Altier v. Worley Catastrophe Response, LLC
| Decision Date | 18 January 2012 |
| Docket Number | CIVIL ACTION NO. 11-241 c/w 11-242 |
| Parties | JOHN J. ALTIER v. WORLEY CATASTROPHE RESPONSE, LLC ET AL. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana |
In these consolidated cases, plaintiffs bring claims for unpaid overtime pay and liquidated damages under the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"), 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq., and for breach of contract under Louisiana law. Plaintiffs and the remaining defendants have reached a settlement of all claims and have filed a Joint Motion to Approve Settlement and for Conditional Dismissal in both consolidated actions. Record Doc. No. 301. Also pending before me is a Motion for Leave to File Petition in Intervention filed by five non-parties who seek to join these consolidated actions as plaintiffs solely to object, not to the settlement, but only to certain terms of the settlement agreement between the existing parties. Record Doc. No. 298.
This matter was referred to a United States Magistrate Judge for all proceedings and entry of judgment in accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 636(c) upon written consent of all parties. Record Doc. No. 138.
Plaintiff, John J. Altier, brought Civil Action No. 11-241 as a putative collective and class action, pursuant to the FLSA and Fed. R. Civ. P. 23. The original defendants were BP Exploration & Production Inc. ("BP"), Worley Catastrophe Response, LLC, and Worley Catastrophe Services, LLC (collectively "Worley"). After the April 2010 blowout in the Gulf of Mexico of BP's Deepwater Horizon offshore well and the subsequent catastrophic oil spill, Worley, which had a contract with BP, hired Altier and other claims adjusters to evaluate claims brought against BP by third parties. Altier filed this action individually and on behalf of similarly situated persons to recover unpaid overtime wages and liquidated damages under the FLSA. Altier alleges that he and similarly situated claims adjusters routinely worked more than 40 hours per work week and that defendants willfully violated the FLSA by improperly classifying the claims adjusters as employees who are exempt from the FLSA overtime provisions.
Altier also brought Civil Action No. 11-242 as a contract-based putative class action pursuant to Louisiana substantive law and Fed. R. Civ. P. 23 against a single defendant, Worley Catastrophe Response, LLC. Additional plaintiffs joined in both actions. A total of 98 plaintiffs filed consent forms to opt in to the FLSA collective action, while 56 of the same plaintiffs joined the contract action.
BP's motion to dismiss was granted in Civil Action No. 11-241 and plaintiffs' claims against BP in that matter were dismissed with prejudice. Record Doc. Nos. 87, 107. However, I denied BP's Motion for Entry of Final Judgment Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b). Record Doc. Nos. 125, 153.
Upon plaintiffs' motion in Civil Action No. 11-241, I conditionally certified a collective action for unpaid overtime under the FLSA. Record Doc. No. 171. Court-approved notices were sent to all members of the conditionally certified collective action. Record Doc. Nos. 189, 191. I denied plaintiffs' motion for certification of a contract-based Rule 23 class action in consolidated Civil Action No. 11-242. Record Doc. No. 187.
The parties engaged in extensive discovery and motion practice, including plaintiffs' opposed motions for partial summary judgment. At counsel's request, I continued the hearings and submission dates on the summary judgment motions so that the parties could discuss settlement. They did so extensively and with great effort, including preliminary negotiations, a thorough-going private mediation and several subsequent court-supervised settlement conferences with me, which ended in a settlement agreement. The parties' proposed final agreement includes provision for payment of plaintiffs' attorney's fees and costs.
On December 22, 2011, plaintiffs and Worley filed a Joint Motion to Dismiss, Record Doc. No. 296, in which they also asked the court to approve their confidential settlement agreement. I denied the motion as premature because some provisions of the proposed agreement required amplification and clarification and because the motion was not supported by any evidence regarding the reasonableness of the agreed-upon attorney's fees and costs. I ordered the parties to file a revised motion with the additional information and clarification requested by the court. Record Doc. No. 299.
Five days after the parties filed their Joint Motion to Dismiss, non-parties Michael Sullivan, Charles Baldwin, Johnny Knighten, Jimmy Phillips and Ron Dickerson (the "Sullivan Plaintiffs") filed a Motion for Leave to File Petition in Intervention. Record Doc. No. 298. The Sullivan Plaintiffs are the named plaintiffs in a separate class action that was filed in state court against Worley, Michael Sullivan et al. v. Worley Companies et al., No. 599,055, Nineteenth Judicial District Court, Parish of East Baton Rouge, State of Louisiana, a few days after the instant federal consolidated actions were filed. In that state court class action brought under Louisiana law, the Sullivan Plaintiffs, individually and on behalf of a putative class of approximately 1,200 claims adjusters, allege that Worley breached its employment agreement with the putative class members and failed to pay them wages due. All of the plaintiffs in the FLSA action in this court are putative class members in the Sullivan litigation.
The state court granted the Sullivan Plaintiffs' motion to certify a class in that action on September 9, 2011. The scope of the class has not yet been defined and no notices have been distributed to the putative class members. Worley appealed the class certification order and that appeal is pending. The Sullivan Plaintiffs seek to intervene as plaintiffs in the consolidated actions in this court as a matter of right under Fed. R. Civ. P. 24(a)(2) and Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(d)(1), solely to object to the settlement agreement (which they have not seen because it is confidential) and only to the extent it contains terms that waive and release any contractual claims that the members of the FLSA collective action might have against Worley.
Plaintiffs and Worley filed separate memoranda in opposition to the Sullivan Plaintiffs' motion to intervene. Record Doc. Nos. 303, 308. The Sullivan Plaintiffs received leave to file two reply memoranda in support of their motion. Record Doc. Nos. 304, 305, 306, 309, 310, 311.
Plaintiffs and Worley filed in both consolidated actions their revised Joint Motion to Approve Settlement and for Conditional Dismissal, which is supported by affidavits and several exhibits. Record Doc. No. 301. They submitted their confidential settlement agreement to me for in camera review. Although the Sullivan Plaintiffs' motion to intervene has not been granted and they are not yet parties to these actions, they filed a memorandum in opposition to the parties' Joint Motion to Approve Settlement and forConditional Dismissal. Record Doc. No. 302. I have considered their memorandum, which reiterates the arguments they make in their motion to intervene.
I continued without date the submission of and oral argument on the pending summary judgment motions, Record Doc. Nos. 234, 257 and 263, pending my review of the Joint Motion to Approve Settlement and for Conditional Dismissal. Record Doc. No. 307. A two-week jury trial in this matter is currently scheduled for August 20, 2012, with a final pretrial conference set for August 6, 2012.
Having reviewed the complaint, as amended, the record, the submissions of the parties and the proposed intervenors, and the applicable law, and for the following reasons, the court enters the following orders on all pending motions.
IT IS ORDERED that the Sullivan Plaintiffs' Motion for Leave to File Petition in Intervention, Record Doc. No. 298, is DENIED.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the parties' Joint Motion to Approve Settlement and for Conditional Dismissal, Record Doc. No. 301, is GRANTED, as provided herein. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that plaintiffs' motions for partial summary judgment, Record Doc. Nos. 234, 257 and Defendants' Motion Pursuant to Rule 56(d), Record Doc. No. 263, are DISMISSED AS MOOT.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the court reconsiders sua sponte its previous order, Record Doc. No. 153, denying BP's Motion for Entry of Final Judgment Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b), Record Doc. No. 125, and that BP's motion is GRANTED.
As a threshold matter, all parties in this matter have consented in writing to its referral to a United States Magistrate Judge for all proceedings and entry of judgment in accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 636(c), but the proposed intervenors have not so consented. Although neither the existing parties nor the Sullivan Plaintiffs have questioned whether I have the authority to rule definitively on the pending Motion for Leave to File Petition in Intervention, I address the issue because it is jurisdictional. Barber v. Shinseki, 660 F.3d 877, 879 (5th Cir. 2011).
Section 636(c)(1) provides that, "[u]pon the consent of the parties, a full-time United States magistrate judge . . . may conduct any or all proceedings in a jury or nonjury civil matter and order the entry of judgment in the case, when specially designated to exercise such jurisdiction by the district court or courts he serves." Compliance with the requirements of Section 636(c) "gives the magistrate judge full authority over dispositive motions, conduct of trial, and entry of final judgment, allwithout district court review." Roell v. Withrow, 538 U.S. 580, 585 (2003); accord Hill v. City of Seven Points, 230 F.3d 167, 168-69 (5th Cir. 2000).
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