Hobbs v. Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Background

Plaintiffs Tavares Hobbs, Ricardo Bell, and Robert Shaw, along with a proposed class, sued Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc. and Swift Transportation Co. of Arizona, LLC under New York law. The case concerns whether time that Knight-Swift’s truck drivers spend in sleeper berths during tours of duty is compensable. Plaintiffs contend that Swift has a uniform policy of not paying for sleeper-berth time and that this common policy supports class treatment.

Plaintiffs filed a motion for class certification, and Defendants filed a motion to deny class certification. In support of their motion, Defendants submitted declarations from putative class members and terminal managers. Defendants argued that some dedicated drivers regularly returned home to sleep rather than sleeping in their trucks. Plaintiffs disputed how often that occurred and maintained that the drivers’ electronic Department of Transportation logs would show when they recorded sleeper-berth time.

Discovery Dispute

Plaintiffs sought electronic Department of Transportation logs for 19 dedicated-driver declarants, covering the period during which the declarants worked for Defendants during the proposed liability period. Plaintiffs said the logs were relevant to checking the accuracy of the declarations and were not unduly burdensome because Defendants maintained them electronically and had already produced logs for the three named Plaintiffs.

Defendants’ stated objection was that the request was untimely under the Court’s August 8, 2022 cutoff for pre-certification discovery. Plaintiffs responded that Defendants had placed the issue in dispute by filing previously undisclosed witness statements after the cutoff. Plaintiffs served their requests on October 10, 2022, met and conferred with Defendants, and then asked the Court to resolve the dispute after Defendants confirmed that they would not produce the logs.

Ruling

Judge Stewart D. Aaron granted Plaintiffs’ letter-motion. The Court found good cause to extend the interim deadline for class-related discovery because the declarations had not been provided to Plaintiffs before the prior deadline. The Court also found that the requested discovery was plainly relevant to the claims and defenses and that allowing it would not substantially prejudice Defendants.

The Court ordered Defendants to produce the requested data by a December deadline; the day of that deadline is not visible in the provided opinion text. The Court also extended the class-certification briefing schedule: opposition briefs were due no later than December 13, 2022, and reply briefs were due no later than January 20, 2023.

This order addressed discovery and scheduling. It did not decide whether the class should be certified, whether sleeper-berth time was compensable, or whether either side would prevail on the underlying wage claims.