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Nature of Suit Code: 710
Nature of Suit: Fair Labor Standards Act
Cause of Action: 

---

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 23-2964 

JOSE AGEO LUNA VANEGAS, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v.

SIGNET BUILDERS, INC.,

Defendant-Appellant. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Western District of Wisconsin. 

No. 3:21-cv-00054-jdp — James D. Peterson, Chief Judge. 

____________________ 

On Petition for Rehearing and/or Rehearing En Banc

____________________ 

DECIDED JANUARY 13, 2025 

____________________ 

Before SYKES, Chief Judge, EASTERBROOK, ROVNER, BRENNAN, SCUDDER, ST. EVE, KIRSCH, JACKSON-AKIWUMI, LEE,

PRYOR, KOLAR, and MALDONADO, Circuit Judges. 

PER CURIAM. On consideration of plaintiff-appellee’s petition for rehearing and/or rehearing en banc, filed on September 27, 2024, all judges on the panel have voted to deny panel 

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2 No. 23-2964

rehearing. A judge in regular active service called for a vote 

on the petition for rehearing en banc, and a majority in active 

service voted to deny the petition for rehearing en banc. 

Judges Jackson-Akiwumi and Maldonado voted to grant the 

petition for rehearing en banc.

Accordingly, the petition for rehearing and/or rehearing 

en banc is DENIED.

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No. 23-2964 3 

MALDONADO, Circuit Judge, joined by JACKSON-AKIWUMI, 

Circuit Judge, dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc. 

The question presented in this case is whether each opt-in 

plaintiff in a Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) collective action 

must establish personal jurisdiction in the court where the 

case was filed. The majority concluded that they must, 

expanding the Supreme Court’s decision in Bristol-Myers 

Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California, San Francisco County, 

582 U.S. 255 (2017), and interpreting Federal Rule of Civil 

Procedure 4(k)(1)(A) as a jurisdictional requirement for each 

opt-in plaintiff. I respectfully disagree with both conclusions.

In my view, Bristol-Myers has no bearing on a federal 

court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction under the Fifth 

Amendment, and the majority’s interpretation of Rule 4 is 

overly expansive. My analysis of these topics aligns with the 

dissent’s thoughtful and well-reasoned opinion. I write 

separately to elevate an issue that has thus far not been 

addressed: I am concerned that the majority’s reading of Rule 

4(k)(1)(A) violates the Rules Enabling Act of 1934, 28 U.S.C. § 

2072, and raises significant constitutional concerns about the 

separation of powers between Congress and the Supreme 

Court. Though articulated by the Law Professor Amici,1 this 

issue has neither been directly addressed by the majority 

opinion nor resolved by other courts. Below, I expand on this 

critical omission in the majority’s decision. I conclude with 

my observations on the dramatic power shift to employers 

affected by the majority’s rule. 

1 See ECF No. 21 (Brief for Amicus Law Professors Helen Hershkoff, 

Arthur Miller, Alan Morrison, John Sexton, & Adam Steinman) at 19.

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***

Some background on the dueling interpretations of Rule 

4(k)(1) is necessary before I turn to substance. The courts that 

have addressed the question presented in this FLSA case have 

provided two facially reasonable interpretations of Rule 

4(k)(1)’s text. One reading, espoused by the majority here and 

by several of our sister circuits, understands Rule 4(k)(1) as a 

jurisdictional rule that directly vests personal jurisdiction in 

some federal courts and divests it from others. See Luna 

Vanegas v. Signet Builders, Inc., 113 F.4th 718, 724 (7th Cir. 

2024); Canaday v. Anthem Cos., Inc., 9 F.4th 392, 397 (6th Cir. 

2021); Vallone v. CJS Sols. Grp., LLC, 9 F.4th 861, 866 (8th Cir. 

2021); Fischer v. Fed. Express Corp., 42 F.4th 366, 375 (3d Cir. 

2022). In support, these courts point to the text of Rule 4(k)(1) 

which states that service “establishes personal jurisdiction 

over a defendant” only in some situations, such as when 

authorized by federal statute or when the defendant is 

otherwise “subject to the jurisdiction of a court of general 

jurisdiction in the state where the district court is located.” On 

that understanding, where there is no statutory authorization 

for effective service, as is the case with the FLSA, “Rule 4(k)(1) 

applies,” such that before deciding a case, “federal courts must 

assess the limits on state courts’ jurisdiction to determine their 

own.” Luna Vanegas, 113 F.4th at 728. 

The other reading of the Rule was advanced by the 

majority in Waters v. Day & Zimmerman NPS, Inc., 23 F.4th 84, 

93–94 (1st Cir. 2022). This reading sees Rule 4(k) as 

incorporating only the service of process rules of the state in 

which a district court sits. The Waters court relied on the rule’s 

title, “Summons,” the 1993 committee notes clarifying its 

limited scope to service-related matters, and the language in 

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No. 23-2964 5 

subsection (k)’s heading emphasizing the territorial limits for 

effective service without addressing broader jurisdictional 

constraints. Id. at 93–94. Under this view, the Rule is a 

precondition on the ability of a court to exercise personal 

jurisdiction but does not directly vest or divest personal 

jurisdiction in any court. For reasons well-explained by that 

court, I believe this interpretation is superior based on Rule 

4’s text and historical context.

While the text of Rule 4 ostensibly accommodates both 

readings, the constitutional implications of the majority’s 

reading warrant closer scrutiny. Congress, through the Rules 

Enabling Act (REA), delegated to the Supreme Court the 

authority to promulgate procedural rules—not jurisdictional 

rules. Interpreting Rule 4 as a jurisdictional rule oversteps this 

delegation, raising significant separation-of-powers concerns. 

Further, by reading Rule 4 to abridge the FLSA's collective 

action provision, the majority compounds its REA problems. 

Congress has expressed a clear and unequivocal policy 

permitting “similarly situated” claims against national 

employers. Interpreting Rule 4 as a jurisdictional rule allows 

the Supreme Court to abridge a democratically-enacted 

statute through the application of a purportedly conflicting 

federal rule—a result that the REA proscribes. In my view, 

these two related concerns compel the interpretation offered 

by Waters and prohibit the majority’s interpretation. Shady 

Grove Orthopedic Assocs., P.A. v. Allstate Ins. Co., 559 U.S. 393, 

405–06 (2010) (when a rule is “susceptible of two meanings—

one that would violate § 2072(b) and another that would 

not[,]” the proper approach is to “interpret [the rule] . . . in a 

manner that avoids overstepping its authorizing statute”). I 

explain these related problems next, after first briefly 

outlining the strictures of the REA.

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6 No. 23-2964 

I 

The starting point of my analysis is the REA’s narrow 

purpose. The REA delegates legislative power to the Supreme 

Court “to prescribe general rules of practice and procedure . . 

. for cases in the United States district courts.” 28 U.S.C. § 

2072(a). Congress warned that the “rules shall not abridge, 

enlarge or modify any substantive right.” Id. § 2072(b). A 

federal rule complies with this mandate if it “really regulates 

procedure,—the judicial process for enforcing rights and 

duties recognized by substantive law and for justly 

administering remedy and redress for disregard or infraction 

of them.” Sibbach v. Wilson & Co., 312 U.S. 1, 14 (1941). The 

test asks, “what the rule itself regulates: If it governs only ‘the 

manner and the means’ by which the litigants’ rights are 

‘enforced,’ it is valid; if it alters ‘the rules of decision by which 

[the] court will adjudicate [those] rights,’ it is not.” Shady 

Grove, 559 U.S. at 407 (quoting Miss. Publ’g Corp. v. Murphree, 

326 U.S. 438, 446 (1946)). 

Thus, to be a valid exercise of delegated power, a federal 

rule must regulate procedure. But the majority construes Rule 

4 as directly regulating jurisdiction. The statutory phrase 

“rules of procedure” cannot encompass rules of jurisdiction. 

Jurisdictional rules determine whether a federal court has the 

authority to hear a case in the first place, before applying any 

procedural rules. See Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U.S. 443, 455 (2004) 

(noting that jurisdictional rules, as distinct from procedural 

rules, are “not . . . claim-processing rules”). The phrase 

“jurisdictional rules” refers to rules “delineating the classes of 

cases (subject-matter jurisdiction) and the persons (personal 

jurisdiction) falling within a court’s adjudicatory authority.” 

Id. Under this definition, a rule that directly regulates 

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No. 23-2964 7 

personal jurisdiction, that is, that delineates the persons 

falling within the court’s authority, is not a rule of procedure. 

This is in part because the jurisdictional question precedes the 

application of any procedural rule. See id. at 454 (quoting 

Schacht v. United States, 398 U.S. 58, 64 (1970) (“The procedural 

rules adopted by the Court [via the rulemaking process] for 

the orderly transaction of its business are not jurisdictional.”); 

Owen Equip. & Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U.S. 365, 370 (1978) 

(“[I]t is axiomatic that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do 

not create or withdraw jurisdiction.”). It is therefore far from 

apparent that Rule 4 can properly be read, as the majority 

does, to regulate the personal jurisdiction of the federal 

courts.

The REA “underscores the need for caution” in 

circumstances like these, which present a conflict between the 

judicial branch and the democratically-elected legislature. 

Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp., 527 U.S. 815, 845 (1999). “[N]o 

reading” of Rule 4(k) “can ignore the Act’s mandate that 

‘rules of procedure shall not abridge, enlarge, or modify any 

substantive right[.]’” Id. (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2072(b)). In my 

view, the scope of Rule 4 “is best kept within [the] tolerable 

limits” of regulating only service of process, an interpretation 

reflecting that both “the Rules Enabling Act and the general 

doctrine of constitutional avoidance . . . jointly sound a 

warning of the serious constitutional concerns[.]” Id. at 845–

46. 

The majority does not engage fully with the REA. Instead, 

it dismisses questions about the relationship between 

procedure and jurisdiction by stating that “[t]he Supreme 

Court has long held ‘Rule 82 must be taken to refer’ to 

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‘jurisdiction of the subject matter,’ not over the person.”2 

Luna Vanegas, 113 F.4th at 729–30 (quoting Murphree, 326 U.S. 

at 445). I agree that Murphree established that, under the REA, 

procedural rules are distinct from and cannot be conflated 

with rules governing subject-matter jurisdiction. But I do not 

read Murphree as holding that Rule 82’s bar does not apply to 

personal jurisdiction, as the majority suggests. I see no 

holding about personal jurisdiction in Murphree. With 

Murphree being of little help to the majority, and absent any 

clear intention from Congress, I do not believe that the REA 

meant to delegate authority over personal but not subjectmatter jurisdiction—related doctrines considered similar in 

more familiar contexts. 

Consider Ruhrgas AG v. Marathon Oil Co., 526 U.S. 574 

(1999). There, to be sure, the Court acknowledged some ways 

in which “[t]he character of the two jurisdictional bedrocks 

unquestionably differs.” Id. at 583. But those differences “do 

not mean that subject-matter jurisdiction is . . . the more 

‘fundamental’” of the two. Id. at 584. “Personal jurisdiction, 

too, is ‘an essential element of the jurisdiction of a district . . . 

court,’ without which the court is ‘powerless to proceed to an 

adjudication.’” Id. (citing Emps. Reinsurance Corp. v. Bryant, 

299 U.S. 374, 382 (1937)). The implication of the majority’s 

position is that subject-matter jurisdiction is the only real rule 

of jurisdiction while rules of personal jurisdiction are merely 

procedural. This is a recipe for unnecessary confusion in the 

courts, which treat personal jurisdiction and subject-matter 

2 Rule 82 provides: “These rules do not extend or limit the jurisdiction 

of the district courts . . . .” FED. R. CIV. P. 82.

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jurisdiction similarly, at similar stages in litigation, and using 

similar analytical frameworks. See id. 

The better view would treat rules of personal jurisdiction 

and subject-matter jurisdiction as both jurisdictional and 

substantive. In fact, there are few rights that are more 

substantive than rights governing when a court can exercise 

jurisdiction over a person and also when a person can access 

judicial proceedings at all. A rule of personal jurisdiction 

establishes whether an individual may resolve a dispute in a 

federal court in the first instance. Such rules implicate “our 

deep-rooted historical tradition that everyone should have his 

own day in court,” not just what procedures apply once an 

individual is already there. Ortiz, 527 U.S. at 846 (quoting 

Martin v. Wilks, 490 U.S. 755, 762 (1989)). 

On the majority’s reading, Rule 4(k) stands as a unique 

and unparalleled aspect of our civil procedure. Unlike any 

other Federal Rule on the books, Rule 4(k) purportedly 

establishes jurisdictional rules that directly regulate the 

personal jurisdiction of every federal district court—without 

any express congressional mandate to do so. This approach 

diverges from Congress’s traditional method of delegating 

jurisdictional rule-making to the courts. When Congress 

intends to allow the federal courts to make jurisdictional rules 

through the REA process, it does so explicitly. See, e.g., 28 

U.S.C. § 2072(c) (2018); see also Scott Dodson, Rule 4 and 

Personal Jurisdiction, 99 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 1, 27–28 (2023). It 

would be incongruous for Congress to have expressly 

delegated rulemaking in some areas affecting jurisdiction 

while silently granting the Supreme Court broad, untethered 

power to define federal courts’ personal jurisdiction through 

a procedural rule governing service of process. Cf. Whitman v. 

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Am. Trucking Ass’ns, 531 U.S. 457, 468 (2001) (noting that 

Congress does not “hide elephants in mouseholes”).

II

Even if I agreed that rules of personal jurisdiction are 

“procedural” under the REA, I would still have significant 

separation-of-powers concerns regarding the majority’s 

application of Rule 4. The majority’s approach undermines 

Congress’s intent by effectively amending the FLSA’s 

“similarly situated” collective action provision to impose a 

geographic restriction. In doing so, it empowers the Supreme 

Court to override congressional purpose through a federal 

rule. This exceeds the permissible scope of procedural 

regulation under the REA, as the Rule directly conflicts with 

the statute. Shady Grove, 559 U.S. at 425 (Stevens, J., concurring 

in part) (explaining that “the separation-of-powers 

presumption . . . counsel[s] against judicially created rules 

displacing . . . substantive law.”).

The FLSA’s collective action provision amounts to a 

“similarly situated” claim-specific aggregation tool—the optin process—that Congress meant to displace conventional 

service requirements associated by default with most 

lawsuits. This reflects Congress’s intent to establish a unified 

remedial framework, allowing employees to sue employers 

on behalf of all those who are “similarly situated.” 29 U.S.C. § 

216(b); see, e.g., Waters, 23 F.4th at 97. As the Supreme Court 

has recognized, “Congress [has] left intact the ‘similarly 

situated’ language providing for collective actions, such as 

this one. The broad remedial goal of the statute should be 

enforced to the full extent of its terms.” Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. 

v. Sperling, 493 U.S. 165, 173 (1989). The statute also suggests 

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the need for jurisdiction over the claim of the named plaintiff 

who initiated the action but says conspicuously nothing about 

opt-ins. Hoffmann-La Roche, 493 U.S. at 167–68 (“[A]n action 

‘may be maintained against any employer . . . in any Federal . 

. . court of competent jurisdiction by any one . . . employee[] 

for . . . himself . . . and other employees similarly situated.’” 

(quoting 29 U.S.C. § 216(b) (emphases added)). The majority’s 

interpretation is both in direct tension with the statute’s text 

and undermines its remedial purpose, effectively substituting 

judicial preferences for Congress’s legislative judgment. This 

overreach heightens the separation-of-powers concern and 

risks eroding the integrity of democratically-enacted statutes.

In fact, Luna Vanegas’s circumstances are exactly what 

Congress sought to address via § 216(b). Working on a guestworker visa, Luna Vanegas constructed livestock 

confinement structures in several states (Wisconsin, Indiana, 

Iowa, and Minnesota) for his employer Signet Builders, Inc., 

and sought unpaid overtime wages for time spent working in 

each state. Luna Vanegas claims that Signet denied him and 

all similarly situated guest workers overtime pay because of 

its corporate policy of misclassifying them as agricultural 

workers exempt from the protections of the FLSA. 

Yet, under the majority’s reading, only employees who 

worked in Wisconsin—where the lawsuit was filed and where 

Luna Vanegas found a legal services lawyer to represent 

him—can join this collective action, excluding workers from 

Indiana, Iowa, and Minnesota who are alleged to have 

suffered the same harm. The majority downplays this seismic 

consequence by observing that employees can always file suit 

in the employer’s home state (here, Texas). But (even 

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assuming that an employee can find a lawyer to litigate in the 

employer’s home forum), the majority’s rule limits the 

plaintiff’s choice of forum and creates a preference for the 

employer’s locale if the employee’s allegations cross state 

lines. This undermines the balance of power between 

employees and their employers that the FLSA sought to 

remedy. See, e.g., Brooklyn Sav. Bank v. O'Neil, 324 U.S. 697, 

707 n. 18 (1945) (“[T]he prime purpose of the legislation was 

to aid the unprotected, unorganized and lowest paid of the 

nation’s working population . . . who lacked sufficient 

bargaining power to secure for themselves a minimum 

subsistence wage.”). Forcing plaintiffs whose allegations 

support an interstate collective to file in the employer’s home 

state tilts the scales in favor of employers. Given this practical 

context, we should resist reading Rule 4 to impose a new 

geographic limitation on language in a federal statute, where 

no such limitation on the scope of collective actions otherwise 

exists. Congress already made the determination on how to 

appropriately limit the scope of collective actions, to prevent 

judicial overreach and protect employers, by limiting them to 

only those employees who are “similarly situated.” 

The majority downplays the significant shift in decades of 

FLSA practice created by its ruling. For example, it asserts that 

“in practice courts treat FLSA collectives as agglomerations of 

individual claims.” Luna Vanegas, 113 F.4th at 725. But, in 

reality, payroll records do much of the work in proving many 

FLSA claims, supported by representative discovery. See, e.g.,

Smith v. Fam. Video Movie Club, Inc., 2012 WL 4464887, at *2 

(N.D. Ill. Sept. 27, 2012) (“[I]n FLSA collective actions, 

permitting full-scale, individualized discovery of all opt-in 

plaintiffs would frequently undermine the purpose and 

usefulness of collective actions. . . . For these reasons, courts 

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have allowed representative discovery in FLSA collective 

actions.”) (collecting cases)). And not every opt-in plaintiff 

needs to testify at trial to prove their individual claim; 

representative testimony is common. See, e.g., Morgan v. Fam. 

Dollar Stores, Inc., 551 F.3d 1233, 1279 (11th Cir. 2008) (“[T]he 

general rule [is] that not all employees have to testify to prove 

overtime violations.”); Reich v. Gateway Press, Inc., 13 F.3d 685, 

701 (3d Cir. 1994) (“Courts commonly allow representative 

employees to prove violations with respect to all 

employees.”). FLSA claims are litigated much more like a 

representative action, and not as an “agglomeration of 

individual claims” as the majority suggests. 

The FLSA structurally balances the scales to allow one 

employee to come forward first for others who are similarly 

situated. That employee, like Luna Vanegas, becomes the 

name and face of the lawsuit. Often, only a few employees (if 

they can secure counsel) are willing to risk being the first to 

sue the hand that feeds them. The collective action provision 

exists to support those employees who choose to be the first, 

by allowing them to join together all similarly situated 

employees to collectively vindicate their rights, irrespective of 

where they live. That process not only supports the named 

plaintiff but provides other employees who may not have the 

means or willingness to take on a lead role the ability to optin. But these dual benefits—support for the named plaintiff 

and ease of access to litigation for the opt-ins—are 

significantly diminished under the majority’s rule. The

employees that take the risk to bring suit on behalf of their coworkers are now limited to a collective of employees who also 

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worked in the state where the suit was filed unless they can 

manage to sue in the employer’s home state.3 

The majority transforms personal jurisdiction (meant as a 

shield to protect out-of-state defendants from being hauled 

into a forum with which they have no connection) into a 

sword for national employers to cut down the size of 

collectives in any state where they are not subject to general 

personal jurisdiction. This only benefits employers, who 

already face little to no prejudice or harm from the alternative, 

undoing the balance of power the FLSA struck. Take Signet. 

It provides construction services in Wisconsin and is subject 

to specific personal jurisdiction there because of work 

performed by Luna Vanegas and others. In this era of 

electronic discovery and remote proceedings, there may be 

little practical difference (especially before trial), for Signet to 

defend an interstate collective action in federal court in 

Wisconsin, as opposed to its home state of Texas. Signet may

anticipate more favorable results in its home state, or more 

likely, that employees will not be able to secure counsel 

willing to bring suit in Texas (or other states) at all (Luna 

Vanegas brought suit with the assistance of a Wisconsin legal 

3 We should be especially wary of imposing an inefficient 

geographical limitation when Congress has signaled its intent that the 

FLSA be enforced to the fullest extent by permitting employees to seek 

attorney’s fees. 29 U.S.C. §216(b) (“The court . . . shall . . . allow a 

reasonable attorney’s fee to be paid by the defendant, and costs of the 

action.”). The FLSA’s fee provision is meant to encourage enforcement 

and further the FLSA’s policy aims. See Barrentine v. Arkansas-Best Freight 

Sys., Inc., 450 U.S. 728, 740 n.16 (1981).

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services organization). Either way, only Signet benefits from 

this arrangement. 

***

In sum, I would have granted en banc review so that the 

full court could consider the dissent’s position and whether 

the majority’s interpretation of Rule 4(k) violates the Rules 

Enabling Act in the two ways described herein. 

Accordingly, I respectfully dissent from the denial of 

rehearing en banc. 

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