositions to April 14,
- Expert discovery was extended to May 31,
- Parties offering expert testimony were required to make the applicable disclosures by April 15, 2020, and parties opposing such claims were required to make their disclosures by May 1,
- The deadline for summary-judgment motions was extended to June 30, 2020.
The court adjourned the February 7, 2020 status conference to July 15, 2020, at 4:00 p.m., and required the parties to file a joint case-status letter by July 8, 2020. The existing case-management plan remained in effect except where this order expressly changed it.
Disposition
Judge Gregory H. Woods approved the proposed notice with the stated modification and approved the proposed discovery-schedule extensions. This order concerned litigation notice and scheduling; it did not resolve the merits of the plaintiffs’ claims or the enforceability of the arbitration agreement.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.