Sikiotis v. Vitesse Worldwide Chaufeeured Servs., Inc., Civil No. 3:15cv316 (JBA)

• Decision Date: 24 November 2015
• Docket Number: Civil No. 3:15cv316 (JBA)
• Citation: 147 F.Supp.3d 39
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut
• Parties: Tom Sikiotis, Plaintiff, v. Vitesse Worldwide Chaufeeured Services, Inc., & Shahin Abaspour Defendants.

147 F.Supp.3d 39

Tom Sikiotis, Plaintiff,

v.Vitesse Worldwide Chaufeeured Services, Inc., & Shahin Abaspour Defendants.

Civil No. 3:15cv316 (JBA)

United States District Court, D. Connecticut.

Signed November 24, 2015

Anthony J. Pantuso, III, Richard Eugene Hayber, Hayber Law Firm LLC, Hartford, CT, for Plaintiff.

Michele F. Martin, Pastore & Dailey LLC, Gainsville, FL, Christopher E. Geotes, Joseph M. Pastore, III, Pastore & Dailey, LLC, Stamford, CT, for Defendants.

Janet Bond Arterton, United States District Judge.

Plaintiff Tom Sikiotis brings this action alleging willful and nonwillful¹ violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) 29 U.S.C. § 201, et seq. ,

by Defendants Vitesse Worldwide Chauffeured Services, Inc., (“Vitesse”) and Shahin Abaspour arising out of Defendants' failure to pay Plaintiff overtime compensation at a rate of one-and-one-half times Plaintiff's regular pay for all hours worked over forty hours per week. (Am. Compl. [Doc. # 22] ¶ 12.) Defendants now move [Doc. # 26] to dismiss Plaintiff's Amended Complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. For the following reasons, Defendants' motion is denied.

I. Factual Allegations

The factual contentions in Mr. Sikiotis' Amended Complaint allege the following: Mr. Sikiotis was employed by Defendant Vitesse, a Connecticut corporation with a principal place of business in Stamford, Connecticut. (Am. Compl. ¶ 5.) Vitesse provides limousine services through its offices located across the country. (Id. ¶ 7.) Defendant Abaspour is the owner and President of Vitesse. (Id. ¶ 6.) Mr. Abaspour “had the authority to set the hours of employment, hire and fire, maintain employment records, [and] to direct the work and ... determine the rate and method of payment of wages of Sikiotis.” (Id. ) “Abaspour's exercise of that authority was the direct cause of Vitesse's failure to pay wages.”

Plaintiff was responsible for picking up and driving Defendants' customers to various locations in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. (Id. ¶ 8.) During job assignments, Plaintiff was required to wait and be on call, was not free to engage in personal activities, had to perform various non-driving tasks including ensuring the vehicle was cleaned and serviced, and was required to be in contact with Defendants at all times. (Id. ¶¶ 9, 11, 15.) As well, Plaintiff was required to be at pickup locations at least fifteen minutes before scheduled pickup times for each job assignment. (Id. ¶ 10.)

Plaintiff states that he customarily and regularly worked more than forty-hours per week but was not paid overtime compensation. (Id. ¶ 12.) To illustrate typical work weeks during the period of the claim, the Amended Complaint states that in the week ending February 24, 2013, Plaintiff had a total of 21 jobs and worked at least 52 hours; in the week ending March 3, 2013, Plaintiff had a total of 17 jobs and worked at least 42 hours; and in the week ending on March 10, 2013, Plaintiff had a total of 18 jobs and worked at least 45 hours. (Id. ¶ 13.)

Because Plaintiff received all of his job assignments through Defendants' dispatchers, Defendants “knew or should have known” that Plaintiff worked over forty hours per week, and a reasonable investigation by Defendants would have revealed that limousine drivers were entitled to overtime pay because the SAFETEA-LY Technical Corrections Act of 2008 (“Corrections Act”), enacted June 6, 2008, removed limousine drivers like Plaintiff who crossed state lines from coverage of the Motor Carrier Exemption to FLSA. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 16, 17). Nonetheless, Defendants took no steps to ensure their compliance with the widely-publicized Act and the FLSA.

II. Discussion²

A. Pleading Overtime Violations Under the FLSA

Under the FLSA, an employee bringing an action for unpaid overtime wages has the burden of proving that she performed work for which she was not properly compensated. See Grochowski v. Phoenix Constr., Ypsilon Constr. Corp., 318 F.3d 80, 87 (2d Cir.2003)

(quoting

Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co. , 328 U.S. 680, 687, 66 S.Ct. 1187, 90 L.Ed. 1515 (1946) ). To succeed on a FLSA overtime claim, an employee must show that: (1) she was eligible for overtime (i.e., not exempt from the Act's overtime pay requirements); and (2) she actually worked overtime hours for which she was not compensated. See 29 U.S.C. § 207(a) ; Hosking v. New World Mortgage, Inc. , 602 F.Supp.2d 441, 447 (E.D.N.Y.2009). Defendants do not challenge Mr. Sikiotis' eligibility for overtime compensation. Rather, they maintain that he has failed to state a plausible overtime violation under the FLSA because he has not adequately alleged that he worked compensable overtime hours for which he was not compensated.

Both parties rely on Lundy v. Catholic Health Sys. of Long Island Inc. , 711 F.3d 106 (2d Cir.2013)

and Nakahata v. New York

–

Presbyterian Healthcare Sys., Inc. , 723 F.3d 192 (2d Cir.2013), in which the Second Circuit addressed the degree of pleading specificity required for FLSA overtime claims. The Lundy plaintiffs, a respiratory therapist and two nurses, brought a class action alleging that the Catholic Health System of Long Island Inc., “failed to compensate them adequately for time worked during meal breaks, before and after scheduled shifts, and during required training sessions” in violation of various statutes including the FLSA. 711 F.3d at 109. Recognizing divergency within the Circuit and in sister circuits as to the level of factual detail necessary to state a plausible claim for overtime compensation under the FLSA, Lundy established a baseline: “We conclude that in order to state a plausible FLSA overtime claim, a plaintiff must sufficiently allege 40 hours of work in a given workweek as well as some uncompensated time in excess of the 40 hours.” Id. (citing 29 U.S.C. § 207(a)(1) ). While Lundy did not require the plaintiffs to plead an approximation of overtime hours, it affirmed the district court's determination that they had failed to state a plausible claim because they had “not alleged a single workweek in which they worked at least 40 hours and also worked uncompensated time in excess of 40 hours.” Id. at 114.

In Nakahata

, the Second Circuit determined that the “plaintiffs had failed to plead sufficient facts to make out a plausible claim that they worked uncompensated hours in excess of 40 in a given week,” because all they alleged was that “they were not paid for overtime hours worked,” including work performed during meal times, before and after shifts, and during required trainings. 723 F.3d at 201. While this pleading raised a possibility of uncompensated time in violation of the FLSA, “[t]o plead a plausible FLSA overtime claim, Plaintiffs must provide sufficient detail about the length and frequency of their unpaid work to support a reasonable inference that they worked more than forty hours in a given week.” Id. at 201

.

Similarly, in Dejesus v. HF Mgmt. Servs. , LLC, 726 F.3d 85, 89 (2d Cir.2013)

, the Second Circuit affirmed the district court's determination that plaintiff had failed to state an overtime violation under the FLSA, because the plaintiff never “estimate[d] her hours in any or all weeks or provide[d] any other factual context of content.” Id. at 89. Instead, she merely alleged that in “some or all weeks” she worked more than forty hours. Id. Citing with approval a First Circuit case that treated the phrase “regularly worked” as “too meager, vague, or conclusory” to survive a motion to dismiss, id. (citing Pruell v. Caritas Christi , 678 F.3d 10, 13 (1st Cir.2012) ), the Second Circuit concluded that simply rehashing the statutory language of the FLSA was inadequate at the pleading stage, Dejesus , 726 F.3d at 90.

While the pleading standard established in Lundy

and applied in these subsequent cases is clearly applicable, the factual pleadings here are materially distinguishable. First, the health care workers' claims in Lundy et al failed to adequately plead compensability. Under Section 4(a) of the Portal-to-Portal Act, which amended the FLSA, “walking, riding, or traveling to and from the actual place of performance of the principal activity or activities which such employee is employed to perform,” and “activities which are preliminary to or postliminary to said principal activity or activities,” are non-compensable. 29 U.S.C. § 254(a)(1). The plaintiffs in Lundy et al failed to allege how their time between shifts, during meal breaks, or in the context of mandatory trainings was integral and indispensible to a principal activity such that it was compensable. See

Lundy , 711 F.3d at 112 (“As to their FLSA overtime allegations ... Plaintiffs were required to plead that they worked (1) compensable hours (2) in excess of 40 hours per week, and (3) that CHS knew that Plaintiffs were working overtime. Only some of the categories of purportedly unpaid work—meal breaks, time before and after scheduled shifts, and training—constituted ‘compensable’ hours”); see also

IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez , 546 U.S. 21, 37, 126 S.Ct. 514, 163 L.Ed.2d 288 (2005) (“[W]e hold that any activity that is ‘integral and indispensable’ to a ‘principal activity’ is itself a ‘principal activity’ under § 4(a) of the Portal-to-Portal Act.”); Singh v. City of New York , 524 F.3d 361, 367 (2d Cir.2008) (“[W]hile employees need not be compensated for or on account of commuting to and from work, they must be compensated for any work performed during a commute that is integral and indispensable to a principal activity of their employment.” (internal quotations omitted)).

Although Defendants contend that Mr. Sikiotis has failed to allege how the time he spent waiting and commuting between pickups is compensable (see Defs' Mem. Supp. at 10), under the FLSA, time spent traveling as part of an employee's typical work day is integral and indispensible and thus compensable, see 29 C.F.R § 785.38

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