Monroe v. FTS USA, LLC
| Citation | 17 F.4th 664 |
| Decision Date | 08 November 2021 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 20-6289/6347,s. 20-6289/6347 |
| Parties | Edward MONROE, Fabian Moore, and Timothy Williams, on behalf of themselves and all other similarly situated employees, Plaintiffs-Appellees/Cross-Appellants, v. FTS USA, LLC and UniTek USA, LLC, Defendants-Appellants/Cross-Appellees. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit) |
ON BRIEF: Colin D. Dougherty, Daniel W. Yager, FOX ROTHSCHILD LLP, Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, for Appellants/Cross-Appellees. Adam W. Hansen, APOLLO LAW LLC, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Rachhana T. Srey, NICHOLS KASTER, PLLP, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for Appellees/Cross-Appellants.
Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; BOGGS and STRANCH, Circuit Judges.
This Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) case has been litigated for over thirteen years. We have twice affirmed the district court's certification of a collective action and the determination by the jury and court that FTS and UniTek are liable under the FLSA. We reversed only as to two errors in calculating damages for Plaintiffs’ piece-rate compensation and remanded for the sole purpose of recalculating damages without those errors. On remand, FTS and UniTek sought to raise a host of new attacks on the district court's judgment that were unrelated to our limited instruction to recalculate the hourly rate and correct the multiplier used to calculate damages. Recognizing that our remand was limited, the district court barred FTS and UniTek from raising most of those arguments. The court then recalculated damages and entered judgment for all but one opt-in Plaintiff, Valon Harlan, finding a lack of sufficient evidence to calculate damages. Following entry of judgment, the district court also substantially granted Plaintiffs’ counsel's petition for attorney's fees.
On appeal, FTS and UniTek assert that the district court erred in foreclosing its arguments, contending that our remand was general in nature and thus allowed the district court to consider the merits of their list of new claims. FTS and UniTek also argue that the district court abused its discretion in substantially granting attorney's fees to Plaintiffs. We AFFIRM the district court's judgment in all respects except as to its denial of judgment to Plaintiff Harlan, which we REVERSE and REMAND to the district court with instructions to enter judgment in favor of Plaintiff Harlan.
Because our prior opinions fully set forth the underlying facts, we here summarize only the pertinent parts of the lengthy procedural history of this case. In 2008, FTS technicians filed suit alleging that they were unlawfully deprived of overtime compensation for hours worked over the course of the prior three years. The district court authorized a collective action, and a total of 293 technicians ultimately opted into the collective action. In 2011, the case was tried to a jury that returned verdicts of liability against FTS and UniTek, finding that FTS Technicians worked in excess of 40 hours weekly without being paid overtime compensation and that FTS willfully violated the FLSA. The jury determined the average number of unrecorded hours worked per week by each testifying technician. Based on the jury's findings, the district court calculated damages for all technicians in the collective action and entered a judgment in 2012 based on calculation of the damages owed to each individual Plaintiff. In entering judgment for Plaintiffs, the district court applied a 1.5 multiplier for calculating uncompensated overtime.
In 2014, FTS appealed the district court's judgment on the following grounds: (1) The district court erred in certifying the collective action because the employees were not similarly situated; (2) the court improperly allowed plaintiffs to prove liability as to all technicians based on testimony of an "unrepresentative few"; (3) the "trial-by-proxy procedure deprived FTS of its constitutional right to litigate individual defenses"; (4) the verdict form was flawed because the form did not require a finding about each technician for each week; (5) the court "impermissibly usurped" the jury's role in determining damages; (6) the district court's damages calculation was incorrect and based on unrepresentative testimony; and finally (7) the Seventh Amendment "requires" that any retrial on damages also include a new trial on liability. See generally Monroe v. FTS USA, LLC , 815 F.3d 1000 (6th Cir. 2016) ( Monroe I ). We upheld the district court's certification of the case as a collective action and its determination that sufficient evidence supports the jury's verdicts in favor of the class, affirming the court's judgment in all respects except as to the multiplier used to calculate the damages and the calculation of the technicians’ hourly rate under the piece-rate compensation system. Id. at 1005, 1024. On the first issue, we found that the district court erred in applying a 1.5 multiplier, and instead should have used a 0.5 multiplier. Id. On the second, we found that the district court erred in failing to calculate the hourly rates to reflect the actual hours Plaintiffs worked. Id. Accordingly, we remanded the matter for the limited purpose of recalculating damages with the correct hourly rate and multiplier. Id.
FTS petitioned for a writ of certiorari. In light of its decision in Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo , 577 U.S. 442, 136 S.Ct. 1036, 194 L.Ed.2d 124 (2016), decided after our opinion issued, the Supreme Court vacated our judgment, and remanded for further consideration. See FTS USA, LLC v. Monroe , ––– U.S. ––––, 137 S. Ct. 590, 196 L.Ed.2d 471 (2016). On remand, we concluded that Tyson supports our original decision and reaffirmed our prior holdings. See Monroe v. FTS USA, LLC , 860 F.3d 389, 393, 415–16 (6th Cir. 2017) ( Monroe II ). We again affirmed the certification of the collective action and the sufficiency of evidence supporting the jury's verdicts, and reversed only as to the hourly rate calculation and the use of a 1.5 multiplier, remanding the case for the purpose of correcting the arithmetic.1 Id. FTS petitioned this court for rehearing en banc, which was denied. FTS again sought certiorari review, which was also denied. FTS USA, LLC v. Monroe , ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S. Ct. 980, 200 L.Ed.2d 248 (2018).
The case then returned to the district court for the specified recalculation of the judgment. On remand, FTS sought to raise a number of issues for the first time. FTS and UniTek contended that our remand allowed them to raise the following claims: that at least 42 Plaintiffs were barred from recovery under the doctrine of judicial estoppel because they failed to disclose their FLSA claims in bankruptcy proceedings; that the district court erred in entering a single, aggregate judgment, as opposed to individualized and separate, Plaintiff-by-Plaintiff judgments; and that there was insufficient evidence to support a verdict as to several opt-in Plaintiffs, including Plaintiff Harlan. Recognizing that we issued a limited remand, the district court rejected each of FTS and UniTek's arguments, except for their argument as to Harlan. The district court concluded that it should not enter judgment for Harlan because "the data used to calculate damages ... is not the product of a just and reasonable inference supported by sufficient evidence." The district court entered judgment, incorporating a spreadsheet that once again contained a Plaintiff-by-Plaintiff calculation as to the damages owed to each individual Plaintiff.
At the conclusion of the case, Plaintiffs’ counsel petitioned the district court for attorney's fees and costs related to all the litigation, including fees related to the pretrial litigation that occurred prior to November 1, 2012 (which the district court had previously granted, and we did not disturb), fees for the appellate litigation (all of which occurred post-November 1, 2012), and a fee enhancement. The district court ultimately granted Plaintiffs’ petition for pre-November 1, 2012, litigation fees and post-November 1, 2012, litigation fees, but denied the fee enhancement.
In this appeal, FTS and UniTek raise a number of challenges to the district court's judgment along with separate challenges regarding the attorney's fees awarded by the court. Plaintiffs, on the other hand, cross-appeal to raise one challenge to the district court's denial of judgment as to Plaintiff Harlan. We address the judgment-related arguments and the attorney's fees-related arguments in turn.
FTS and UniTek principally challenge the district court's conclusion that our remand in Monroe II was limited. They argue that we issued a general remand in Monroe II , and therefore, the district court erred in refusing to bar various opt-in Plaintiffs from recovering any damages based on the doctrine of judicial estoppel and in failing to enter Plaintiff-by-Plaintiff judgments. In response, Plaintiffs assert that our remand in Monroe II was limited, and the district court could not consider FTS and UniTek's new claims. For the same reason, Plaintiffs contend that the district court erred in denying judgment to Plaintiff Harlan.
We review de novo the interpretation of our mandate. United States v. Parks , 700 F.3d 775, 777 (6th Cir. 2012). Addressing whether a district court complied with our mandate, we review the entirety of the previously entered opinion to determine whether the remand was limited. See Carter v. Mitchell , 829 F.3d 455, 463 (6th Cir. 2016).
The mandate rule binds a district court to the scope of the remand issued by the court of appeals. See United States v. Campbell , 168 F.3d 263, 265 (6th Cir. 1999). Put differently, "the mandate rule instructs that the district court is without authority to expand its inquiry beyond the matters forming the basis of the appellate court's remand." Id. An appellate court's remand can either be general or limited in scope, and that distinction governs the...
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