Mangahas v. Eight Oranges Inc.
- Lewis Liman
- 1:22-cv-04150
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 22
In Mangahas v. Eight Oranges, Judge Liman granted conditional collective certification, authorized notice, and denied equitable tolling.
Jessy Mangahas, the 14 opt-in plaintiffs, and potential tipped workers who worked at The Bao or Uluh during the court-approved notice period. The order also required Eight Oranges Inc. and the other defendants to provide contact information and permitted notice to be sent to potential participants.
What happened
In Jessy Mangahas v. Eight Oranges Inc., Mangahas and 14 other workers asked the court to allow restaurant workers to join a collective lawsuit under the Fair Labor Standards Act. They alleged that the restaurants improperly shared tips with managers and other workers, required excessive non-tipped work, and committed other wage violations.
The court found that Mangahas and the other workers provided enough evidence at this early stage to show that they may have been affected by common pay practices. The court did not decide whether the restaurants actually violated the law or whether the workers will ultimately win.
Judge Lewis J. Liman granted conditional certification, approved notice by mail, email, and text message, allowed a three-year notice period, and authorized a reminder notice with a neutral disclaimer. He denied the request to pause the filing deadline for potential participants automatically and ordered the defendants to provide contact information within 14 days.
The detailed version
- Mangahas v. Eight Oranges Inc. · No. 1:22-cv-04150
- Lewis Liman
- Oct. 18, 2022
Background
Jessy Mangahas, along with 14 opt-in plaintiffs, moved for conditional certification of a collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), court-authorized notice, and expedited discovery. The proposed collective consisted of servers, runners, bussers, bartenders, and barbacks who worked or had worked at The Bao and Uluh, restaurants operated by the defendants.
The amended complaint alleged that the restaurants operated as a single integrated enterprise with common ownership, management, employment policies, and work assignments. Mangahas alleged that the defendants violated the FLSA and New York Labor Law by allowing managers, expeditors, and certain cooks to receive tips; failing to provide required tip-credit and minimum-wage notices; requiring tipped workers to perform more than 20% non-tip-producing side work; making improper deductions; requiring workers to buy uniforms without reimbursement; failing to pay certain premiums; and failing to provide proper wage notices and wage statements. Mangahas also asserted individual retaliation claims.
Conditional Certification Standard
At the first stage of an FLSA collective-action case, a plaintiff must make a modest factual showing that she and potential opt-in workers were victims of a common policy or plan that violated the law. The court does not resolve factual disputes, decide the ultimate legal issues, or determine witness credibility at this stage. After discovery, the court may decide whether the opt-in plaintiffs are actually similarly situated and may decertify the collective if they are not.
Court’s Analysis
The court held that Mangahas met the initial burden. Her declaration described an allegedly identical tip-sharing arrangement at both restaurants, identified managers and other workers who allegedly received tips, and gave details about the non-tipped work she and other workers performed. She also identified specific workers whom she observed performing similar duties. The declarations of opt-in plaintiffs Thinley Kalsang and Wen Bin Zhu provided additional evidence about the alleged tip practices and side work at The Bao and Uluh. The court rejected the defendants’ arguments that the declarations were impermissibly based on hearsay, conclusory, or improperly similar to one another.
The court also rejected the defendants’ objection to including the alleged “80/20” side-work practice in the notice. The notice accurately described the claims and stated that the defendants denied violating the FLSA and that the court was expressing no opinion on the merits.
The court approved using a three-year notice period measured from September 16, 2019, the date three years before the filing of the certification motion. It explained that whether any violation was willful involved the merits and should not determine who receives notice at this stage. Individual timeliness challenges could be raised later.
The court permitted notice by mail, email, and text message. It found the plaintiffs’ explanation that restaurant workers may be transient, including because of pandemic-related shutdowns, sufficient to justify text-message notice. The court also authorized a reminder notice for workers who had not already joined, provided that the reminder state that the court neither encourages nor discourages participation.
Disposition
The motion for conditional certification under the FLSA was granted. Plaintiff’s counsel was authorized to disseminate notice. The court approved the requested notice procedures, including translation into Chinese, filing consents with the Clerk, and requiring the defendants to provide the requested names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, employment dates, and work locations. Counsel was required to file each consent by the end of the business day after receiving it, and the consent form had to be revised in the ways specified by the court.
The request for equitable tolling—automatically pausing the time limit for potential participants to file consents—was denied. The defendants were ordered to provide the required contact information within 14 days. The court directed the Clerk to close Docket No. 36.
Read the full 22-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.