Jones v. Dolgencorp Inc.

Citation789 F.Supp.2d 1090
Decision Date08 June 2011
Docket NumberNo. C 10–3020–MWB.,C 10–3020–MWB.
PartiesPeggy JONES, LaRonda Blakely, Marsha Corwin, Janet Engelken, Robin Hartkopp, Pamm Joyner–Azbill, Judy Klimesh, Shirley Long, Amber Pletsch, Kathleen Price, William Steven, Verna Sunnes, and Saundra West, Plaintiffs,v.DOLGENCORP, INC., and Dollar General Partners, Defendants.
CourtUnited States District Courts. 8th Circuit. Northern District of Iowa

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Jason R. Elliott, Joel S. Allen, Melissa M. Hensley, Ronald E. Manthey, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, LLP, Dallas, TX, Karin Johnson, Faegre & Benson, LLP, Des Moines, IA, Michael A. Giudicessi, Faegre & Benson, Des Moines, IA, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER REGARDING DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO STRIKE AND MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

MARK W. BENNETT, District Judge.

+-----------------+
                ¦TABLE OF CONTENTS¦
                +-----------------+
                
                I. INTRODUCTION                                                       1092
                
 A. Factual Background                                              1092
                   B. Procedural Background                                           1094
                
                II. MOTION TO STRIKE AND OBJECTIONS TO EVIDENCE                       1095
                
 A. Standards for Motion to Strike                                  1095
                   B. Analysis                                                        1096
                
                III. MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT                                       1099
                
 A. Standards for Summary Judgment                                  1099
                   B. Analysis                                                        1101
                
 1. The Fair Labor Standards Act Executive Exception           1101
                
 a. Primary duty, 29 C.F.R. § 541.1(a) (2003)             1102
                
 i. Percentage of time                                1104
                                ii. Importance of duties                              1105
                                iii Discretionary powers                              1106
                                iv. Freedom from supervision                          1108
                                v. Salary and wages                                  1109
                
 b. Two or more employees, 29 C.F.R. § 5 41.1(b) (2003)   1110
                
 2. Liquidated Damages                                         1110
                
                IV. CONCLUSION                                                        1112
                
I. INTRODUCTION

In this motion for summary judgment, I am required to determine whether a genuine issue of material fact exists regarding an allegation that the defendants Dollar General Partners and Dolgencorp, Inc. are nickel-and-dimeing their store managers, by claiming such employees are exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act and, therefore, ineligible for overtime compensation.

A. Factual Background

This is a collective action by fourteen plaintiffs against Dollar General Partners (Dollar General) and Dolgencorp, Inc. (“Dolgencorp”; collectively the defendants). Defendants have moved for summary judgment only against Plaintiff Pamm Joyner–Azbill (Joyner), who was employed by Dollar General from August 1998 until May 2003. Originally hired as a temporary clerk, Joyner was offered an assistant store manager position at the Waterloo, Iowa, Dollar General store after her temporary position expired. In 1999, Joyner was promoted to store manager at the Dollar General store in Evansdale, Iowa. Joyner served as store manager there for four years, until she resigned in May of 2003.

Dollar General, owned by the co-defendant Dolgencorp, Inc., is a nationwide retail chain of discount, consumable goods, such as cleaning supplies, health and beauty aids, foods/snacks, housewares, toys, and basic apparel. Most of these goods are priced below ten dollars, with approximately twenty-five percent of merchandise priced at or below one dollar. As of 2003, Dollar General operated around 6,192 stores in twenty-seven states, with an average annual sales volume of $1,000,000 per store.

Management decisions within Dollar General's corporate structure are divided into three levels of hierarchy: the corporate headquarters; regional and district managers; and, the store manager. Corporate headquarters dictate many aspects of each Dollar General store. For example, corporate headquarters determines: the hours in the labor budget; the store's hours of operation; the merchandise shipped to the store; the layout of the store; where goods should be arranged in the store; and, how many of a particular item should be placed on each shelf. Furthermore, corporate headquarters issues detailed operating-procedures manuals to every store manager. These manuals provide instruction to store managers on how managers should handle: confronting an angry customer; answering the telephone; running the cash register; what items should be hung on a clipboard in the store's office; weather emergencies; and, cleaning the store floor. Store managers are not allowed to deviate from many of such instructions passed down from corporate headquarters.

The second level of hierarchy involves district managers, who supervise between fifteen to twenty-five stores in each district. District managers are expected to have a weekly office day, communicate with store managers by telephone, and visit each store within their district at least once every four to six weeks. District managers strictly control the number of labor hours given to each store, and their approval is required before a store's labor budget is exceeded by the store manager. Additionally, district managers have the sole authority to promote an employee, give a pay raise, or terminate employment.

The third level of hierarchy within Dollar General's corporate structure concerns local store managers, like Joyner. Store managers typically supervise an assistant store manager, a lead clerk, and multiple store clerks. Joyner's Dollar General store had an average of seven to eight employees, of which four to five were clerks. In addition to supervising employees, store managers: maintain inventory levels; order merchandise; assign work to lower-level employees; schedule employees within the parameters of the labor budget; and, receive and implement directives issued from corporate headquarters. Store managers do not have the authority to terminate or promote employees, although they can provide recommendations to district managers who make the ultimate decision. Store managers also do not have the authority to: give an employee a pay raise; adjust an employee's initial rate of pay; set the store's hours of operation; change the store's locks; decide where merchandise is placed; choose the layout of the store; determine the labor budget; or, contract with outside vendors.

According to Joyner, she worked, on average, fifty-six to sixty-five hours a week. Joyner claims that only ten percent of this time was actually spent performing managerial duties in accordance with her job description. The other ninety percent of Joyner's time was spent performing manual-labor duties like those done by store clerks, such as stocking shelves, unloading trucks, sweeping the floor, cleaning the bathroom, changing light bulbs, hanging signs from the ceiling, clearing the parking lot, and running the cash register.

Joyner is the only salaried employee at her Dollar General store. As store manager, Joyner earned $440/week beginning in April 2001; $460/week beginning December 2001; $473.80/week beginning in April 2002; $500/week beginning in October 2002; and, $515/week beginning in April 2003. Joyner also earned an annual bonus every year that she was store manager. Such bonuses were based upon the profitability of her store, and Joyner was eligible to earn an annual bonus of up to ten percent of the store's net profit not to exceed 100% of her base salary. The assistant store manager was the second highest paid employee in Joyner's store, and earned approximately $7.47/hour or around $298.80 for a forty hour workweek. The assistant store manager was eligible to receive bonuses of up to three percent of the store's net profit, and each store clerk's bonus eligibility was capped at two percent.

B. Procedural Background

On August 7, 2006, Joyner and hundreds of other plaintiffs collectively filed a Complaint and Jury Demand in the United States District Court, for the Northern District of Alabama. Their initial complaint was soon followed by a First Amended Complaint filed on August 9, 2006, and a Second Amended Complaint filed on September 5, 2006. In the Second Amended Complaint, plaintiffs claim defendants have a uniform policy and practice of consistently requiring managerial staff to work overtime without compensation. Plaintiffs also claim the vast majority of work hours are spent performing non-managerial job duties. Plaintiffs seek overtime compensation, an equal amount of liquidated damages, interest, attorneys' fees, and costs. Defendants answered the First and Second Amended Complaints on September 5, 2006 and September 19, 2006, respectively, and denied these allegations. On November 3, 2006, the United States District Court, for the Northern District of Alabama severed the cases of the plaintiffs whose claims were subject to the jurisdiction of, and whose venue was proper in, federal courts located outside the State of Alabama. On March 30, 2010, the United States District Court, for the Northern District of Alabama transferred Joyner's case, and similarly situated plaintiffs, to the Northern District of Iowa.

On February 11, 2011, defendants filed a Motion for Summary Judgment. The defendants argue that Joyner's “claim for unpaid overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) fails because Dollar General can show, as a matter of law, that she is exempt from overtime under the ‘executive exemption’ of the FLSA, 29 U.S.C. § 213(a)(1).” (Docket no. 33, p. 1) Defendants also allege that Joyner falls within the “executive exemption” of the FLSA, because: Joyner was compensated on a salary basis at a rate of not less than $250 per week; Joyner's primary duty was management; and, Joyner regularly directed the work of two or more other...

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7 cases
  • Ely v. Dolgencorp, LLC
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas
    • October 25, 2011
    ...motion is inappropriate and, therefore, denied. See Wilson, 338 F.Supp.2d at 1023 n. 19; see also Jones v. Dolgencorp, Inc., 789 F.Supp.2d 1090, 1095–1100 (N.D.Iowa 2011) (denying, under similar factual circumstances, Defendant's Motion to Strike).On consideration of its Motion for Summary ......
  • Vincent v. Story Cnty.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Southern District of Iowa
    • January 14, 2014
    ...1996), cert. denied, 520 U.S. 1120 (1997)(citing Arnold v. Ben Kanowsky, Inc., 361 U.S. 388, 392 (1960)); Jones v. Dolgencorp, Inc., 789 F. Supp. 2d 1090, 1102 (N.D. Iowa 2011). "Disputesregarding the nature of an employee's duties are questions of fact, but the ultimate question whether an......
  • Tamas v. Family Video Movie Club, Inc.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois
    • March 28, 2013
    ...his actual duties." See also Ely, 827 F. Supp. 2d at 884 ("being 'in charge' may be in title only) (quoting Jones v. Dolgencorp, Inc., 789 F. Supp. 2d 1090, 1104 (N.D. Iowa 2011)). "Absent objective evidence" as to the precise amount of time Tamas spent on nonexempt tasks, this factor precl......
  • Wold v. Taher, Inc., CIV. 12-4079-KES
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — District of South Dakota
    • March 3, 2014
    ...duties with Hardin. The amount of time spent on exempt versus nonexempt duties is a factual question. See Jones v. Dolgencorp, Inc., 789 F. Supp. 2d 1090, 1104 (N.D. Iowa 2011) (citing Icicle Seafoods, Inc. v. Worthington, 475 U.S. 709, 714 (1986)). During Wold's time as food service direct......
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