Casequin v. CAT 5 Contracting, Inc.
| Decision Date | 06 August 2021 |
| Docket Number | 2:18-cv-588-JLB-MRM |
| Parties | JUSTIN CASEQUIN, ANTONIO M. VEGA, JASON EARL CANDLISH, CHRISTOPHER J. COMER, AARON GODWIN, TYLER SVEDBERG, CHRISTOPHER WHITE, NICHOLAS CARNAGEY, DAVID SCHMENK, RYAN GODWIN, THANHSON SEAN, CRAIG FENN, CAMERON HARRIS, RYAN BELKNAP, ANTHONY JAMES CADOTTE, DARRANS MARGENS DESIRE, DAVID ANDREW ROBERTS, MIKE BOGENRIEF, GARRY DEDICK, ANDRE CALIXTO, ERIC FREDRICKSON, BRYAN RUSS, ANDREW OLEYKOWSKI, DILLON GREEN, and JESSE L. PAUL, Plaintiffs, v. CAT 5 CONTRACTING, INC., and MATTHEW SPANTON, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida |
Plaintiff Justin Casequin is the former owner of Able Restoration LLC (“Able”), a roofing contractor. Sometime before 2015, he met Defendant Matthew Spanton on social media. Like Mr. Casequin, Mr. Spanton was in the roofing business; he is the owner of Defendant CAT 5 Contracting, Inc. (“CAT 5”). When Mr. Casequin's business fell on hard times, Mr. Spanton offered him and some of his salespeople (the other twenty-four Plaintiffs in this case who collectively with Mr. Casequin, will be called the “Sales Team”) the opportunity to work for CAT 5 in Florida.[1] The Sales Team accepted the offer. Within a year, the relationship disintegrated, and the Sales Team was fired. The Sales Team now sues CAT 5 for breach of contract and unjust enrichment based on CAT 5's alleged failure to pay sales commissions which the Sales Team was owed. The Sales Team also brings claims for retaliation under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)[2] and Florida Statute § 448.102(3). Mr. Spanton and CAT 5 allegedly retaliated against the Sales Team due to its complaints about CAT 5's unlawful business practices, which were articulated in an e-mail the Sales Team sent to Mr. Spanton. (Doc. 97.) Defendants move for summary judgment on all claims. (Doc 97.)
After careful consideration, the Court denies summary judgment as to all claims for breach of contract and unjust enrichment. However, the Court grants the motion as to all retaliation claims.
Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Sales Team, the non-moving party here, the facts are as follows: Sometime before 2015, Mr. Casequin met Mr. Spanton by sending him a message on Facebook. (Doc. 98 at 14:23-15:4, 16:14-15.) Both men were in the roofing business, and Mr. Casequin claims he contacted Mr. Spanton because he admired his success. (Id. at 15:3-4.) Their online conversation continued through 2017, when Hurricane Irma impacted Florida. (Id. at 17:13-18:8.) By this time, Able (which operated in Virginia and Maryland) was struggling, and Mr. Casequin was “in a lot of debt.” (Id. at 18:24- 19:2.) As Mr. Casequin admits, Mr. Spanton provided a “lifeline” by offering him and the Sales Team an opportunity to “work the Hurricane Irma storm” with CAT 5 in Florida. (Id. at 18:6-15, 35:7-9.)
After some preliminary discussions, (Doc. 98 at 18:21-23), Mr. Spanton invited Mr. Casequin and some members of the Sales Team to meet with him at a hotel in Naples, Florida. (Doc. 100 at 17:23-18:4.) There, Mr. Spanton pitched the benefits of joining CAT 5, which supposedly included: (a) no sales quotas, (b) a flexible work schedule, and (c) the option for the Sales Team to stop selling whenever they wanted and simply manage their existing deals.[3] (Doc. 99 at 42:8- 14, 65:5-10.) The “pitch” included little detail about how commissions were to be derived and paid. (Doc. 98 at 74:20-24.) But it is undisputed that the Sales Team was to be paid on a commission basis, with percentages varying according to the salesperson and their level of seniority. (Doc. 30 at ¶¶ 8-32; Doc. 99 at 121:13-18.) It is also undisputed that a commission on a job would be distributed only once the job was finished and the client had paid. (Doc. 98 at 22:19-22; Doc. 99 at 54:3-9; Doc. 100 at 61:3-9.) Unfortunately, the understanding between CAT 5 and the Sales Team did not go much deeper; the parties never formalized their commission arrangement in any authoritative writing.[4] And there appears to have been no discussion about whether terminated salespeople would be entitled to commissions for jobs they sold before termination. (Doc. 99 at 50:9-11.)
In all events, Mr. Spanton's pitch worked; the members of the Sales Team began working for CAT 5 sometime around October 2017.[5] (Id. at 126:4-6; Doc. 100 at 28:25-29:1.) The reality of working at CAT 5, however, proved to differ greatly from Mr. Spanton's pitch. In their depositions, multiple Plaintiffs described a culture of fear and intimidation: Mr. Spanton and CAT 5's management verbally abused them, routinely dismissed their concerns, and did not uphold promises Plaintiffs believed had been made. One of the main disputes between the Sales Team and Defendants was the amounts of commissions paid by CAT 5 to members of the Sales Team. According to Mr. Casequin, members of the Sales Team would frequently complain that their commission checks were inaccurate, and CAT 5 would not provide them with a breakdown of how their commissions were calculated. (Doc. 98 at 53:19-24, Doc. 101 at 21:4-22:3.) Plaintiffs Antonio Vega and Christopher Comer testified that they were threatened with termination for requesting any breakdown of their commission payments. (Doc. 99 at 62:5-63:1; Doc. 100 at 47:18-48:13.)
The Sales Team also claims that CAT 5 took a “stack and starve” approach to the payment of commissions. (Doc. 30 at ¶ 63.) This approach refers to a scheme where a contractor induces employees to sell new jobs with the promise of lucrative commissions but then delays building the jobs to avoid paying the commissions until the employees simply quit. (Doc. 100 at 33:13-34:8; Doc. 102 at 12:17-13:1.) Multiple members of the Sales Team testified that CAT 5 would delay ordering materials for their jobs and instead prioritized jobs from its preexisting salespeople, which delayed the Sales Team's compensation. (Doc. 99 at 73:16-74:1; Doc 102 at 11:22-12:14.) An important ingredient to the “stack and starve” approach is, of course, that employees must sell as much as possible. And indeed, members of the Sales Team claim to have been repeatedly threatened with termination if they stopped selling new jobs-contrary to Mr. Spanton's alleged promise that they could stop selling whenever they wanted. (Doc. 99 at 68:5-20; Doc. 101 at 40:16-19.) Members of the Sales Team also claim that their commission percentages were unilaterally altered by CAT 5, (Doc. 98 at 118:15-22; Doc. 99 at 70:2-15; Doc. 100 at 52:23-53:7), and that that they did not receive various bonuses which they were promised, (Doc. 100 at 51:4-17; Doc. 102 at 25:1-8).
As time went on, the Sales Team developed concerns not directly related to their commissions. These concerns included:
These grievances (and others) were articulated in an e-mail sent by Mr. Casequin on behalf of the Sales Team to Mr. Spanton on Friday, July 13, 2018. (Doc. 128-16.) After listing the Sales Team's concerns with safety, compensation, and performance, the e-mail concluded with the following paragraph:
If we cannot come to an agreement on these issues we will be legally unable to fulfill our obligations to CAT 5 and our customers. We are ready willing and able to honor our obligations and expect CAT 5 to honor its obligations. Alternatively, if CAT 5 does not want to address these issues we propose that CAT 5 pay us pursuant to the original agreement in October 2017, for jobs currently under construction and void contracts on customers where construction work has not started, including refunding customer money. We will release and indemnify CAT 5 from responsibility relating to these customers. In any case, we will not be selling future jobs for the benefit of CAT 5.
(Id.) As CAT 5 acknowledges in its statement of undisputed facts, “[t]he issues described in the E-Mail were not new issues; they had been brought up to [CAT 5] verbally at various times before the E-Mail.” (Doc. 97 at 10, ¶ 34.)
The July 13 e-mail was the product of a group meeting that included multiple members of the Sales Team. (Doc. 98 at 133:12-15; Doc. 100 at 63:17-65:5.) A person at the meeting-who did not sign the e-mail and is not a party to this case- called a CAT 5 manager on the morning of July 13 to tell him that: (a) the Sales Team was “planning something”, and (b) members of the Sales Team were selling roofing jobs for a competing contractor. (Doc. 103 at 202:1-204:17.) Both assertions proved to be at least partially correct; Mr. Comer admits...
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