Scott v. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc.


17-2208, 18-359 Scott v. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT August Term 2018 (Argued: February 13, 2019 Decided: April 1, 2020) Nos. 17-2208-cv, 18-359-cv MAXCIMO SCOTT, on behalf of himself and others similarly situated, JAY FRANCIS ENSOR, CHRISTINE JEWEL GATELEY, KRYSTAL PARKER, STACY HIGGS, EUFEMIA JIMENEZ, MATHEW A. MEDINA, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CHIPOTLE MEXICAN GRILL, INC., CHIPOTLE SERVICES, LLC, Defendants-Appellees. * ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK Before: PARKER, CHIN, and SULLIVAN, Circuit Judges. * An additional 516 plaintiffs are listed in the attached Appendix. Appeal from an opinion and order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Carter, J.) in this hybrid class and collective action brought on behalf of employees of a national restaurant chain who claim they were denied overtime wages because they were misclassified as exempt employees. The district court denied the employees' motion for class certification and granted the employer's motion to decertify the conditionally certified collective action. The employees appeal, contending that the district court erred in (1) denying class certification on the basis of a lack of predominance and superiority, and (2) granting decertification of the collective action on the ground that the named plaintiffs and opt-in plaintiffs are not similarly situated. AFFIRMED IN PART and VACATED IN PART. Judge SULLIVAN CONCURS IN PART and DISSENTS IN PART in a separate opinion. RACHEL BIEN (Justin M. Swartz, Melissa L. Stewart, on the brief), Outten & Golden LLP, New York, New York; Paolo Chagas Meireles, Shavitz Law Group, P.A., Boca Raton, Florida; Brian Scott Schaffer, Fitapelli & Schaffer, LLP, New York, New York, for Plaintiffs-Appellants. 2 RICHARD J. SIMMONS (Lisa M. Lewis, Brian D. Murphy, on the brief), Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP, Los Angeles, California, New York, New York; Bruce A. Montoya, John Karl Shunk, Kendra N. Beckwith, Messner Reeves LLP, Denver, Colorado, for Defendants-Appellees. ___________ CHIN, Circuit Judge: Plaintiffs-appellants are seven named plaintiffs representing six putative classes under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3) (the "class plaintiffs"). Plaintiffs-appellants also sue on behalf of themselves and 516 individuals who opted in to a conditionally certified collective action (the "collective plaintiffs") pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act (the "FLSA"), 29 U.S.C. ยง 216(b). Class plaintiffs are current and former "Apprentices" of defendants-appellees Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. and Chipotle Services, LLC (together, "Chipotle") who allege that Chipotle misclassified them as exempt employees in violation of the labor laws in six states. Collective plaintiffs are current and former Chipotle Apprentices who allege that Chipotle misclassified them as exempt employees in violation of the FLSA. As a result of Chipotle's purported misclassification, plaintiffs-appellants contend that they were unlawfully denied overtime wages required under state and federal law. 3 On March 29, 2017, the district court denied class plaintiffs' class certification motion on the grounds that class plaintiffs failed to meet the predominance and superiority requirements of Rule 23(b)(3). Scott v. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc., ...

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