Schmidt v. Vision Service Plan ( 2022 )

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 Michael Schmidt, No. 2:20-cv-02400-KJM-KJN 12 Plaintiff, ORDER 13 v. 14 Vision Service Plan, et al., 1S Defendants. 16 17 Plaintiff Michael Schmidt has brought this putative wage-and-hour class, collective, and 18 | representative action on behalf of defendants’ current and former customer service 19 | representatives. First Am. Compl. §§ 1, 3, ECF No. 33. Plaintiff now moves this court to 20 | preliminarily approve the parties’ settlement agreement. See ECF No. 36. The motion is 21 | unopposed. /d. The court has reviewed the terms of the proposed settlement agreement and finds 22 | that supplemental briefing is necessary prior to a preliminary approval hearing. Specifically, 23 | plaintiff must show he has standing to bring a claim on behalf of the proposed Fair Labor 24 | Standards Act (FLSA) collective. 25 To satisfy Article III’s standing requirement, plaintiff bears the burden of alleging facts 26 | sufficient to establish that (1) he has suffered an “injury-in-fact,” (2) the injury is “fairly 27 | traceable” to the defendant’s actions, and (3) the injury will likely be redressed by a favorable 28 | decision. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992). Inclusion of class or 1 | collective allegations does not relieve a plaintiff of the requirement that he personally suffered an 2 | injury fairly traceable to the defendant’s actions. See Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 502 (1975). 3 Here, the parties’ settlement agreement defines “FLSA Collective Members” as □□□□□□ 4 | current and former employees of Defendants who were employed as [Customer Service 5 | Representatives] or equivalent positions in states other than California at any time between 6 | December 2, 2017 and November 12, 2021.” Cottrell Decl., Ex. 1 J 2(g) (Settlement Agreement), 7 | ECF No. 36-2 (emphasis added). But plaintiff, an employee in California, is not part of this 8 | FLSA collective. See First Am. Compl. § 9. It thus appears that plaintiff's injury is not “fairly 9 | traceable” to defendants’ actions outside California and that plaintiff's injury will not be 10 | redressed by a favorable decision for employees outside California. 11 Given this threshold concern, the court cannot proceed to consider plaintiff's motion for 12 | preliminary approval without further briefing. See Cummings v. Cenergy Int’l Servs., LLC, 13 | 258 F. Supp. 3d 1097, 1104 (E.D. Cal. 2017) (‘Ifa plaintiff lacks standing under Article III of the 14 | USS. Constitution, then the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction and the case must be 15 | dismissed.”). The hearing on plaintiffs motion for preliminary approval is thus vacated and 16 | reset for July 29, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. Within seven days of this order, the parties shall submit a 17 | supplemental brief of no more than five pages addressing the above concerns. 18 IT IS SO ORDERED. 19 | DATED: July 5, 2022. [\ (] 20 l ti / { q_/ CHIEF NT] ED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE 45