UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN

SOUTHERN DIVISION

 

ROBERT HALL, et al.,

Plaintiffs,

v.

PLASTIPAK HOLDINGS, INC., et al.,

Defendants.

 /

Case No. 15-11428

OPINION AND ORDER DENYING 

DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION

Pending before the court is Defendants’ Motion for Reconsideration of this court’s

prior order granting conditional class certification and setting deadlines. (Dkt. #47.)

Plaintiffs have filed a response to the motion. (Dkt. #47.) After reviewing the briefs, the

court concludes that a hearing is unnecessary. See E.D. Mich. LR 7.1(f)(2). For the

following reasons, the court will deny Defendants’ motion.

I. BACKGROUND

The underlying facts of this case were recited in this court’s prior opinion and

order granting conditional certification of a class of Defendants’ employees, familiarity

with which is presumed. (Dkt. #46.) Defendants filed the instant motion for

reconsideration arguing that the class definition is too broad because the challenged

pay practices did not apply to hourly employees and also because the named Plaintiffs

all worked at a single facility and thus are not representative of class members who

work at other facilities. Defendants also argue that the task of identifying the class

members will be unduly burdensome in light of defects in their claims. In response,

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Plaintiffs argue that Defendants failed to raise the distinction between hourly and

salaried non-exempt employees in the first instance and have thus waived this

argument on a motion for reconsideration, that the admitted uniformity of pay practices

across facilities renders irrelevant the fact that named Plaintiffs all worked at a common

location, and that no serious undue burden would result from Defendants being forced

to comply with the court’s order. 

This court’s previous order required Defendants to identify class members to

Plaintiffs by January 13, 2017. At a status conference held on January 17, 2017, the

parties indicated that Defendants had not complied with this deadline. The court has not

since received any indication that Defendants have so far fulfilled their obligation under

the prior order. Plaintiffs have requested a status conference to resolve this outstanding

issue.

II. STANDARD

Subject to the court’s discretion, a motion for reconsideration shall be granted

only if the movant “demonstrate[s] a palpable defect by which the court and the parties 

. . . have been misled” and “show[s] that correcting the defect will result in a different

disposition of the case.” E.D. Mich. L.R. 7.1(h)(3). “A ‘palpable defect’ is ‘a defect that

is obvious, clear, unmistakable, manifest or plain.’” Buchanan v. Metz, 6 F. Supp. 3d

730, 752 (E.D. Mich. 2014) (quoting United States v. Lockett, 328 F. Supp. 2d 682, 684

(E.D. Mich. 2004)). The court “will not grant motions for . . . reconsideration that merely

present the same issues ruled upon by the court.” E.D. Mich. L.R. 7.1(h)(3). 

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III. DISCUSSION

A. Hourly Employees

Defendants point out that the practices at issue in this case, which applied to

salaried non-exempt employees, did not apply to hourly employees. Thus, they are not

similarly situated. This account is supported by the “Associate Handbook” which shows

that hourly employees were paid normal overtime instead of the floating rate which is

the subject of the instant suit. (Dkt. #47-5, Pg. ID 923.) Defendants also point to

language in the court’s prior opinion which incorrectly stated that Defendants had

admitted to “using the same compensation scheme across all of their hourly and

salaried non-exempt employees[.]” They had admitted to using the same practices with

salaried non-exempt employees. 

Plaintiffs argue that Defendants failed to articulate a reason for treating hourly

and salaried non-exempt employees differently in the first instance, and that the more

inclusive language is really aimed at preventing Defendant from using “semantic

arguments” to redefine ex post as “hourly” employees who were truly salaried nonexempt, thus reducing the size of the class. During the status conference, Plaintiffs

suggested that they would stipulate that the definition of the class truly covers only

those employees that were subject to the pay practices at issue in this case–specifically

the re-calculation of base pay rate based on total hours worked. 

It appears that all parties are essentially in agreement that employees who were

truly hourly were not subject to the pay practices at issue in this case and indeed not

proper plaintiffs under the facts alleged. Rather than fruitlessly analyze which

arguments have been waived and whether the court’s statements about Defendants’

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admissions constitute a “palpable defect,” the court will now simply clarify its prior

order’s class definition consistent with the view that it covers only those employees who

were subject to the pay practices at issue in this case, normally called “salaried nonexempt.” This clarification supplies Defendants with the relief that they requested and

thus renders moot their motion for reconsideration on this question. The court will

therefore deny the motion on the basis of mootness.

B. Facilities

Defendants rely on Syrja v. Westat, Inc., for their argument that, because the

named Plaintiffs all are from the Westland Facility, they are not similarly situated to

class members in other facilities. 756 F. Supp. 2d 682, 687 (D. Md. 2010). However,

even setting aside the fact that this case represents merely persuasive rather than

binding authority, its pertinent facts are critically distinguishable from those at issue

here. Importantly, Defendants maintained uniform pay practices across their facilities.

Compare that with the pay practices in Syrja:

Moreover, aside from his own assertions and those of members of the

putative class, [Plaintiff] has offered no evidence that even begins to

suggest that [Defendant] currently maintains, or that it ever maintained, a

uniform national policy of denying appropriate compensation for employee

hours worked over 40 in a given week. In fact, the only concrete evidence

before the Court relevant to a national policy with respect to overtime pay

is [Defendant’s] official policy to the effect that it will compensate its

employees for all overtime hours worked, even when such hours are

unauthorized.

Id. at 687-688. Such is not the case here. As the court has no reason to think that pay

practices differed in any meaningful respect across Defendants’ facilities, no “palpable

defect” as to this question exists in the order granting class certification. Thus, the court

will deny Defendants’ motion.

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C. Undue Burden

Defendants argue that calculating the amount paid to each class member under

the “fluctuating work week” system as well as the amount that would have been paid

had they adopted a different practice is too burdensome in light of what they view as

defects in Plaintiffs’ case-in-chief. Defendants’ position seeks to reanimate arguments

which this court already rejected when it denied their motion to dismiss the amended

complaint. (Dkt. #35.) Additionally, the court is not convinced that the burden which

normal class discovery imposes upon Defendants is undue. The process described for

calculating the wages at issue is something akin to deriving formulas related to those it

already uses to pay its employees and feeding the requisite values into a spreadsheet. 

D. Class Discovery

At the status conference this court indicated that it expected the parties to

proceed in discovery normally with the assumption that the motion for reconsideration

would be denied. Whether this has occurred remains to be seen, but the court will hold

a telephonic status conference on February 21, 2017 at 11:30 a.m. to discuss the

progress that has been made in discovery thus far.

 IV. CONCLUSION

IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiffs’ “Motion for Reconsideration of the Opinion and

Order Granting Plaintiffs’ Motion for Conditional Class Certification ” (Dkt. #47) is

DENIED.

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IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that counsel for the parties appear before the court

for a case management conference on March 9, 2017 at 10:00 a.m. in the Federal

Courthouse at 526 Water St., Port Huron, MI 48060. 

 s/Robert H. Cleland 

ROBERT H. CLELAND

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Dated: February 8, 2017

I hereby certify that a copy of the foregoing document was mailed to counsel of record

on this date, February 8, 2017, by electronic and/or ordinary mail.

 s/Shawna C. Burns 

Case Manager Generalist 

(810) 984-2056

Q:\Cleland\JUDGE'S DESK\C2 ORDERS\15-11428.HALL.denyreconsideration.bss.RHC.wpd

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