Conte v. Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Background

Sabato Conte, Michael Murphy, Yamira Wong, Anthony Lardo, and Matthew Iarocci, described in the opinion as bridge-and-tunnel maintainers and custodians for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA), sued their employers under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 201 et seq. The opinion states that 99 additional individuals had joined the case as opt-in plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs alleged that maintainers and custodians routinely worked beyond their scheduled 40- or 48-hour workweeks without proper compensation. They attributed some of the alleged underpayment to a uniform timekeeping system called Kronos, which they said did not capture pre-shift work, restricted early clock-ins, and rounded clock-in times down to the scheduled shift start. They also alleged improper overtime calculations, including failure to account for certain differential pay, failure to calculate overtime separately for each workweek, and late wage payments.

Legal standard

Under section 216(b) of the FLSA, employees may bring an action on behalf of themselves and other employees who are similarly situated. In the Second Circuit, courts use a two-step process. At the notice stage, plaintiffs need only make a modest factual showing that they and potential opt-in plaintiffs were victims of a common policy or plan that violated the law. The court does not decide at this stage whether an actual legal violation occurred. At a later stage, the plaintiffs who opted in must show that they are in fact similarly situated and were subject to an illegal wage practice; the collective may then be decertified if the record does not support that conclusion.

Rulings

The court held that the plaintiffs met the notice-stage burden. It found that their sworn statements and those of opt-in plaintiffs described nearly identical alleged wage practices and supported an inference of a common policy or plan. The court therefore granted conditional certification of a collective consisting of former and current maintainers and custodians employed by the defendants from March 23, 2018, through the present.

The plaintiffs also sought expedited disclosure of potential opt-in plaintiffs’ contact information and court-approved notice by mail, email, and text message. The defendants had already agreed to provide the names, mailing addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers, and employment dates of potential collective members. The court found the proposed notice methods appropriate and stated that it would have granted the information-disclosure request even without the defendants’ consent.

The plaintiffs separately requested equitable tolling, which would pause the FLSA limitations period while notice was being sent. The court ruled that this issue was moot because the defendants had agreed to extend an existing tolling agreement. The court granted the plaintiffs’ motion and directed the Clerk to close the open motion at Docket Entry 52.