Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-13-15292/USCOURTS-ca9-13-15292-0/pdf.json

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

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ALLA JOSEPHINE ROSENFIELD, a

married woman,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

GLOBALTRANZ ENTERPRISES, INC., a

Delaware corporation; ANDREW J.

LETO, an Arizona citizen, husband;

ANTHONY ALBANESE, a Florida

citizen, husband,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 13-15292

D.C. No.

2:11-cv-02327-

NVW

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Arizona

Neil V. Wake, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

April 16, 2015—San Francisco, California

Filed December 14, 2015

Before: Alex Kozinski and Susan P. Graber, Circuit

Judges, and Dee V. Benson,*

 District Judge.

* The Honorable Dee V. Benson, United States District Judge for the

District of Utah, sitting by designation.

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2 ROSENFIELD V. GLOBALTRANZ ENTERS.

Opinion by Judge Graber;

Dissent by Judge Benson

SUMMARY**

Labor Law

The panel reversed the district court’s summary judgment

in favor of the employer on an employee’s claim under the

anti-retaliation provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Applying the “fair notice” test for deciding whether the

employee had “filed any complaint,” the panel considered

whether, pursuant to Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance

Plastics Corp., 563 U.S. 1 (2011), the complaint was

“sufficiently clear and detailed for a reasonable employer to

understand it, in light of both content and context, as an

assertion of rights protected by the statute and a call for their

protection.” The panel held that a complaining employee’s

position is an important part of the “context” that the factfinder must consider, but the panel declined to formulate or

adopt a special bright-line rule to apply when considering

whether a manager has “filed any complaint” within the

meaning of 29 U.S.C. § 215(a)(3). 

The panel held that a jury reasonably could find that the

employee filed a complaint. It therefore reversed the district

court’s summary judgment and remanded for further

proceedings.

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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ROSENFIELD V. GLOBALTRANZ ENTERS. 3

Dissenting, Judge Benson wrote that the FLSA requires

a manager to step outside of his or her role as a manager in

order to file a complaint. He would affirm on the ground that

all of the employee’s actions fell within the ambit of her

managerial duties, and she did not take a position adverse to

that of her employer.

COUNSEL

Timothy J. Casey (argued), Schmitt Schneck Smyth Casey &

Even, P.C., Phoenix, Arizona, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Dinita L. James (argued), Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan LLP,

Phoenix, Arizona, for Defendants-Appellees.

Melissa A. Murphy, Senior Attorney, M. Patricia Smith,

Solicitor of Labor, Jennifer A. Brand, Associate Solicitor, and

Paul L. Frieden, Counsel for Appellate Litigation, United

States Department of Labor, Washington, D.C.; and P. David

Lopez, General Counsel, Jennifer S. Goldstein, Associate

General Counsel, Carolyn L. Wheeler, Assistant General

Counsel, and Susan L. Starr, Attorney, United States Equal

Employment Opportunity Commission, Washington, D.C.,

for Amici Curiae Secretary of Labor and Equal Employment

Opportunity Commission.

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4 ROSENFIELD V. GLOBALTRANZ ENTERS.

OPINION

GRABER, Circuit Judge:

In Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp.,

563 U.S. 1, 131 S. Ct. 1325, 1335 (2011), the Supreme Court

established a “fair notice” test for deciding whether an

employee has “filed any complaint” under the anti-retaliation

provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (“FLSA”),

29 U.S.C. § 215(a)(3): “[A] complaint must be sufficiently

clear and detailed for a reasonable employer to understand it,

in light of both content and context, as an assertion of rights

protected by the statute and a call for their protection.” We

hold that a complaining employee’s position as a manager is

an important part of the “context” that the fact-finder must

consider. A reasonable employer would understand many

actions taken by a non-managerial employee differently than

it would understand the same actions taken by a manager. 

But we decline to formulate or adopt a special bright-line rule

to apply when considering whether a manager has “filed any

complaint” within the meaning of § 215(a)(3). We further

hold that, on this record and applying Kasten’s “fair notice”

rule, a jury reasonably could find that Plaintiff Alla Josephine

Rosenfield, a managerial employee, filed such a complaint. 

Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s grant of summary

judgment to the employer and remand for further

proceedings.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Defendant GlobalTranz Enterprises, Inc., provides

transportation management services in Arizona. It

“specializes in brokering truckload and supply chain logistics

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ROSENFIELD V. GLOBALTRANZ ENTERS. 5

and warehousing.” The company operates, among other

things, a call center and a customer service department.

InApril 2010, GlobalTranz hired Plaintiff Alla Rosenfield

as Manager of Human Resources. The company promoted

her later that year to Director of Human Resources and, in

early 2011, to Director of Human Resources and Corporate

Training. Throughout her employment, Plaintiff reported to

her superiors that the company was not compliant with the

FLSA, and she repeatedly sought changes to attain statutory

compliance.

On May 31, 2011, GlobalTranz fired Plaintiff. She then

filed this action, alleging that GlobalTranz and its executives

had violated the FLSA’s anti-retaliation provision, 29 U.S.C.

§ 215(a)(3), and an Arizona state law. Plaintiff alleges that

GlobalTranz fired her for engaging in protected activity, that

is, for complaining to other managers and to executives that

GlobalTranz was failing to comply with the FLSA.

The district court granted summary judgment in

Defendants’ favor on the FLSA claim. Even though the

district court recognized that Plaintiff had “advocated

consistently and vigorously on behalf of . . . GlobalTranz’s

employees whose FLSA rights Plaintiff thought were being

violated,” the district court held that she nevertheless was not

entitled to the protections of § 215(a)(3) because she had not

“filed any complaint” for purposes of that provision. Plaintiff

voluntarily dismissed the state-law claim, the court entered a

final judgment, and this timely appeal followed. We have

jurisdiction, James v. Price Stern Sloan, Inc., 283 F.3d 1064

(9th Cir. 2002), and our review is de novo, Solis v.

Washington, 656 F.3d 1079, 1083 (9th Cir. 2011).

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6 ROSENFIELD V. GLOBALTRANZ ENTERS.

DISCUSSION

A. The Legal Standard

The FLSA provides that it is unlawful for an employer

to discharge or in any other manner

discriminate against any employee because

such employee has filed any complaint or

instituted or caused to be instituted any

proceeding under or related to this chapter, or

has testified or is about to testify in any such

proceeding, or has served or is about to serve

on an industry committee[.]

29 U.S.C. § 215(a)(3). The FLSA defines “employee” as

“any individual employed by an employer” and, in turn,

defines “employ” as including “to suffer or permit to work.” 

Id. § 203(e)(1), (g). Although a manager, Plaintiff meets the

broad statutory definition of “employee.” We must next

consider when a manager, as opposed to a non-managerial

employee, has “filed any complaint” under § 215(a)(3).

“[B]ecause the FLSA is a remedial statute, it must be

interpreted broadly.” Lambert v. Ackerley, 180 F.3d 997,

1003 (9th Cir. 1999) (en banc); see also Navarro v. Encino

Motorcars, LLC, 780 F.3d 1267, 1271 (9th Cir. 2015)

(holding that “we must apply the background rule that the

FLSA is to be construed liberally in favor of employees”

(internal quotation marks and brackets omitted)), petition for

cert. filed, 84 U.S.L.W. 3201 (U.S. Sept. 30, 2015) (No. 15-

415). Moreover, this specific statutory provision broadly

encompasses the filing of “any complaint.” 29 U.S.C.

§ 215(a)(3) (emphasis added); see Kasten, 131 S. Ct. at 1332

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ROSENFIELD V. GLOBALTRANZ ENTERS. 7

(holding that “the phrase ‘any complaint’ suggests a broad

interpretation”). An expansive anti-retaliation provision is

consistent with “the Act’s basic objective[]” of improving

labor conditions through substantive wage and hour

standards. Kasten, 131 S. Ct. at 1333.

For weighty practical and other reasons,

Congress did not seek to secure compliance

with prescribed standards through continuing

detailed federal supervision or inspection of

payrolls. Rather it chose to rely on

information and complaints received from

employees seeking to vindicate rights claimed

to have been denied. Plainly, effective

enforcement could thus only be expected if

employees felt free to approach officials with

their grievances. . . . [I]t needs no argument

to show that fear of economic retaliation

might often operate to induce aggrieved

employees quietly to accept substandard

conditions.

Mitchell v. Robert de Mario Jewelry, Inc., 361 U.S. 288, 292

(1960); see also Kasten, 131 S. Ct. at 1333 (discussing this

background and quoting Mitchell); Lambert, 180 F.3d at 1003

(same).

But the FLSA “also seeks to establish an enforcement

system that is fair to employers.” Kasten, 131 S. Ct. at 1334. 

“To do so, the employer must have fair notice that an

employee is making a complaint that could subject the

employer to a later claim of retaliation.” Id.; see also

Lambert, 180 F.3d at 1007 (“Of course, in order to find

protection under § 215(a)(3), an employee must actually

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8 ROSENFIELD V. GLOBALTRANZ ENTERS.

communicate a complaint to the employer. . . . [N]ot all

amorphous expressions of discontent related to wages and

hours constitute complaints filed within the meaning of

§ 215(a)(3).”). Whether a complaint has been filed that

provides adequate notice to the employer is a question “to be

resolved as a matter of factual analysis on a case-by-case

basis.” Lambert, 180 F.3d at 1008. And, as we noted at the

outset, the Supreme Court has defined the legal rule that a

fact-finder must apply: “To fall within the scope of the

antiretaliation provision, a complaint must be sufficiently

clear and detailed for a reasonable employer to understand it,

in light of both content and context, as an assertion of rights

protected by the statute and a call for their protection.” 

Kasten, 131 S. Ct. at 1335.

The employee’s job title and responsibilities—in

particular, whether he or she is a manager—form an

important part of that “context.” Generally speaking,

managers are in a different position vis-a-vis the employer

than are other employees because (as relevant here) their

employer expects them to voice work-related concerns and to

suggest changes in policy to their superiors. That may be

particularlytrue with respect to upper-level managers who are

responsible for ensuring compliance with the FLSA.

If an entry-level employee reported that someone is

underpaid in violation of the FLSA and requested that the

employee be compensated in compliance with the Act, a

reasonable employer almost certainly would understand that

report as a “complaint” (depending, of course, on all the

circumstances). But if the identical report were made by a

manager tasked with ensuring the company’s compliance

with the FLSA, a reasonable employer almost certainlywould

not understand that report as a “complaint” (again, depending

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ROSENFIELD V. GLOBALTRANZ ENTERS. 9

on all the circumstances). Rather, the employer naturally

would understand the manager’s report as carrying out his or

her duties. In short, when determining whether an employee

has “filed any complaint,” the employee’s role as a manager

often is an important contextual element.

Before we apply Kasten’s “fair notice” rule to the facts of

this case, though, we must consider the parties’ arguments

concerning our sister circuits’ precedents. In the years before

the Supreme Court decided Kasten, several of our sister

circuits published opinions assessing whether a manager had

filed a complaint for purposes of § 215(a)(3). Hagan v.

Echostar Satellite, L.L.C., 529 F.3d 617, 627–30 (5th Cir.

2008); Claudio-Gotay v. Becton Dickinson Caribe, Ltd.,

375 F.3d 99, 102–03 (1st Cir. 2004); McKenzie v. Renberg’s

Inc., 94 F.3d 1478, 1485–87 (10th Cir. 1996). Those cases

correctly recognized both that a manager may, in some

circumstances, file a complaint under § 215(a)(3) and that an

employee’s managerial position is an important contextual

element that must be considered when assessing whether the

employee has filed a complaint. Hagan, 529 F.3d at 627–28;

Claudio-Gotay, 375 F.3d at 102; McKenzie, 94 F.3d at

1486–87.

Without the benefit of Kasten’s generalized “fair notice”

rule, our sister circuits adopted a manager-specific legal

standard. With respect to managers, our sister circuits

formulated the rule this way: “In order to engage in protected

activity under § 215(a)(3), the employee must step outside his

or her role of representing the company and either file (or

threaten to file) an action adverse to the employer, actively

assist other employees in asserting FLSA rights, or otherwise

engage in activities that reasonably could be perceived as

directed towards the assertion of rights protected by the

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10 ROSENFIELD V. GLOBALTRANZ ENTERS.

FLSA.” McKenzie, 94 F.3d at 1486–87 (footnote omitted);

see Hagan, 529 F.3d at 627–28 (agreeing with McKenzie’s

rule); Claudio-Gotay, 375 F.3d at 102 (same); see also Brush

v. Sears Holdings Corp., 466 F. App’x 781 (11th Cir. 2012)

(unpublished) (applying the rule in a Title VII case); EEOC

v. HBE Corp., 135 F.3d 543 (8th Cir. 1998) (same). The

parties vigorously dispute whether we should adopt that rule.

We question the parties’ joint assumption, which isshared

by the Secretary of Labor and the Equal Employment

Opportunity Commission, as amici curiae, that the so-called

“manager rule” differs from Kasten’s “fair notice” rule; the

two rules likely are consistent. Compare Kasten, 131 S. Ct.

at 1335 (“[A] complaint must be sufficiently clear and

detailed for a reasonable employer to understand it, in light of

both content and context, as an assertion of rights protected

by the statute and a call for their protection.” (emphasis

added)), with McKenzie, 94 F.3d at 1486–87 (“[T]he

employee must [take certain actions] or otherwise engage in

activities that reasonably could be perceived as directed

towards the assertion of rights protected by the FLSA.”

(emphasis added) (footnote omitted)). But we find it

unnecessary to weigh in definitively on that question. 

Whether the manager rule is broader, narrower, or the same,

the Supreme Court’s opinion in Kasten controls and provides

the legal rule of decision.

We decline to refine the Supreme Court’s general

formulation of the rule when applied to complaints by a

manager. Because Kasten requires consideration of the

content and context of an alleged FLSA complaint, the

question of fair notice must be resolved on a case-by-case

basis. An employee’s managerial position is only one

consideration, and the Supreme Court’s general rule provides

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adequate guidance for considering that fact. Moreover, an

employee’s status as a “manager” is not entirely binary. A

different perspective on fair notice may apply as between a

first-level manager who is responsible for overseeing day-today operations and a high-level manager who is responsible

for ensuring the company’s compliance with the FLSA. 

Refining the general rule to focus on only one specific factual

element may obscure important nuances.

We solicited the views of the Department of Labor and

the Equal Employment OpportunityCommission because the

views of those agencies are entitled to some weight when

interpreting § 215(a)(3). Kasten, 131 S. Ct. at 1335. The

agencies submitted a helpful joint brief urging us to apply

Kasten’s “fair notice” rule as the rule of decision. Having

found their view persuasive on that point, we turn now to the

task of applying Kasten’s rule to the record in this case.

B. The Facts

Because the district court granted summary judgment in

Defendants’ favor, we must accept Plaintiff’s version of the

facts. Id. at 1330. We must assess whether Plaintiff’s

complaints were “sufficiently clear and detailed for a

reasonable employer to understand [them], in light of both

content and context, as an assertion of rights protected by the

statute and a call for their protection.” Id. at 1335. We hold

that a reasonable jury could find that Plaintiff’s advocacy

reached the requisite degree of formality to constitute

protected activity under § 215(a)(3).

Throughout her tenure, Plaintiff served as either the

Manager of Human Resources or Director of Human

Resources. Because a person with those titles generally is

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12 ROSENFIELD V. GLOBALTRANZ ENTERS.

tasked with employment-related decisions, reports on a

company’s compliance with employment-related statutes

ordinarily would not put the employer on notice that the

manager was filing a complaint within the meaning of

§ 215(a)(3). Critically, however, ensuring compliance with

the FLSA was not Plaintiff’s responsibility. Instead,

Plaintiff’s boss “considered himself solely responsible for

FLSA compliance” and “did not understand, appreciate, or

welcome [Plaintiff’s] bringing to his attention the FLSA

violations.”

Despite that arrangement, Plaintiff complained orally to

management on at least eight occasions that the companywas

not in compliance with the FLSA. She provided copies of the

statute on some occasions, along with specific assertions

concerning misclassification of a large number of employees

and requests for changes in payment of wages for those

employees. Additionally, Plaintiff raised the subject of FLSA

violations in at least 27 weekly and monthly reports to her

superiors.

Plaintiff’s boss disapproved of Plaintiff’s complaints and

expressed frustration with her actions. In March 2011, he

nevertheless agreed to take some actions aimed at addressing

Plaintiff’s FLSA complaints. But “he made clear to

[Plaintiff] . . . that he did not want or expect [her] to

determine whether the company was actually implementing”

those changes. Plaintiff later discovered that, in her view, the

company was not implementing the changes. On May 26,

2011, she documented the company’s non-compliance with

the FLSA and complained to her boss. Five days later, her

boss fired her.

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ROSENFIELD V. GLOBALTRANZ ENTERS. 13

Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to

Plaintiff, the company understood these interactions to be

complaints on the subject of FLSA compliance. That is, her

superiors actually understood (or reasonably should have

understood) that Plaintiff was asserting rights protected by

the FLSA and was calling for their protection. Because

FLSA compliance was not part of Plaintiff’s job portfolio, her

advocacy for the rights of employees to be paid in accordance

with the FLSA could not reasonably have been understood (if

it was) merely to be a part of Plaintiff’s regular duties.

Accordingly, we reverse the summary judgment in favor

of Defendants and remand this case for further proceedings. 

We do not address Plaintiff’s state-law claim because

Plaintiff abandoned that claim on appeal by stating that she

would not seek to reopen it even if her appeal were

successful. Plaintiff further concedes that she cannot refile

this claim in any other court because it is barred by the statute

of limitations.

REVERSED and REMANDED.

BENSON, District Judge, dissenting:

The FLSA provides that it is unlawful for an employer

to discharge or in any other manner

discriminate against any employee because

such employee has filed any complaint or

instituted or caused to be instituted any

proceeding under or related to this chapter, or

has testified or is about to testify in any such

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14 ROSENFIELD V. GLOBALTRANZ ENTERS.

proceeding, or has served or is about to serve

on an industry committee[.]

29 U.S.C. § 215(a)(3). Relying on this provision, the court

below found for the employer because it held that “[a]ll of

[Plaintiff’s] actions ...fell within the ambit of her managerial

duties” and she did not “tak[e] a position adverse to that of

[her employer.]” I would affirm the district court’s judgment

on that ground and hold, consistent with every circuit to have

previously addressed the issue, that the Fair Labor Standards

Act of 1938 (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. § 215(a)(3), requires a

manager to step outside of his or her role as a manager in

order to file a complaint. I therefore disagree with the

majority’s opinion and respectfully dissent.

In McKenzie v. Renberg’s Inc., the United States Court of

Appeals for the Tenth Circuit became the first appellate court

to announce that to “file any complaint” must necessarily

require something more of managers than lower-level

employees (the “manager rule”). 94 F.3d 1478, 1487 (10th

Cir. 1996). In McKenzie, a personnel director sought

protection under § 215(a)(3) when she was fired after

reporting her FLSA concerns to the company president

regarding the computation of overtime. Id. at 1481. The

Tenth Circuit held that the plaintiff “never crossed the line

from being an employee merely performing her job as

personnel director to an employee lodging a personal

complaint about the wage and hour practices of her employer

and asserting a right adverse to the company.” Id. at 1486

(emphasis in original). The McKenzie court reasoned:

“Despite our expansive interpretation of § 215(a)(3), we have

never held that an employee is insulated from retaliation for

participating in activities which are neither adverse to the

company nor supportive of adverse rights under the statute

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ROSENFIELD V. GLOBALTRANZ ENTERS. 15

which are asserted against the company.” Id. The Tenth

Circuit further noted that “it is the assertion of statutory rights

(i.e. the advocacy of rights) by taking some action adverse to

the company–whether via formal complaint, providing

testimony in an FLSA proceeding, complaining to superiors

about inadequate pay, or otherwise–that is the hallmark of

protected activity under § 215(a)(3).” Id. (emphasis in

original).

Following McKenzie, three other circuits–the First, Fifth,

and Sixth–have been presented with the question of how to

apply § 215(a)(3) to managers. All of them adopted the

manager rule. Pettit v. Steppingstone, 429 F. App’x 524, 530

(6th Cir. 2011) (unpublished); Hagan v. Echostar Satellite,

LLC, 529 F.3d 617, 627 (5th Cir. 2008); Claudio-Gotay v.

Becton Dickinson Caribe, Ltd., 375 F.3d 99, 103 (1st Cir.

2004). The majority asserts that other circuits adopted the

manager rule “[w]ithout the benefit of Kasten’s generalized

‘fair notice’ rule . . . [.]” (Maj. op. at 9.) I disagree that

Kasten applies here or that our sister circuits would have

decided differently post-Kasten.

The sole question at issue in Kasten was whether “‘an oral

complaint of a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act’ is

‘protected conduct under the [Act’s] anti-retaliation

provision.’” Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics

Corp., 563 U.S. 1, 131 S. Ct. 1325, 1330 (2011) (citations

omitted). The employee in Kasten was not a manager; he

was an hourly manufacturing and production worker–

the quintessential non-managerial employee–who orally

complained to management about the company’s failure to

pay his hourly wage for time spent donning and doffing

protective wear. Id. at 1329–30. In that context, the Supreme

Court determined that oral complaints fell within the scope of

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16 ROSENFIELD V. GLOBALTRANZ ENTERS.

the phrase “filed any complaint” under the FLSA. Id. at

1336.

The Court also noted that an employer “must have fair

notice that an employee is making a complaint that could

subject the employer to a later claim of retaliation.” Id. at

1334. The Court did not opine as to what would constitute

“fair notice” in the context of a complaint by a manager. The

“fair notice” rule was merely instructive as to when an oral

complaint is sufficient to rise to the level of protection from

retaliation under the FLSA. Kasten provides only general

guidance here and leaves undisturbed the well-reasoned

opinions of four sister circuits regarding the specific

application of § 215(a)(3) to managers.

Furthermore, Kasten supports the application of the

manager rule. In reaching the conclusion that “filed any

complaint” encompassed oral complaints, the Court held that

“the phrase ‘filed any complaint’ contemplates some degree

of formality . . . [.]” Id. at 1334. The Court repeatedly

referenced “oral grievances,” id. at 1333, in connection with

“workplace grievance procedures,” id. at 1334, and

emphasized that including oral complaints in the definition of

“any complaint” allows for the use of “hotlines, interviews,

and other oral methods of receiving complaints,” id. at 1334,

as well as other “desirable informal workplace grievance

procedures.” Id. The examples of oral complaints provided

by the Supreme Court in Kasten contemplate a degree of

formality not found here. Hotlines, interviews, and informal

workplace grievance procedures all alert an employer to a

complaint in a way that comments from a manager–even

“consisten[t] and vigorou[s]” comments like those made by

Plaintiff–do not. The manager rule is consistent with Kasten,

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ROSENFIELD V. GLOBALTRANZ ENTERS. 17

by requiring a level of formality that shows the complainant

has become adverse to the employer.

The Supreme Court’s reliance on the relative

disadvantage of employees with respect to their employers

also indicates that Kasten did not address, or intend to

preclude, the application of a manager rule. The Court noted

that an oral complaint procedure is necessary because

workers may “find it difficult to reduce their complaints to

writing, particularly illiterate, less educated, or overworked

workers . . .” and that “these were the workers most in need

of the Act’s help.” Id. at 1333. Such disadvantage is entirely

absent in the context of an upper-level manager like Plaintiff.

The majority claims to preserve the manager rule but, in

reality, eliminates it. They accomplish this by focusing on

the following language in Kasten:

A complaint must be sufficiently clear and

detailed for a reasonable employer to

understand it, in light of both content and

context, as an assertion of rights protected by

the statute and a call for their protection.

Kasten, 131 S. Ct. at 1335.

The majority uses this sentence from Kasten–a case that

had nothing whatsoever to do with managers–as the basis for

what they claim is a “fair notice” test, that must be applied in

all § 215(a)(3) cases, including cases involving managers. 

But there is nothing in Kasten, no matter how long or hard

one looks, to indicate that the Supreme Court was announcing

such an all purpose test, and certainly nothing to suggest the

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Court was expressing any view at all on a case involving a

manager.

The majority then, having set up this unsupported test,

claims that it necessarily leads to a jury question in the

present case. In the process, the majority accomplishes its

goal of defining “filing a complaint” in the manner they

prefer, which is to say broadly enough to include the internal

statements of concern over FLSA policy expressed by the

Plaintiff to other managers in the instant case.

The majority then concludes its analysis by stating:

We further hold that, on this record and

applying Kasten’s “fair notice” rule, a jury

reasonably could find that Plaintiff Alla

Josephine Rosenfield, a managerial employee,

filed such a complaint.

(Maj. op. at 4.)

Given the way the majority set up the issue, it would be

impossible for a jury in the present case not to find that a

complaint had been filed. How could a jury decide otherwise

after being told that “filing any complaint” means “an

assertion of rights protected by the statute and a call for their

protection?” That is precisely what Ms. Rosenfield did. The

majority’s approach defines “filing any complaint” to

encompass the statements of a manager who in any way

expresses a point of view regarding the employer’s

compliance (or non-compliance) with the requirements of the

FLSA.

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ROSENFIELD V. GLOBALTRANZ ENTERS. 19

By such reasoning, the majority eliminates altogether the

essence of the manager rule as recognized by our sister

circuits and improperly claims Supreme Court precedent

requires such a result. In doing so, the majority applies

Kasten where it has no application and formulates a jury

question that is nothing more than an interpretation of law.

Moreover, remarkably, the majority’s opinion results in

a process that gives managers more protection under the Act

than non-managers. There is no way one can read Kasten and

not see that a regular rank-and-file employee must step

outside of her job and become adversarial to her employer in

order to have protected status. A rank-and-file employee’s

complaints and concerns about what the employee perceives

as her employer’s non-compliance with the FLSA will not

satisfy the Act’s requirement of “filing any complaint” until

she effectively conveys her point of view to the company in

a manner that shows she is adverse to the employer. 

Comments to co-workers will not suffice. But the majority’s

reasoning allows a manager to be protected simply by

expressing her point of view to other managers, internally,

about what she perceives as the company’s non-compliance

with the FLSA. It is a strange result the majority reaches

which treats upper management better than the rank-and-file

non-management employees for whom the Act’s protections

are primarily designed. See Kasten, 131 S. Ct. at 1333

(finding non-management personnel to be “the workers most

in need of the Act’s help”).

In dissent, all I ask for, to comply with the statute, is some

showing that Ms. Rosenfield stepped outside of her role as a

manager and did something to become adverse to her

employer, by filing some type of formal adversarial

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20 ROSENFIELD V. GLOBALTRANZ ENTERS.

complaint. I find nothing in Kasten that supports the result

reached by the majority.

Furthermore, the manager rule is supported by the text

and history of the FLSA. The FLSA protects employees who

file any “complaint.” 29 U.S.C. § 215(a)(3). The phrase

“filed any complaint”–in 1938 as now–suggests an

adversarial process. To start a civil or criminal proceeding,

one files a complaint. See Black’s Law Dictionary 380 (3d ed.

1933); see also Kasten, 131 S. Ct. at 1325 (looking to 1938

definitions when interpreting the phrase “filed any

complaint”). Even in a non-legal context, the term

“complaint” connotes adversity. See Webster’s New

International Dictionary 546 (2d ed. 1934) (defining

“complaint” as “[e]xpression of grief, regret, pain, censure,

grievance, or resentment”). When a manager, as part of his

or her job duties, alerts the company that it may not be in

compliance with the FLSA, one ordinarily would not

understand that report–even if zealously presented–as a

“complaint.” Instead, it would be understood as taking a

position on a matter of company concern in order to further

the company’s interests.

Consistent with that historic understanding of what it

means to “file any complaint,” and the well-reasoned

opinions of four sister circuits and the Supreme Court in

Kasten, I would affirm the district court’s ruling that there is

nothing alleged in the Plaintiff’s complaint to indicate that

she stepped out of her role as director of human resources to

file a complaint against her employer within the meaning of

the FLSA.

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