Edwards v. The Servicemaster Company, LLC
- Robert Lehrburger
- 1:20-cv-06124
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Edwards v. The Servicemaster Company, Judge Broderick ruled that an amended complaint did not make the pending FLSA certification motion moot.
The order affects Tanesha Edwards and Jessica Ortega’s pending motion for conditional certification of an FLSA collective action, as well as the defendants’ ability to seek new briefing on that motion.
What happened
In Edwards v. The Servicemaster Company, LLC, the plaintiffs amended their complaint while their request to conditionally certify a Fair Labor Standards Act collective action was pending. The question was whether that amendment made the certification request moot, meaning no longer relevant.
The defendants argued that the earlier certification request was moot and sought permission to submit new briefs based on a Fifth Circuit decision rejecting the usual two-step certification process. The plaintiffs argued that the amended complaint made no meaningful changes to their collective-action allegations. The court found the allegations substantially similar or identical and concluded that the amendment did not prejudice the defendants.
The court ordered that the amended complaint did not make the certification request moot and stated that it would decide the request using the parties’ existing briefs. Judge Vernon S. Broderick issued the order.
The detailed version
- Edwards v. The Servicemaster Company, LLC · No. 1:20-cv-06124
- Robert Lehrburger
- Jan. 26, 2021
Background
Tanesha Edwards and Jessica Ortega, on behalf of themselves and similarly situated people, filed an amended complaint while their motion for conditional certification was pending. Conditional certification is the initial step in deciding whether a proposed Fair Labor Standards Act collective action may proceed with notice to potentially similar workers.
The parties submitted a joint letter addressing whether the amended complaint made the pending motion moot. The defendants contended that the prior certification motion was moot and requested an opportunity to brief certification again based on a Fifth Circuit decision that rejected the two-step approach used to analyze Fair Labor Standards Act collective actions. The plaintiffs contended that the amended complaint did not materially change their collective-action allegations.
Court’s Analysis
The court stated that Second Circuit law was not definitive on whether an amended complaint moots a pending motion for class certification. After comparing the initial and amended complaints, however, the court found that the Fair Labor Standards Act collective-action allegations were substantially similar, if not identical. The court therefore concluded that the amendment did not prejudice the defendants as to the pending certification motion.
The court also rejected the defendants’ request to adopt the Fifth Circuit’s approach, explaining that Second Circuit precedent required the court to use the two-step approach. The court further observed that the defendants did not actually argue that the amended complaint mooted the certification motion or that the amendment caused them prejudice.
Disposition
The court ordered that the filing of the amended complaint did not moot the plaintiffs’ pending motion for conditional certification. It stated that it would decide that motion based on the briefs already submitted. The order did not decide whether conditional certification should ultimately be granted or denied. Judge Vernon S. Broderick signed the order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.