Kinkead v. Humana at Home, Inc.

• Decision Date: 31 March 2020
• Docket Number: No. 3:15-cv-01637 (JAM),3:15-cv-01637 (JAM)
• Parties: Daverlynn KINKEAD et al., individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. HUMANA AT HOME, INC. et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut

450 F.Supp.3d 162

Daverlynn KINKEAD et al., individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs,

v.HUMANA AT HOME, INC. et al., Defendants.

No. 3:15-cv-01637 (JAM)

United States District Court, D. Connecticut.

Signed March 31, 2020

Artemio Guerra, Dan C. Getman, Michael J.D. Sweeney, Pro Hac Vice, Getman, Sweeney, & Dunn, PLLC, Kingston, NY, Edward Tuddenham, Pro Hac Vice, New York, NY, Scott E. Brady, Pro Hac Vice, Philip Bohrer, Pro Hac Vice, Bohrer Brady, LLC, Baton Rouge, LA, for Plaintiff Daverlynn Kinkead.

Dan C. Getman, Michael J.D. Sweeney, Getman, Sweeney, & Dunn, PLLC, Kingston, NY, Philip Bohrer, Bohrer Brady, LLC, Baton Rouge, LA, for Plaintiff Claude Mathieu.

Noel P. Tripp, Pro Hac Vice, Jackson Lewis P.C., Melville, NY, Alexa M. Farmer, David R. Golder, David C. Salazar, Jackson Lewis—P.C., Hartford, CT, Kristi Rich Winters, Jackson Lewis P.C., Albany, NY, for Defendants.

ORDER GRANTING IN PART, DENYING IN PART, AND DEFERRING IN PART PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT AND DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Jeffrey Alker Meyer, United States District Judge

Plaintiffs are home healthcare workers employed by defendant Humana, Inc. and its corporate affiliates. They have filed this collective and class action lawsuit alleging that defendants have unlawfully failed to pay them regular and time-and-a-half overtime wages for the number of hours that they worked. They bring their claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act, as well as under the Connecticut Minimum Wage Act and New York Labor Law.

Both parties now move for summary judgment. Docs. #312; #314. For the reasons explained below, I will grant in part, deny in part, and defer in part the motions for summary judgment.

BACKGROUND

These motions are the latest stage of a long-running dispute between the parties. Because I discuss this case's history at length in Kinkead v. Humana at Home, Inc. , 330 F.R.D. 338 (D. Conn. 2019), I address here only the facts and procedural developments pertinent to the instant motions.

The plaintiffs in this case are home healthcare workers ("HHWs") who go to the homes of elderly and disabled people to provide "companionship services." Plaintiffs all worked for Humana, Inc. and related company defendants (collectively, "defendants"). Defendants employ HHWs to serve clients in two types of arrangements: as live-in and non-live-in caregivers. A live-in caregiver spends a 24-hour shift in a client's home, part of which time the HHW sleeps and has meals as needed. A non-live-in caregiver spends a discrete number of hours or "shift" at a client's home (e.g. , an 8-hour or 12-hour shift).

The Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA") generally requires that employers pay time-and-a-half wage rates for hours that an employee works beyond the regular 40-hour work week. See 29 U.S.C. § 207(a). In 2013, the U.S. Department of Labor ("DOL") promulgated a new regulation, 29 C.F.R. § 552.109, which expanded the class of workers eligible for overtime pay under the FLSA. Prior to the issuance of this regulation, the FLSA's overtime pay requirements did not apply to companionship service workers whose services were provided by means of a third-party employer like Humana. See Kinkead v. Humana, Inc. , 206 F. Supp. 3d 751, 753 (D. Conn. 2016). The new regulation eliminated this exemption effective January 1, 2015. Ibid.

The validity of the new regulation was put into doubt for a time by an adverse decision from a district court in the District of Columbia, but the D.C. Circuit eventually reversed the district court's decision in August 2015. See ibid. (citing Home Care Ass'n of Am. v. Weil , 76 F. Supp. 3d 138 (D.D.C. 2014), rev'd and remanded , 799 F.3d 1084 (D.C. Cir. 2015) ). While the regulation remained in limbo, defendants did not generally pay overtime.

In November 2015, plaintiff Daverlynn Kinkead sued defendants, alleging that she had worked as a HHW in Connecticut and that the new regulation entitled her to overtime pay for hours that she worked from January 2015 until May 2015. Doc. #1. Kinkead based her claim on the FLSA as well as on cognate provisions of the Connecticut Minimum Wage Act ("CMWA"), Conn. Gen. Stat. § 31-58 et seq.

In July 2016, I denied defendants’ motion to dismiss, concluding that—notwithstanding the intervening legal challenge to the rule's validity—the regulation went into effect as of its intended effective date of January 1, 2015. See Kinkead , 206 F. Supp. 3d at 753-55. In May 2017, I granted the joint motion for conditional certification of a national FLSA collective action pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 216(b). Doc. #114.

The litigation then took another turn in November 2017 when I granted plaintiffs leave to file an amended complaint. Docs. #180; #181 (first amended complaint). Plaintiffs added claims under New York Labor Law ("NYLL") and named another co-plaintiff, Claude Mathieu, who worked for defendants from approximately February 2015 to July 2016, as a class representative for New York HHWs. Under the amended complaint, Kinkead and Mathieu sought collective and class action relief to recover unpaid overtime wages under the FLSA as well as under parallel provisions of both the CMWA and NYLL. In addition to their claims for overtime hours, plaintiffs also sought relief for unpaid hours, alleging that defendants systematically undercounted the hours for which they paid HHWs who worked live-in shifts. Doc. #181 at 17-18 (¶¶ 64-73).

In May 2018, plaintiffs moved to certify four different classes pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 23. Doc. #204. The first two classes—the "Connecticut Effective Date Class" and the "New York Effective Date Class"—sought to be paid for overtime hours owed from January 1 to October 12, 2015.

The second two classes—referred to as the "Connecticut Unpaid Hours Class" and the "New York Unpaid Hours Class"—sought additional relief of unpaid wages, whether straight time or overtime, on the ground that defendants did not properly calculate the hours to be credited and compensated for those HHWs who worked live-in shifts.

For the Connecticut Unpaid Hours class, plaintiffs sought certification of a class limited to HHWs who worked live-in shifts between January 1, 2015, and January 25, 2016. Plaintiffs at that time sought payment for at least 13 hours per live-in shift, the minimum under Connecticut law, even if some plaintiffs actually worked more than 13 hours during a live-in shift. For the New York Unpaid Hours class, plaintiffs sought certification of a class of HHWs who worked between November 11, 2009, and the present, alleging that New York HHWs were entitled under state law to be paid for the full 24 hours of a live-in shift. At that time, it was an unresolved question whether New York law required that an HHW be paid for a full 24 hours or for only 13 hours for a live-in shift. See Kinkead , 330 F.R.D. at 344.¹

So plaintiffs based their New York unpaid hours claim in the alternative on a 13-hour statutory minimum number of hours, as with their Connecticut Unpaid Hours Class claim. Ibid.

In addition, because the legal uncertainty at that time had implications for the overtime claims of the New York Effective Date Class, plaintiffs moved to file a second amended complaint to add Shirley Caillo as a representative plaintiff alongside Mathieu, on the basis that Caillo worked live-in and non-live-in shifts totaling over 40 hours per week—regardless of whether she was credited for 13 or 24 hours per live-in shift under New York law. Doc. #256-1 (second amended complaint). In March 2019, I granted plaintiffs’ second motion to amend their complaint and I certified the following four classes:

(1) The Connecticut Effective Date class, consisting of all home healthcare workers employed by defendants in Connecticut who worked in excess of 40 hours in a week between January 1, 2015, and October 12, 2015.

(2) The New York Effective Date class, consisting of all home healthcare workers employed by defendants in New York who worked in excess of 40 hours in a week including at least one 24-hour live-in shift between January 1, 2015, and October 12, 2015.

(3) The Connecticut Unpaid Hours class, consisting of all home healthcare workers employed by defendants in Connecticut who worked 24-hour live-in shifts between January 1, 2015, and January 25, 2016.

(4) The New York Unpaid Hours class, consisting of all home healthcare workers employed by defendants in New York who worked 24-hour live-in shifts between November 11, 2009 and the present.

Kinkead , 330 F.R.D. at 358-59.

The parties have now filed cross-motions for summary judgment, Docs. #312, #314, and the Court heard oral argument on both motions in November 2019, Doc. #368.

DISCUSSION

The principles governing the Court's review of a motion for summary judgment are well established. Summary judgment may be granted only if "the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). The Court must view the facts in the light most favorable to the party who opposes the motion for summary judgment and then decide if those facts would be enough—if eventually proved at trial—to allow a reasonable jury to decide the case in favor of the opposing party. My role at summary judgment is not to judge the credibility of witnesses or to resolve close and contested issues but solely to decide if there are enough facts that remain in dispute to warrant a trial. See generally Tolan v. Cotton , 572 U.S. 650, 656-57, 134 S.Ct. 1861, 188 L.Ed.2d 895 (2014) (per curiam ); Benzemann v. Houslanger & Assocs., PLLC , 924 F.3d 73, 78 (2d Cir. 2019).

With these principles in mind, I will address each summary judgment motion in turn.

Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment

Plaintiffs seek summary judgment on their claims, as well as on some issues within those claims. Doc. #312.

FLSA overtime for live-in shifts

Plaintiffs seek summary judgment on the FLSA overtime claims...