Weng v. HungryPanda US, Inc.

Background

Qiang Weng brought a collective action on behalf of himself and other similarly situated people against HungryPanda US, Inc., doing business as HungryPanda, Jiawei Sun, and Kelu Liu. He alleged violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the New York Labor Law (NYLL). Weng had worked as a delivery man for HungryPanda for several months in 2019 and had signed an agreement stating that he was an independent contractor rather than an employee.

The court’s April 21, 2020 scheduling order required motions to amend the pleadings or join additional parties to be filed by May 21, 2020. Weng filed his motion to amend on January 25, 2021. He sought to add factual allegations about his own working conditions, add Hui Ping Yan as a named plaintiff, and add Molly Tang as a defendant.

The proposed additional allegations about Weng

The court applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b)(4), which requires good cause to modify a scheduling-order deadline. The court explained that good cause generally depends on the moving party’s diligence and is not shown when the proposed amendment relies on information the party knew or should have known before the deadline.

The court denied leave to add Weng’s proposed factual allegations. The proposed allegations concerned matters including the terms under which Weng worked, the nature of his work, the supervision and control he experienced, and his pay. The court found that Weng knew these facts when he filed the complaint or before the amendment deadline. It also noted that Defendants had provided Weng with the independent-contractor agreement in their initial disclosures on February 10, 2020. The court found that Weng’s explanation—that his lawyer later obtained more details from him—did not establish good cause and instead showed a lack of diligence.

The proposed addition of Hui Ping Yan

The court also denied Weng’s motion to add Yan as a named plaintiff. Yan had submitted an affidavit supporting Weng’s earlier motion for conditional certification of an FLSA collective in July 2020, but Weng did not seek to add Yan at that time. The court found that Weng then waited five more months, until after Defendants indicated that they intended to seek judgment on the pleadings, without providing a justification for the delay.

The court also found that Weng had not explained how adding Yan would aid the fair and efficient resolution of the claims. It was unpersuaded by Weng’s argument that denying the amendment might require Yan to bring a separate state-court action or an administrative complaint. The court stated that Weng sought to represent a collective of similarly situated HungryPanda workers and that, based on Weng’s own account, Yan was similarly situated. It could not identify a reason why Yan’s interests would not be adequately represented even if Yan were not a named plaintiff.

The proposed addition of Molly Tang

The court denied leave to add Tang as a defendant because the proposed amendment would be futile. An amendment is futile when the proposed claim could not survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.

Under the FLSA, an individual is an employer if the person has control over the company’s operations in a way related to the plaintiff’s employment. The court discussed four factors: the power to hire and fire employees; supervision and control of work schedules or employment conditions; determination of the rate and method of payment; and maintenance of employment records.

Weng’s proposed amended complaint alleged that Tang had those powers and had delegated them to subordinates. The court found that these allegations merely listed the four factors in conclusory terms. Weng did not explain how Tang’s signature on a substitution-of-counsel stipulation showed that she was his employer, and he did not allege specific facts about Tang’s workplace role or authority. The court therefore concluded that the proposed allegations were not adequately pleaded and that adding Tang would be futile.

Ruling and next steps

The court denied Weng’s motion for leave to amend his complaint. The order did not decide the underlying FLSA or NYLL claims. It directed the parties to submit a proposed briefing schedule for Defendants’ anticipated motion for judgment on the pleadings, or proposed next steps if Defendants no longer intended to pursue that motion.