Ahmed v. Domino's Pizza LLC

Background

Syed Alamgir Ahmed and Abdullah Al Mamun sued Domino’s Pizza LLC, 3441 Ossining Pizza, LLC, and Rob Cookston. The plaintiffs alleged that they worked as delivery drivers and were not paid required minimum wages or overtime. They also alleged that they were required to transport other employees to and from their homes without compensation and were not paid for work during meal periods. The claims arose under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and New York Labor Law (NYLL).

3441 revised its employee handbook in May 2020 and distributed English and Bengali versions to the plaintiffs. The handbook contained an arbitration agreement requiring employment-related disputes to be resolved through final and binding arbitration. The plaintiffs signed the English acknowledgment on August 20, 2020. They argued that the Bengali translation misrepresented the arbitration agreement by stating that it was not binding. The defendants argued that translation errors did not invalidate the agreement and that the plaintiffs understood English.

Arbitration motion

The defendants moved to compel arbitration of the claims against 3441 and Cookston. To compel arbitration, the defendants had to make an initial showing that a valid agreement to arbitrate existed. The court concluded that it could not resolve whether the plaintiffs understood English and relied on the Bengali translation without a hearing. The court therefore did not determine whether the arbitration agreement was valid, and it did not address whether Cookston, who was not a signatory to the agreement, could enforce it.

Because the court dismissed the claims on pleading grounds, it denied the defendants’ motion to compel arbitration.

Motion to dismiss

The defendants also moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint alleges enough facts to state a legally plausible claim. The court accepted factual allegations as true for this motion, but it did not accept unsupported conclusions.

For the FLSA overtime claims, the plaintiffs alleged only that they regularly worked more than 40 hours per week and were not paid overtime. They did not identify a specific workweek, estimate their overtime hours, or provide other factual details showing that they worked more than 40 hours and received no overtime pay. The court held that these allegations were insufficient.

For the FLSA minimum-wage claims, the plaintiffs did not allege how much they were paid, how many hours they worked, or how much time or money was involved in transporting coworkers. The court held that these allegations were also insufficient. It further held that the plaintiffs had not alleged facts showing that unpaid transportation work either caused them to work more than 40 hours in a week or reduced their effective hourly wage below the minimum wage.

The court therefore granted the motion to dismiss the FLSA claims. It dismissed those claims with prejudice. After eliminating the federal claims, the court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction—the authority to hear related state-law claims—over the NYLL claims. The NYLL claims were dismissed without prejudice.

Leave to amend and disposition

The plaintiffs asked for another opportunity to amend their complaints. The court declined to grant leave to amend because they had already amended once after receiving notice of the defendants’ dismissal arguments and had not explained what additional facts would cure the deficiencies or submitted a proposed amended complaint.

The court’s final disposition was that the motion to compel arbitration was denied and the motion to dismiss was granted. The FLSA claims were dismissed with prejudice, the NYLL claims were dismissed without prejudice, and both cases were closed.