Limauro v. Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc.
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:20-cv-03558
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Limauro v. Consolidated Edison, Chief Judge McMahon dismissed with prejudice Limauro’s amended New York overtime claim for insufficient detail.
Joseph Limauro’s amended New York Labor Law overtime claim was dismissed with prejudice. Consolidated Edison prevailed on its motion to dismiss Count VIII.
What happened
In Limauro v. Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc., Joseph Limauro claimed that Consolidated Edison failed to pay him overtime under New York law. The court had allowed him to amend the claim after finding his original allegations too vague.
Limauro added allegations that he usually worked at least 45 hours per week, arrived early, stayed late, worked some weekends, and worked long hours during outages. The court ruled that these general estimates did not identify when he worked more than 40 hours or how often the alleged extra work occurred.
Chief Judge Colleen McMahon granted Consolidated Edison’s motion to dismiss and dismissed amended Count VIII with prejudice. The court directed the Clerk to remove the motion from the list of open motions.
The detailed version
- Limauro v. Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. · No. 1:20-cv-03558
- Colleen McMahon
- Mar. 31, 2021
Background
Joseph Limauro alleged that Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc., and associated defendants violated several laws during and after his employment as a construction-services supervisor. The opinion addresses only Count VIII, his claim under the New York Labor Law for unpaid overtime.
The court had previously dismissed the overtime claim without prejudice for failure to state a claim, meaning the allegations did not contain enough facts to support a plausible legal claim. The court allowed Limauro 21 days to amend. Limauro timely filed an amended complaint, and ConEd moved to dismiss the amended overtime claim for failure to state a claim.
Amended Allegations
The amended complaint alleged that Limauro typically worked at least 45 hours per week without receiving time-and-a-half pay for hours over 40. It also alleged that he often arrived at 6:15 a.m. for meetings, stayed until 6:00 p.m., worked both weekend days approximately twice per month, and worked seven days per week for more than two weeks during outages. The complaint alleged that these work periods sometimes exceeded 50 hours per week and that he was not paid overtime.
Court’s Analysis
The court held that the amended allegations still did not plausibly state an overtime claim. It explained that allegations that a plaintiff “typically,” “occasionally,” or “regularly” worked more than 40 hours are insufficient without more specific information about the length and frequency of the unpaid work.
The court found no specific allegations identifying when the outages occurred, how frequently they occurred, which weekends Limauro worked, or why the additional work was required. It also noted that the complaint did not allege that ConEd consistently scheduled Limauro to work more than 40 hours each week or that he received no breaks during his normal workday. As a result, the court could not identify from the complaint which weeks involved more than 40 hours of work. The court stated that the New York Labor Law overtime claim is evaluated under the same standard as a federal Fair Labor Standards Act overtime claim.
Ruling
Chief Judge Colleen McMahon granted ConEd’s motion to dismiss. The court dismissed Limauro’s amended Count VIII with prejudice, expressly barring that claim from being refiled in this action, and directed the Clerk to remove the motion at Docket #22 from the list of open motions.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.