Blakes v. Ill. Bell Tel. Co.
| Decision Date | 10 December 2014 |
| Docket Number | No. 11 CV 336,11 CV 336 |
| Citation | 75 F.Supp.3d 792 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
| Parties | James Blakes, et al., for themselves and on behalf of similarly situated others, Plaintiffs, v. Illinois Bell Telephone Company, d/b/a AT&T Illinois, Defendant. |
Aaron Benjamin Maduff, Michael Lee Maduff, Walker R. Lawrence, Maduff & Maduff, LLC, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiffs.
Stephen Boyd Mead, AT & T Services, Inc., Erin Jewel Hendrix, Gregory P. Abrams, Ritu Srivastava, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, Chicago, IL, George A. Stohner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, Los Angeles, CA, for Defendant.
James Blakes, Steven Clark, Herman Deckys, Bradley Hunt, Phillipe Porter, Ernest Roberts, Jr., and Larry Williams (collectively, “the named plaintiffs”) brought this action against Illinois Bell Telephone Company (“Illinois Bell”) under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq., claiming that Illinois Bell systematically fails to pay its cable splicers for all of their overtime work. The parties have consented to this court's jurisdiction. See 28 U.S.C. § 636(c) ; (R. 21). This court previously granted in part and denied in part Illinois Bell's motion to decertify the named plaintiffs' conditionally certified class of cable splicers. (R. 233.) Illinois Bell now moves for summary judgment on both the individual and certified claims pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56. (R. 257 to 283.)1 For the following reasons, Illinois Bell's motions regarding the named plaintiffs are granted as to Blakes, Deckys, Porter, Roberts, and Williams, and denied as to Clark and Hunt:
Background
As an initial matter, it must be noted that there are repeated instances in the parties' Local Rule (“L.R.”) 56.1 statements in which a party states that a fact is disputed, but either cites record evidence that does not contradict the fact or relies on inferences that might contradict the fact rather than actual conflicting evidence. For example, although the named plaintiffs “dispute” many of Illinois Bell's facts, they fail in some instances to cite record evidence actually demonstrating the dispute, as required by L.R. 56.1(b)(3)(B)–(C). (See, e.g., R. 299, DSOF Blakes ¶¶ 27, 32, 36, 38–39, 42–43, 67).2 The named plaintiffs also state in some of their responses that they deny the implications of a listed fact, (see, e.g., id. ¶¶ 6, 20, 27, 35, 38, 39, 43, 47, 58, 64, 67, 73), but arguing over the possible implications stemming from an otherwise undisputed fact does not render that fact in dispute, see Sommerfield v. City of Chi., No. 08 CV 3025, 2013 WL 4047606, at *2 (N.D.Ill. Aug. 9, 2013). Illinois Bell also commits some of the same errors in its responses to the named plaintiffs' additional facts. (See, e.g., R. 333, PSOF Blakes ¶¶ 3, 30.) To the extent these facts are not otherwise properly disputed, the court deems them admitted.
Furthermore, where the named plaintiffs include additional facts in their responses that do not bear on whether a dispute exists as to the fact listed by Illinois Bell, these facts should instead have been listed in the named plaintiffs' statements of additional facts. (See, e.g., R. 299, DSOF Blakes ¶¶ 17, 23, 36, 38–39, 41, 44–45, 52, 57–58, 62, 64, 69, 72–73); see Sommerfield, 2013 WL 4047606, at *2. That said, many of the facts the named plaintiffs assert in their responses to Illinois Bell's facts also are set forth in their own responding statements of material facts, and thus are before the court. See Rasic v. City of Northlake, No. 08 CV 104, 2009 WL 3150428, at *3 (N.D.Ill. Sept. 25, 2009).
Although the court previously set forth this case's factual background in its decertification opinion, see Blakes v. Ill. Bell Tel. Co., No. 11 CV 336, 2013 WL 6662831, at *2–4 (N.D.Ill.Dec. 17, 2013), for purposes of the current motions the court will restate the facts and also include relevant facts that have since developed in the record. The following undisputed facts are taken from the parties' L.R. 56.1 statements of facts (unless otherwise indicated), and will be viewed, as they must be at this stage, in the light most favorable to the named plaintiffs. See O'Leary v. Accretive Health, Inc., 657 F.3d 625, 630 (7th Cir.2011).
Defendant Illinois Bell is one of the largest providers of local telephone services in Illinois. (R. 299, DSOF Blakes ¶ 2.) The named plaintiffs are cable splicers who work or have worked for Illinois Bell's Construction and Engineering division. (See, e.g., id. ¶ 5.) Cable splicers install, maintain, and repair Illinois Bell's network of cable, fiber optics, and telephone services. (Id. ¶ 6.) As part of their duties, the named plaintiffs sometimes work underground in manholes. (See, e.g., id. ¶¶ 9, 63.) They typically begin their scheduled shifts at 7:00 a.m. in one of Illinois Bell's garages but then spend the majority of their day out in the field at job sites outside the direct observation of their supervisors. (See, e.g., id. ¶¶ 7–8.) During the relevant time period, each of the named plaintiffs was a non-exempt employee paid on an hourly basis, and was typically scheduled to work an eight and one-half hour day, five days a week, including a half-hour unpaid lunch.
Illinois Bell's official policies regarding compensation and time-reporting are set out in code of conduct and employee “expectations” documents, and are also codified in a collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) with the cable splicers' union. (R. 299, DSOF Blakes ¶¶ 19–28.) These policies state that employees should accurately report all hours worked and that any overtime must be approved by a supervisor in advance. (Id. ¶¶ 23, 25–28.) The policies also provide that all overtime hours worked by employees must be paid regardless of whether they were pre-approved, and managers are prohibited from “requiring or permitting nonexempt employees to work ‘off the clock.’ ” (Id. ¶¶ 23–24.) Overtime hours include any time worked in excess of eight hours a day or forty hours a week. (Id. ¶ 22.)
Illinois Bell also has policies that govern lunch breaks for cable splicers. Lunch breaks are expected to be taken sometime between the third and sixth hour of a shift. (Id. ¶ 31.) When cable splicers are working at a job site with a manhole, policies dictate that they cannot leave open manholes unattended, so “lunches should be carried in this situation.” (R. 333, PSOF Blakes ¶ 4.) According to the CBA, if an employee cannot leave a job site, “it is assumed no lunch period has been taken” and the employee “will be permitted reasonable paid time to eat on the job.” (See id. )
In December 2009, Illinois Bell introduced electronic time reporting as part of its Jobs Administration Management (“JAM”) system. (R. 299, DSOF Blakes ¶ 35.) Illinois Bell uses “task codes” to track time recorded for various types of work assignments instead of a traditional punch-in-punch-out system. (R. 333, PSOF Blakes ¶ 6.) For example, certain task codes are associated with underground work. (See id. ¶ 2.) After a cable splicer enters his time and submits it, the timesheet is then sent to a manager for approval before it is uploaded into “eLink,” Illinois Bell's payroll system. (Id. ¶¶ 7–8.)
In February 2010, Illinois Bell implemented a system called Management System and Operating Control (“MSOC”) which was intended to measure, among other things, how efficiently a cable splicer performs his or her job. (See id. ¶ 5.) Although the parties dispute whether or how time that is tracked for MSOC purposes translates into how technicians are paid, the parties agree that Illinois Bell keeps track of how much time technicians report spending on a particular task and compares that time with the allocated or expected time it should take to complete that task.
Blakes has worked as a cable splicer for Illinois Bell since 1992. (R. 299, DSOF Blakes ¶ 1.) In addition to his typical 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. shift, Blakes sometimes works a “buzz shift” from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. (Id. ¶¶ 15–16.) He asserts that he sometimes performed pre-shift work for which he was not paid. He estimates that he performed various pre-shift work activities at least twice a week, usually beginning 15 to 20 minutes before 7:00 a.m. (R. 333, PSOF Blakes ¶ 30.)
Blakes also alleges that he sometimes worked through lunch, and he estimates that he did so at least two days out of every five-day work week. (R. 299, DSOF Blakes ¶ 62.) He testified that on days when he worked at an open manhole, he would not take a lunch break because the manhole needed to be guarded. (Id. ¶ 63.) But if the manhole was not open he could take a lunch break, and if he worked with a partner at a manhole, it was possible for one person to guard the manhole while the other person ate lunch. (Id. ¶¶ 63–64.)
According to Blakes, he worked through lunch on days that his timesheets indicate underground work tasks. (See R. 333, PSOF Blakes ¶ 29.)
When he worked through lunch, Blakes did not get approval to do so in advance. (R. 299, DSOF Blakes ¶ 40.) He admitted that he knew he was violating Illinois Bell's written policies by not getting approval and by not accurately reporting his time with respect to working through lunch. (Id. ¶¶ 39, 72.) He said that he never told his supervisor which days he may have reported his time incorrectly, (id. ¶ 43), and he never explicitly told his supervisor or manager that he had worked through lunch, (id. ¶ 73). Blakes also testified that he was not aware of any instances in which he reported working overtime on his timesheet and was not paid for that overtime. (Id. ¶¶ 36–37.) Blakes never requested to be paid for the time he worked through lunch and did not report that time on his...
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