Vandergriff v. Olympia Management Inc, 4:18-cv-01635

Plaintiffs Stacey Vandergriff and Vickie Dickerson are hourly, non-exempt resident property managers employed by Olympia Management, Inc. (OMI).
Plaintiffs allege OMI required them to remain on-call 24/7 performing tasks (collecting rent, distributing keys, returning calls, addressing maintenance) beyond their scheduled hours.
Plaintiffs claim they regularly worked over 40 hours per week but were not paid for on-call or overtime hours, asserting FLSA minimum wage and overtime violations.
Plaintiffs seek to bring a collective action on behalf of resident property managers required to be on-call and not fully compensated for hours worked over 40 per week.
At this early stage, Plaintiffs submitted affidavits from themselves and another manager attesting to uniform job duties, an on-call policy, and interest from at least one other manager to opt in.
OMI opposed conditional certification, arguing plaintiffs failed to show similarly situated employees and disputing the existence/effect of an on-call policy.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether conditional certification of an FLSA collective is warranted	Plaintiffs: affidavits and allegations provide a reasonable basis that other resident managers were hourly, subject to the same on-call policy, performed off-the-clock work, and want to opt in	OMI: plaintiffs’ evidence is insufficient; job differences (number of properties/units, tenant demographics) mean managers are not similarly situated; disputes existence of an on-call policy	Granted conditional certification: plaintiffs met lenient "reasonable basis" showing of similarly situated employees and at least one interested opt-in
Whether court should approve plaintiffs’ proposed notice and class definition	Plaintiffs: propose notice covering all hourly property managers employed since Oct 5, 2015	OMI: implicitly opposes broad notice covering many employees not fitting alleged class	Denied without prejudice: proposed notice/class definition is overly broad; parties ordered to meet and submit revised forms

Anderson v. Cagle's, Inc., 488 F.3d 945 (11th Cir.) (early-stage certification relies mainly on pleadings and affidavits)
Grayson v. K Mart Corp., 79 F.3d 1086 (11th Cir.) (plaintiff must show a "reasonable basis" that similarly situated employees exist for conditional certification)
Dybach v. State of Florida Dep't of Corrections, 942 F.2d 1562 (11th Cir.) (discusses considerations like job and pay similarities for collective actions)
Hipp v. Liberty Nat. Life Ins. Co., 252 F.3d 1208 (11th Cir.) (two-stage FLSA collective action certification procedure; lenient standard at first stage)
Hoffmann-LaRoche Inc. v. Sperling, 493 U.S. 165 (U.S. Supreme Court) (court may facilitate notice to potential class members but notice must be timely, accurate, and informative)
Morgan v. Family Dollar Stores, Inc., 551 F.3d 1233 (11th Cir.) (discusses lack of a precise definition of "similarly situated" for FLSA collective actions)