US court nixes class of Anheuser-Busch brewery workers in wage law spat

Anheuser-Busch Inbev SA

Mon 21:13

Lawsuit claims don-doff and COVID screening time were unpaid
But workers had varying tasks and equipment, appeals court says
Ruling leaves door open for smaller subclasses
By Daniel Wiessner
June 15 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court ruled on Monday that a judge erred in finding that hundreds of workers at an Anheuser-Busch brewery in Virginia could sue as a group for allegedly unpaid wages, saying there were too many questions about their individual situations.
A unanimous three-judge panel of the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said there were considerable differences in the tasks that employees performed, the areas of the brewery where they worked and the legal standard that applied to them, and reversed the judge's order certifying a class. 
The named plaintiffs in the 2021 lawsuit claim Anheuser-Busch should have paid employees at the Williamsburg, Virginia, brewery for time they spent before and after shifts donning and doffing safety equipment and, during the COVID-19 pandemic, complying with additional safety protocols. 
"In defining the common question at too high a level, the district court failed to observe the myriad variations in employees’ circumstances," Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson wrote. 
Anheuser-Busch and lawyers for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 
Hourly employees at the Williamsburg brewery work in five distinct departments and use a variety of safety gear including steel-toed boots, earplugs, vests, and caps with plastic inserts, according to filings in the case. 
The lawsuit alleges that Anheuser-Busch required employees to be at their work stations for the entirety of their shifts, so they were not compensated for additional time spent donning and doffing those items. The plaintiffs accused Anheuser-Busch of violating the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and Virginia wage laws. 
The company consented to conditional certification of an FLSA collective, and 71 people opted in. FLSA collectives are treated as aggregated individual claims rather than a single claim on behalf of a class.
U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen in the Eastern District of Virginia last year granted class certification on the claims brought under Virginia law, rejecting Anheuser-Busch's argument that the claims were too individualized to move forward as a class action. 
The 4th Circuit on Monday reversed Allen's decision, listing a multitude of variables that could set apart different groups of workers. The court pointed to evidence that some employees put on safety gear at home or at the outset of their shifts, and noted that many class members were hired after Anheuser-Busch lifted COVID-19 protocols in 2022 and were never subjected to them.
Additionally, class members who began working at the brewery after Virginia amended its wage laws in 2022 to more closely track federal law are subject to a different legal standard than those who were already employed there, Wilkinson said. 
The 4th Circuit remanded the case to Allen to determine whether narrower subclasses may be appropriate, such as those covering people who worked in the same department.
"We do not foreclose such pathways as are properly supported by the record," Wilkinson wrote.
The panel included Circuit Judges Julius Richardson and Nicole Berner.
The case is Overby v. Anheuser-Busch, 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 25-1520.
For the plaintiffs: Robert Tucci of Zipin, Amster & Greenberg
For Anheuser-Busch: James Tysse of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld
       

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York)
((daniel.wiessner@thomsonreuters.com))