United States District Court, W.D. Arkansas, Texarkana Division
DONALD ADKINSON and KERRY WIMLEY, Individually and on Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated, PLAINTIFFS
v.
TIGER EYE PIZZA, LLC and KEN SCHROEPFER, DEFENDANTS
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Susan
O. Hickey, Chief United States District Judge.
Before
the Court is Defendants Tiger Eye Pizza, LLC and Ken
Schroepfer ‘s Motion for Summary Judgment on Consent to
Join Collective Action Filed by David Wright. (ECF No. 36).
Plaintiffs Donald Adkinson and Kerry Wimley have responded.
(ECF No. 44). Defendants have replied. (ECF No. 46). The
Court finds the matter ripe for consideration.
I.
BACKGROUND
On
September 7, 2018, David Wright (“Wright”) filed
a putative collective and class action against Defendants,
pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act
(“FLSA”), 29 U.S.C. §§ 201, et
seq., and the Arkansas Minimum Wage Act
(“AMWA”), Ark. Code Ann §§ 11-4-201,
et seq. That case was assigned civil case number
4:18-cv-4127-SOH (the “Wright case”).
Wright alleged that he is employed by Defendants as an hourly
paid pizza delivery driver in Texarkana, Arkansas and
Texarkana, Texas, and that Defendants failed to pay him, and
others similarly situated, proper minimum wage and overtime
compensation. Specifically, Wright alleged that Defendants
required him and other pizza delivery drivers to incur
various business-related costs and expenses and failed to
reimburse them for the same. One opt-in plaintiff joined the
Wright case, and it was not certified as a class or
collective action.
The
parties to the Wright case subsequently settled the
claims therein, as captured in a settlement agreement signed
by the plaintiffs on January 15, 2019, and by the defendants
on January 25, 2019. The settlement agreement provided, in
relevant part, that Wright released Defendants from
“all claims which presently exist or may exist in the
future arising out of or relating to the assertions in
Plaintiffs' complaint.” (ECF No. 36-2, p. 1). On
March 15, 2019, the Court dismissed the Wright case
with prejudice, pursuant to the terms of the settlement
agreement.
On
January 23, 2019, Plaintiffs filed this action, seeking
relief pursuant to the FLSA and the AMWA. Plaintiffs
make the same allegations that Wright did in his case: (1)
that they were employed by Defendants as hourly paid delivery
drivers at Defendants' pizza stores in Texarkana,
Arkansas, and Texarkana, Texas; and (2) that Defendants
failed to pay them, and others similarly situated, proper
minimum wage and overtime compensation by requiring them to
incur various business-related costs and expenses and failing
to reimburse them for the same. On May 20, 2019, Wright opted
into this case by filing a consent to join collective action.
On July
25, 2019, Defendants filed the instant motion for summary
judgment, contending that Wright's claims in this case
are foreclosed because the settlement agreement in the
Wright case released Defendants from liability on
any and all claims relating to the assertions in that case.
Defendants argue that the factual allegations in this case
are essentially identical to those in the Wright
case and, thus, Wright is seeking an improper second recovery
on claims from which he has released Defendants. Accordingly,
Defendants contend that there are no genuine issues of
material fact on this issue and that the Court should dismiss
Wright's claims herein. Plaintiffs oppose the motion.
II.
STANDARD
The
standard for summary judgment is well established. When a
party moves for summary judgment, “[t]he court shall
grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no
genuine dispute as to any material fact, and the movant is
entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P.
56(a); Krenik v. Cnty. of LeSueur, 47 F.3d 953, 957
(8th Cir. 1995). This is a “threshold inquiry of . . .
whether there is a need for trial-whether, in other words,
there are genuine factual issues that properly can be
resolved only by a finder of fact because they reasonably may
be resolved in favor of either party.” Anderson v.
Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 250 (1986). A fact is
material only when its resolution affects the outcome of the
case. Id. at 248. A dispute is genuine if the
evidence is such that it could cause a reasonable jury to
return a verdict for either party. Id. at 252.
In
deciding a motion for summary judgment, the Court must
consider all the evidence and all reasonable inferences that
arise from the evidence in a light most favorable to the
nonmoving party. Nitsche v. CEO of Osage Valley Elec.
Co-Op, 446 F.3d 841, 845 (8th Cir. 2006). The moving
party bears the burden of showing that there is no genuine
issue of material fact and that it is entitled to judgment as
a matter of law. See Enter. Bank v. Magna Bank, 92
F.3d 743, 747 (8th Cir. 1996). The nonmoving party must then
demonstrate the existence of specific facts in the record
that create a genuine issue for trial. Krenik, 47
F.3d at 957. However, a party opposing a properly supported
summary judgment motion “may not rest upon mere
allegations or denials . . . but must set forth specific
facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.”
Anderson, 477 U.S. at 256.
III.
DISCUSSION
Defendants
contend that Wright's claims in this case should be
dismissed because they are the same as those in the
Wright case, from which he released them from
liabiltiy. Plaintiffs concede that Wright settled and cannot
pursue any FLSA claims against Defendants accruing before the
execution of the Wright settlement agreement. The
Court finds that Wright should not be allowed to assert
claims in this case that accrued before March 15, 2019, the
dismissal of the Wright case, as those claims are
covered by the settlement agreement in that
case.[1]
The
only remaining question, then, is whether Wright may pursue
FLSA claims accruing after the Wright case's
dismissal. Defendants argue that he cannot because the
Wright settlement agreement released them from
“all claims which presently exist or may exist in the
future arising out of or relating to the assertions in
Plaintiffs' complaint.” Defendants argue that
Wright case's settlement agreement encompasses
Wright's FLSA claims in this case because both cases
concern Defendants' alleged failure to pay their
delivery-driver employees proper minimum wage and overtime
compensation by requiring them to bear various
business-related costs and expenses without reimbursement.
Plaintiffs contend that Wright did not and could not
prospectively waive his rights under the FLSA for any
later-occurring violations and, thus, he is entitled to
pursue any claims he may have against Defendants accruing
after the date of the Wright settlement agreement.
The
parties disagree whether Wright's release of all claims
related to his allegations in the Wright case is a
valid waiver of prospective FLSA claims in light of the fact
that the Court did not review the Wright settlement
for fairness before dismissing the case. However, the Court
need not address this issue because, regardless, Wright's
release of claims related only to “the assertions in
[the Wright] Plaintiffs' complaint.” (ECF
No. 36-2, p. 1). The Wright parties fully executed
their release on January 24, 2019, and the Court dismissed
that case on March 15, 2019. Wright did not release
Defendants from any claim that might ever accrue after the
conclusion of the Wright case. Rather, he released
them from all claims related to the specific allegations and
the specific time period involved in that case. In other
words, he released them from all present and future claims
arising from the allegations involved in a three-year period
ending at the time of that case's dismissal.
Plaintiffs' allegations in this case, albeit ...