Halle v. W. Penn Allegheny Health Sys. Inc.

• Citation: 842 F.3d 215
• Decision Date: 18 November 2016
• Docket Number: No. 15-3089,15-3089
• Parties: Steven Halle, on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated v. West Penn Allegheny Health System Inc.; Western Pennsylvania Healthcare System Inc.; Alle Kiski Medical Center; Allegheny General Hospital; Allegheny General Hospital Suburban Campus; Western Pennsylvania Hospital; Western Pennsylvania Hospital Forbes Regional Campus ; Allegheny Medical Practice Network; Allegheny Specialty Practice Network; West Penn Physician Practice Network ; Allegheny Singer Research Institute; Highmark Inc.; Allegheny Health Network; John W. Paul; Bart Metzger; Christopher T. Olivia; John Lasky; Canonsburg General Hospital Senora Tarpley; Katiejo Bigenho; Wayne Haber, on their own behalf and on behalf of all other opt-in plaintiffs, Appellants
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (3rd Circuit)

842 F.3d 215

Steven Halle, on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated

v.West Penn Allegheny Health System Inc.; Western Pennsylvania Healthcare System Inc.; Alle Kiski Medical Center; Allegheny General Hospital; Allegheny General Hospital Suburban Campus; Western Pennsylvania Hospital; Western Pennsylvania Hospital Forbes Regional Campus ; Allegheny Medical Practice Network; Allegheny Specialty Practice Network; West Penn Physician Practice Network ; Allegheny Singer Research Institute; Highmark Inc.; Allegheny Health Network; John W. Paul; Bart Metzger; Christopher T. Olivia; John Lasky; Canonsburg General Hospital Senora Tarpley; Katiejo Bigenho; Wayne Haber, on their own behalf and on behalf of all other opt-in plaintiffs, Appellants

No. 15-3089

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued September 28, 2016

Filed: November 18, 2016

David S. Fryman (Argued), Elizabeth K. McManus, Ballard Spahr, 1735 Market Street, 51st Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19103, Counsel for Appellee.

Jonathan W. Ferris, J. Nelson Thomas (Argued), Thomas & Solomon, 693 East Avenue, Rochester, NY 14607, Counsel for Appellant.

Before: AMBRO, SMITH,^* and FISHER, Circuit Judges

OPINION

SMITH, Chief Judge.

Appellants are three hospital employees who claim they were not properly compensated for work performed during meal breaks. They seek review of a District Court's decision that declined to permit a civil case in which they wished to participate to continue as a collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA") § 16(b), 29 U.S.C. § 216(b).

This is the second decertification-related appeal in a series of four similar FLSA cases filed in the Western District of Pennsylvania. We dismissed the first appeal, which consolidated two of the District Court proceedings, for lack of appellate jurisdiction and mootness. Camesi v. University of Pittsburgh Med. Ctr. , 729 F.3d 239 (3d Cir. 2013). Appellants in the current appeal candidly acknowledge that they are before us in an effort to correct the procedural flaws that prevented us from reaching the merits of the decertification decision in the first appeal. Despite their efforts, Appellants fare no better this time around. We will dismiss this appeal.

I.

A.

The first round of litigation began in 2009 when two groups of plaintiffs filed separate but similar complaints against two large Western Pennsylvania hospitals and their affiliated health care facilities and centers: Camesi v. University of Pittsburgh Medical Center , No. 3:09–cv–00085 (W.D. Pa.), and Kuznyetsov v. West Penn Allegheny Health System, Inc. , No. 2:09–cv–00379 (W.D. Pa.) (later consolidated into No. 2:10–cv–00948 (W.D. Pa.)). The complaints alleged that the hospital defendants violated the FLSA by failing to properly pay their employees for work performed during scheduled meal breaks. The named plaintiffs purported to bring the claims as collective actions on behalf of themselves and all other similarly situated employees pursuant to FLSA § 16(b), 29 U.S.C. § 216(b).¹

District Judge Cathy Bissoon conditionally certified the collective action in Camesi on May 14, 2009, and District Judge Donetta Ambrose conditionally certified the collective action in Kuznyetsov on June 1, 2009. Both judges approved detailed notices to be sent to potential collective action members. Among other things, the notices advised that, by consenting to opt in to the suit, an employee would "[j]oin in this lawsuit," "[a]wait the outcome," and "[g]ive up the right to sue separately." The notices further provided that "[o]nce people have had the chance to opt in, the Court will decide whether people who have opted in may participate in this collective action. Only people ‘similarly situated’ to the plaintiffs may participate in this collective action."

A consent form accompanied the court-approved notices in Camesi and Kuznyetsov . The consent form indicated, among other things, that "[u]nless I opt to retain separate counsel of my own choice and at my own expense, I hereby ... authorize the named plaintiffs to make decisions on my behalf concerning the litigation, the method and manner of conducting this litigation, and all other matters pertaining to this lawsuit, including any settlement...." Using those forms, more than 3,000 individuals consented to opt in to the Camesi collective action and more than 800 consented to opt in to the Kuznyetzov collective action.²

The parties conducted collective action related discovery for nearly two years, including expert discovery and fact discovery of the named plaintiffs and a sample of the collective action members. The District Judges then entertained cross-motions by the plaintiffs to certify the collective actions and by the defendants to decertify the collective actions.

Both judges decertified the collective actions. In her opinion decertifying Kuznyetsov , Judge Ambrose described the basic factual allegations of the claim as follows:

Defendants require Plaintiffs to take daily, uncompensated meal breaks. To accomplish this, Defendants adopted a computerized timekeeping system, called Kronos, that automatically deducts a thirty minute meal period from nonexempt employees' time records when an employee has worked a shift of more than five or six hours. If an employee is unable to take an uninterrupted thirty minute meal break, the entire thirty minute automatic deduction may be canceled so that the employee is paid for the entire meal break. The manner in which the deduction is cancelled, however, varied by location, department, shift, and supervisor.

Kuznyetsov , No. 2:10–cv–00948, 2011 WL 6372852, at *1 (W.D. Pa. Dec. 20, 2011). Judge Ambrose then concluded that the plaintiffs' job duties varied significantly from one individual to the next, and that those job duties were "highly relevant in terms of how, why and whether the employees were compensated properly for missed or interrupted meal breaks." Id. at *5. In addition, more than 300 different individuals supervised the plaintiffs, the supervisors had individual authority to implement policies as to the meal deduction, and the supervisors' practices varied in this regard. Id . Finally, Judge Ambrose agreed with the defendants' argument that they would need to present individualized defenses to establish whether the FLSA was violated as to each plaintiff, which "could not be generalized among the 824 plaintiffs." Id. at *6. Judge Bissoon reached similar conclusions in Camesi . See Camesi v. Univ. of Pittsburgh Med. Ctr. , No. 09–85J, 2011 WL 6372873 (W.D. Pa. Dec. 20, 2011).

Thus, both judges concluded that the opt-in plaintiffs were not "similarly situated" to the named plaintiffs. When they decertified the two collective actions, the judges also dismissed the claims of all opt-in plaintiffs without prejudice to re-filing individual actions.

B.

In an express effort to seek immediate appellate review of the decertification orders, the named plaintiffs in both Camesi and Kuznyetsov moved to voluntarily dismiss their claims with prejudice pursuant to Rule 41(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The two district judges granted the motions and the named plaintiffs promptly filed notices of appeal. This court consolidated the two appeals. In Camesi v. Univ. of Pittsburgh Med. Ctr. , 729 F.3d 239 (3d Cir. 2013), we dismissed the appeals for lack of jurisdiction.

First, we determined that a decertification order, like a class certification order in the Rule 23 context, is an interlocutory order that is not appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Id. at 245. Then, relying on our class action decision in Sullivan v. Pac. Indem. Co. , 566 F.2d 444 (3d Cir. 1977), which we found to be controlling, we determined that the named plaintiffs in Camesi and Kuznyetsov improperly had attempted to short-circuit the procedure for appealing an interlocutory order that is separate from, and unrelated to, the merits of their case. Camesi , 729 F.3d at 245. We explained that the named plaintiffs could have obtained appellate review of the decertification decision by proceeding to a final judgment on the merits of their individual claims or, in the alternative, by seeking permission to certify an interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). Instead, plaintiffs attempted to manufacture finality through a voluntary dismissal of their cases. We rejected this "procedural sleight-of-hand." Id.

We further determined that, by voluntarily dismissing their claims with prejudice, the named plaintiffs mooted their claims in Camesi and Kuznyetsov . Id. at 247. In doing so, the named plaintiffs extinguished any residual representational interest they may once have had in bringing claims on behalf of individuals who had filed consents to opt in to the collective action. Id . We did not then address the more difficult question of whether, when individuals have opted in to a collective action following conditional certification, a plaintiff who has filed the collective action may retain a justiciable interest in the litigation based only upon his or her representative capacity. Instead, we concluded that, in the specific circumstance of a voluntary dismissal, "it would be anomalous to conclude that [the Camesi /Kuznyetsov ] Appellants are ‘similarly situated’ to opt-in plaintiffs who, unlike Appellants, have actually retained their individual claims. Without any personal stake in the matter, [the Camesi /Kuznyetsov ] Appellants should not be permitted to represent opt-in plaintiffs." Id.

We therefore dismissed Camesi for lack of appellate jurisdiction.

C.

Soon after we issued our Camesi opinion, the next round of district court litigation began. The same law firm that represented the Camesi/ Kuznyetsov plaintiffs filed two new FLSA collective action complaints on behalf of two new sets of named plaintiffs against the same hospital defendants, raising substantially the same FLSA claims concerning work during unpaid meal breaks. The new complaints proposed slightly different...