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Update: Jiffy Lube To Settle Class Action Over No-Poach Policy
- Jiffy Lube has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit with a Class of its employees.
- Jiffy Lube and employees are now working together to come up with a settlement agreement.
- Employees claim Jiffy Lube had a policy not to hire them if they’d worked at a separate Jiffy Lube location.
- Employees argued the company’s “no-poach” policy was anti-competitive and violated the Sherman Act.
- Employees claim the policy restricted mobility and enabled Jiffy Lube to give them lower wages.
- Jiffy Lube had argued in 2020 that it no longer enforces the policy, while requesting a dismissal for claims of injunctive relief.
(12/03/2019)
A federal judge denied Jiffy Lube’s attempt to dismiss an anti-poaching class action lawsuit, while trimming some of the claims brought forward by a former employee.
The Jiffy Lube class action lawsuit was filed by former Jiffy Lube employee Victor Fuentes who alleges that the car maintenance company restricts competition by prohibiting franchises from hiring employees from other locations.
In deciding not to dismiss the Jiffy Lube class action lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Anita B. Brody rejected Jiffy Lube’s argument that Fuentes failed to sufficiently make a claim under the Sherman Act, that prohibits certain anti-competitive actions by companies.
The judge based this ruling on several decisions made in previous lawsuits. She noted that other courts have determined that no-poaching agreements do violate the Sherman Act.
However, Judge Brody trimmed Fuentes’ fraudulent concealment claim, saying that Fuentes had not sufficiently shown that Jiffy Lube had misled Fuentes.
The plaintiff had argued that Jiffy Lube “concealed the existence of the no-poach agreement” on the company’s career page.
Allegedly, the company advertised to prospective employees that working at Jiffy Lube is “[m]ore than just a job, but a step toward a career that lets you instantly see the results of your hard work.”
Though Fuentes argues that this statement and others indicate that Jiffy Lube promotes competition and therefore implies that it does not have an no-poaching rule, Judge Brody determined that this is not enough to allow Fuentes to make a fraudulent concealment claim, because none of the statements he cites “directly imply anything about the presence of a no-poach provision.”
Judge Brody also struck Fuentes’ claim for injunctive relief, saying that his claims exceeded the year and a half statute of limitations for such allegations.
Additionally, the judge said that Fuentes could not claim injunctive relief by saying that it is “possible” or “plausible” that he could return to Jiffy Lube, because it is “precisely the kind of speculative future harm the the Supreme Court has rejected as inadequate.”
In their argument that the anti-poaching class action lawsuit should be dismissed entirely, Jiffy Lube argued that they are not competing with their franchises, as Fuentes claimed, because they do not own their franchises. Allegedly, other no-poaching class action lawsuits have taken issues with such clauses at companies that do own their franchises.
Have you worked at a company with a no-poaching rule? Share you experience with us in the comments below.
The Jiffy Lube workers are represented by John A. Yanchunis, Marcio W. Valladares, and Kevin Clancy Boylan of Morgan & Morgan PA and Michael L. Schrag, George W. Sampson and Joshua J. Bloomfield of Gibbs Law Group LLC.
The Jiffy Lube Employee No-Poaching Class Action Lawsuit is Fuentes v. Royal Dutch Shell PLC, et al., Case No. 2:18-cv-05174, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
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