WDNY — Class Certification: Tracy, et al. v. NVR Inc.

U.S. District Court, WDNY

Class Certification

Similarly Situated

Tracy, et al. v. NVR Inc.
04-cv-6541L
Judge Larimer

Background: The plaintiff, on behalf of himself and a class of plaintiffs, brought an action pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act, alleging that they were not properly compensated for overtime compensation. The defendant moved to decertify the FLSA collective action and for summary judgment for three opt-in plaintiffs whose testimony establishes that they were classified as exempt outside salespeople.

Ruling: The District Court decertified the class. The court found that the plaintiffs, salespeople, had tremendous flexibility in terms of the manner in which they chose to allocate their time and resources to perform those activities. As a result, the average time each putative class member spent outside the office varied greatly. The court further held that, despite a uniform set of job duties,  the manner in which these duties were carried out differed from member to member.

J. Nelson Thomas and Sara Meghan Born of Thomas & Solomon for the plaintiffs; David T. Schur, Deborah P. Kelly and Susan A. Littell of Dickstein Shapiro; Lorie E. Almon, Barry J. Miller, Dana L. Fleming, James M. Hlawek and Devjani Mishra of Seyfarth Shaw; Salvador P. Simao of McCarter & English; Heidi W. Feinberg and Michael R. Wolford of the Wolford Law Firm; and William G. Bauer of Woods Oviatt Gilman for the defendant