Claimant Seeking Unpaid Overtime for Tech Writers Wins Class Cert.

A plaintiff seeking unpaid overtime for tech writers has gotten conditional certification of his proposed Class from a federal judge.

U.S. District Judge Barbara B. Crabb granted plaintiff Jacob Lewis’ motion for conditional class certification.

Lewis is suing on behalf of himself and other technical writers who did work for defendant Epic Systems Corp.

He alleges Epic purposely misclassified the writers as overtime-exempt workers to avoid paying them a higher overtime wage. That misclassification violates the Fair Labor Standards Act, Lewis claims.

With initial certification, Lewis can start sending out notices alerting potential Class Members to their opportunity to opt into Class membership.

In arguing against certification, Epic said the writers’ different job descriptions diverged so much that they did not have enough in common to form a coherent Class.

The company also argued some of those descriptions clearly justified the company’s withholding unpaid overtime for tech writers.

Judge Cobb, however, was satisfied with evidence provided by Jacob showing that all of Epic’s technical writers did essentially the same work of developing written documents related to software.

The writers also performed that task in basically the same way, using processes and templates mandated by Epic, the judge determined.

Perhaps most significantly, the Class of writers as described by Lewis was all subject to the same decision by Epic to withhold unpaid overtime for tech writers.

Multiple Claimants Seek Unpaid Overtime for Tech Writers

Lewis began his FLSA class action lawsuit in February 2015 on behalf of the technical writers responsible for creating documents like handbooks and support guides for the software company.

He alleged that Epic’s misclassification of workers was unfairly cheating these writers out of unpaid overtime.

In addition to his claim under the FLSA, Lewis also brought claims under Wisconsin state labor laws.

Lewis limited his proposed Class to writers who worked for Epic on or after April 2, 2014, the date the company began having employees submit to an arbitration agreement that would require them to bring any legal claims though private arbitration.

Another Epic class action lawsuit was also brought by a different plaintiff who sought to represent writers who had worked for Epic before the company began using the arbitration agreement.

Judge Crabb denied Epic’s motion to compel arbitration in September 2015. The denial was upheld on appeal.

Since Lewis’ claims fall under the FLSA, Judge Crabb’s order will certify the formation of what is technically known as a collective.

A collective under the FLSA is different from a Class in other types of employment class action lawsuits. Unlike with a Class, those who qualify for membership in the collective must affirmatively opt into joining the collective.

Those who choose not to opt in may retain their right to bring their own claim against the employer over the same allegations, but they will not get the benefits of being part of a unified action.

The Epic Systems Unpaid Overtime Class Action Lawsuit is Lewis v. Epic Systems Corp., Case No. 3:15-cv-00082, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin.

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