Mairena-Rivera v. Langston Construction, LLC, 3:16-cv-00850

Background

Plaintiff Bismark Mairena-Rivera, a former general construction laborer, alleges Langston Construction, Composite Architectural Design Systems, and Michael Langston failed to pay time-and-a-half overtime in violation of the FLSA.
Plaintiff seeks conditional certification of an opt-in collective action and court-ordered disclosure of potential opt-in plaintiffs’ contact information; one former employee already opted in.
Plaintiff’s proposed class originally included all employees eligible for overtime during the past three years who did not receive full overtime; Defendants argued the class is overly broad.
Plaintiff submitted an amended complaint and a declaration describing a two-check scheme affecting laborers; his declaration referenced only manual laborers as similarly situated.
The court found Plaintiff’s evidence sufficient for conditional certification but narrowed the class to manual laborers, approved a three-year temporal scope, and set a 90-day opt-in period.
The court ordered Defendants to produce names, last-known addresses, and e-mail addresses (if available) within 20 days, and required the parties to meet and confer on notice language.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether to conditionally certify an FLSA collective action	Mairena-Rivera argued similarly situated laborers were subject to a common two-check pay scheme and sought certification for all eligible employees over three years	Defendants argued the proposed class is too broad (would include non-labor office staff) and plaintiff failed to show substantial allegations of a common policy	Conditional certification granted but narrowed: limited to manual laborers not paid proper overtime
Appropriate class definition	Plaintiff initially sought all overtime-eligible employees unpaid overtime	Defendants sought a much narrower class of those who held plaintiff’s identical job, supervisor, and location	Court narrowed class to manual laborers who performed manual labor for the two entities in the past three years and were not paid full overtime
Temporal scope (two years v. three years)	Plaintiff sought three years, alleging willful violations	Defendants sought two years	Court conditionally approved a three-year period at the notice stage; defendants may move to decertify after discovery
Scope of contact information to be produced for notice	Plaintiff requested names, phone numbers, and addresses	Defendants argued only names and addresses should be produced (and objected to phone numbers)	Court ordered production of names, last-known addresses, and e-mail addresses (if available); declined to compel phone numbers
Opt-in period length	Plaintiff requested 90 days, citing language barriers and migration of laborers	Defendants argued for a short period (e.g., 21 days)	Court approved a 90-day opt-in period, starting when final notice is approved
Notice content process	Plaintiff submitted proposed notice; defendants sought edits	Defendants argued proposed notice incomplete	Court ordered parties to meet and confer and file a joint or competing notices within 20 days for court approval

Key Cases Cited

Mooney v. Aramco Servs., 54 F.3d 1207 (5th Cir. 1995) (establishes the two-step conditional certification approach for FLSA collective actions)
Lima v. Int’l Catastrophe Solns., 493 F. Supp. 2d 793 (E.D. La. 2007) (discusses when a three-year statute of limitations is appropriate and factors supporting longer opt-in periods)
Walker v. Honghua LLC, 870 F. Supp. 2d 462 (S.D. Tex. 2012) (recognizes a court’s authority to modify an FLSA collective action definition)
Behnken v. Luminant Mining Co., 997 F. Supp. 2d 511 (N.D. Tex. 2014) (addresses adequate scope of contact information for notice and privacy considerations)