Senne v. Kan. City Royals Baseball Corp.
| Decision Date | 07 March 2017 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 14-cv-00608-JCS |
| Parties | AARON SENNE, et al., Plaintiffs, v. KANSAS CITY ROYALS BASEBALL CORP., et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of California |
On July 21, 2016, the Court denied Plaintiffs' request for class certification under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and decertified the FLSA collective it had preliminarily certified. See Docket No. 687 ("Class Certification Order" or "July 21 Order"). In the same Order, it granted Defendants' request to exclude the testimony of Plaintiffs' expert, Dr. J. Michael Dennis, under Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence and Daubert. Plaintiffs brought a Motion for Leave to File a Motion for Reconsideration ("Motion for Leave") on August 4, 2016. The Court granted in part and denied in part the Motion for Leave on August 19, 2016, allowing Plaintiffs to "file a renewed motion . . . for class certification under Rule 23 in which Plaintiffs will propose narrower classes and address the concerns articulated by the Court in its July 21 Order, including those related to the survey conducted by their expert and the expert opinions that were based on the survey." Docket No. 710 ("August 19 Order") at 1. Under the August 19 Order, Plaintiffs were also permitted to "seek (re)certification of narrower FLSA classes than the ones the Court decertified in its July 21 Order." Id.
Presently before the Court are the following motions ("Motions"): 1) Plaintiffs' Motion for Reconsideration Regarding Class and Collective Certification ("Motion for Reconsideration"); 2) Motion to Intervene by Shane Opitz, Corey Jones, Brian Hunter, Kyle Johnson, and Aaron Dott; 3) Defendants' Motion to Exclude the Declaration and Testimony of J. Michael Dennis, Ph.D. ("Motion to Exclude"); and 4) Defendants' Motion for Leave to File Sur-Reply. A hearing on the Motions was held on December 2, 2016 at 9:30 a.m. The Court's rulings are set forth below.1
In their original class certification motion, Plaintiffs asked the Court to certify under Rule 23(b)(3), or in the alternative, Rule 23(b)(2), classes consisting of "[a]ll persons who under a Minor League Uniform Player contract, work or worked for MLB or any MLB franchise as a minor league baseball player within the relevant state at any time" during the applicable statutory period. See Motion to Certify Class, Docket No. 496. These classes asserted wage and hour claims under the laws of eight different states based on a variety of activities the putative class members perform throughout the year, including spring training, extended spring training, the championship season, instructional leagues, and winter conditioning. Class Certification Order at 3-4, 7-9. To show that their claims were amenable to class treatment, Plaintiffs offered a declaration by their expert, Dr. J. Michael Dennis, describing a survey questionnaire ("Pilot Survey") he conducted to show that it would be possible to conduct a "main survey" ("Main Survey") that would produce reliable results and would address the issues in this case through common proof. See Declaration of J. Michael Dennis, Ph.D. in Support of Plaintiffs' Motion for Class Certification, Docket No. 498 ("March 3, 2016 Dennis Decl.").
Defendants argued, inter alia, that the classes should not be certified under Rule 23 because the experiences of the putative class members varied widely. See generally, Defendants' Opposition to Plaintiffs' Motion for Class Certification Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, Docket No. 628. Similarly, they argued that the FLSA collective should be decertified because thenamed Plaintiffs were not similarly situated, either to each other or the opt-in plaintiffs. See generally, Motion to Decertify the Fair Labor Standards Act Collective, Docket No. 495. Finally, Defendants sought to exclude the testimony of Plaintiffs' expert, Dr. Dennis, on the grounds that it was unreliable, and to exclude the testimony of Plaintiffs' damages expert, Dr. Kriegler, to the extent he relied on Dr. Dennis's survey results. See Motion to Exclude Plaintiffs' Expert Declarations and Testimony of J. Michael Dennis, Ph.D and Brian Kriegler, Ph.D filed In Support of Plaintiffs' Motion for Class Certification, Docket No. 632.
The Court agreed with Defendants that the classes, as proposed, could not be certified under Rule 23. First, it found that one of the requirements of Rule 23(a), ascertainability, was not satisfied because of the "problems associated with determining membership in the State Classes based on winter training." Class Certification Order at 59. These problems arose from the wide variations as to the types of activities in which the players engaged to meet their winter conditioning obligations, the fact that many players performed these activities in more than one state, the absence of official records documenting these activities, and the difficulty players would likely have remembering the details relating to their winter conditioning activities, including, in some cases, the state or states where they performed them. Id.
The Court went on to hold that Plaintiffs' proposed classes did not meet the requirements of Rule 23(b)(3) because of the highly individualized inquiries that would have been required to evaluate the claims of the class members. Id. at 81. The Court pointed to variation in the types of activities in which the minor leaguers engage, finding that these variations were "particularly striking as to winter training." Id. The Court also pointed to variations as to the hours and activities of minor league players during the championship season and variations with respect to salaries, bonuses and other forms of compensation. Id. at 81-82. The Court found that these variations went not only to damages but also liability, reasoning that "[c]lass members can demonstrate minimum wage and overtime violations only by demonstrating that their rate of pay fell below the minimum wage rate and that they worked the requisite number of hours to be entitled to overtime pay, both of which will turn on the number of hours of compensable work they performed and the amount of compensation they received for that work." Id. at 82.
The individualized choice-of-law determinations that would be required to address the claims of the putative class members were also a source of significant concern to the Court. Id. at 86-87. Again, the Court found that winter training was particularly problematic as players are permitted to perform their conditioning wherever they choose and the evidence shows that many players perform their conditioning in more than one state. Id. The Court also found that individualized inquiries related to the seasonal amusement and recreational establishment defenses and the creative professionals exemption would "increase the likelihood that class treatment of Plaintiffs' claims will be overwhelmed by the individual inquiries." Id. at 84-86. The Court noted as to both of these defenses, however, that they would not be sufficient, on their own, to warrant denial of class certification. Id.
In the end, the Court concluded that the variations were too significant to meet the predominance requirements of Rule 23(b)(3) and that the survey results on which Plaintiffs intended to rely constituted an impermissible attempt to "paper over significant material variations that make application of the survey results to the class as a whole improper." Id. at 91. In reaching this conclusion, the Court rejected Plaintiffs' reliance on Tyson Foods v. Bouaphakeo, 136 S. Ct. 1036, 1045 (2016), in which the Supreme Court found, applying the rule of its seminal Mt. Clemens decision, that the plaintiffs could demonstrate their work based on representative evidence sufficient to support a "just and reasonable inference" where the employer had not kept adequate records of their work. Id. at 88. The undersigned found that "[a]llowing Plaintiffs to rely on the survey evidence obtained by Dr. Dennis (whether the Pilot Survey or the future survey he planned to conduct using the same methodology) would be inappropriate under the circumstances here because doing so would enlarge the rights of Plaintiffs and deprive Defendants of the right to litigate the individual issues discussed above." Id. at 91.
With respect to Plaintiffs' request that the Court certify the same proposed classes under Rule 23(b)(2), the Court found that Plaintiffs did not have standing to pursue injunctive relief claims under Rule 23(b)(2) because none of the named Plaintiffs was a current minor leaguers and therefore, Plaintiffs could not demonstrate a likelihood of future harm. Class Certification Order at 92-93. The Court further found that "the absence of any current minor league players amongnamed Plaintiffs reflects that any interest they may have in obtaining injunctive relief for future players is incidental to their request for money damages." Id. at 93.
The Court also decertified the FLSA collective that it had previously certified, finding that the collective members were not "similarly situated" because of the many individualized inquiries that would be required to resolve those claims. Id. at 95.
Finally, on Defendants' motion to exclude, the Court found that some of the problems identified by Defendants with respect to Dr. Dennis's Pilot Survey, including alleged coverage error and non-response bias, were "exaggerated or remediable." Id. at 97-99. On the other hand, the Court was "troubled by the format of [a] question flagged by" Defendants' expert, Dr. Ericksen, that asked respondents to "go through a difficult series of questions to come up with an answer," possibly leading them to "satisfice" or give...
To continue reading
Request your trial