Moses v. CONSOLIDATED EDISON COMPANY OF NEW YORK, INC.
- Carter
- 1:18-cv-01200
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Moses v. Consolidated Edison, Judge Carter granted ConEd’s motion to dismiss certain workers’ Fair Labor Standards Act claims as time-barred.
The FLSA opt-in plaintiffs who either stopped working for Griffin before July 20, 2017, or did not work on a ConEd project through Griffin on or after that date.
What happened
Moses v. Consolidated Edison involved flagmen and flaggers who claimed that Griffin failed to pay prevailing wages and that ConEd was jointly responsible. ConEd sought dismissal of several workers’ claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
ConEd argued that the claims were filed too late. The court explained that the law generally allows two years to bring these claims, or three years for willful violations. It dismissed claims by workers who did not perform flagging work through Griffin for ConEd on or after July 20, 2017.
The court granted ConEd’s motion to dismiss and issued the amended order to clarify an earlier order. Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr. also directed the clerk to terminate the motion from the docket.
The detailed version
- Moses v. CONSOLIDATED EDISON COMPANY OF NEW YORK, INC. · No. 1:18-cv-01200
- Carter
- Dec. 21, 2022
Background
Plaintiffs, described as a group of workers employed as flagmen or flaggers, brought a proposed class action against several defendants, including Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. (ConEd). They alleged that Griffin Industries and Griffin Services, together called Griffin, failed to pay wages at prevailing rates. They sued ConEd under a joint-employer theory. A magistrate judge had previously granted conditional certification of a collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal wage-and-hour law.
ConEd moved under Rule 12(b)(6), which allows dismissal when a complaint does not adequately state a legal claim, seeking dismissal of several workers who had joined the FLSA case. The plaintiffs appeared to argue that dismissal was premature because their class-certification motion had not been decided. The court rejected that argument, explaining that the two matters were not mutually exclusive.
Limitations analysis
The FLSA generally provides a two-year limitations period for claims under the statute. The period may extend to three years for a willful violation. Using the three-year period, the court agreed with Magistrate Judge Ona Wang’s conclusion that claims based on ConEd work performed before July 20, 2017, were time-barred.
The court therefore dismissed the FLSA claims of workers who either stopped working for Griffin before July 20, 2017, or remained employed by Griffin but did not work on a ConEd project after that date. The court stated that the affected workers were those who did not perform flagging work through Griffin for ConEd on or after July 20, 2017.
Ruling
The court granted ConEd’s motion to dismiss. It directed the clerk to terminate the motion identified as ECF No. 603. The court stated that the amended order was issued under Rule 60(a) to clarify the court’s earlier order and superseded the prior order identified as ECF No. 650. The opinion does not identify the affected workers by name or state a definitive final number of dismissed plaintiffs in the ruling itself.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.