LOS ANGELES — Michaels Stores Inc. was facing four class actions and one individual overtime lawsuit filed by former store managers until a California federal judge decertified the classes. One class action, initially filed in California state court, was certified by a California Superior Court judge. Michaels Stores’ lawyers had the case removed to federal court, where the federal judge denied the store managers’ request to uphold the class certification. The federal judge did not believe the store managers showed enough commonality among the managers to constitute one class. However, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation decided all five lawsuits have a common factual question surrounding Michaels’ policy of exempting store managers from overtime.
Store Managers’ Exempt Status
The store managers in all five lawsuits claim they were misclassified as exempt employees. Michaels classified them as exempt under the “executive exemption.” Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the majority of state labor laws, the executive exemption requires the executive or manager to manage business operations, supervise at least two other employees, and have decision making authority in regards to actions like hiring, firing, and raises. The store managers claim they spent the majority of their time doing non-managerial work similar to that of nonexempt employees.
Combining Class Actions
Class actions are based on the court’s belief that it is more time and cost effective to have one trial for plaintiffs with similar complaints, similar facts, and similar requests for relief in their lawsuits against a specific defendant. Occasionally, more than one class action or lawsuit is brought against the same defendant for the same reason, but by different groups. If the courts conclude that there is a similar key issue in all of the lawsuits, they may decide to combine the cases so all of the parties can save on resources related to litigation. For instance, if there is a multidistrict litigation (MDL) the parties do not have to worry about duplication of discovery efforts or different pre-trial court rulings.
In this case, one of the four proposed class actions had already been decertified and could have resulted in numerous individual lawsuits against the company. The individual lawsuits, along with the remaining class actions and the preexisting individual lawsuit, each would have to conduct their own discovery, cover litigation costs, and spend time in court over the same issue, but may have had a wide-variety of outcomes. The MDL reduces the chances of this happening.
If you are a Michaels’ store manager or you believe your employer has misclassified your position, contact our knowledgeable team of overtime pay lawyers today at (855) 754-2795 or complete the Free Unpaid Overtime Case Review form and our experienced legal team will evaluate your case. If we accept your case, we will represent you under our No Fee Promise. This means there are no legal fees or costs unless you receive a settlement. There are no guarantees on where an overtime lawsuit will go or what will be the outcome, but there are strict time deadlines for filing lawsuits so it is important to contact an attorney immediately.