A Dutiful Result: Finding Differences in Management Duties, Federal Court Decertifies Nationwide FLSA Collective Action Brought By Dollar Tree Store Managers

Any employer that has faced a putative FLSA collective action in Florida, Georgia, or Alabama since 2008 should be aware of Morgan v. Family Dollar Stores, Inc., a case in which the Eleventh Circuit upheld a $35 million trial verdict against the Family Dollar chain and refused to reverse a pretrial decision to allow the store manager misclassification case to proceed collectively in the first place.  Plaintiffs have since rung the Morgan bell often and indiscriminately, likening their cases to Morgan because of perceived similarities among the employees in their cases and those who sued Family Dollar.  An employer decided to classify all individuals in a position as exempt?  “That happened in Morgan, too!”  The employer had a manual describing its expectations of the employees in its stores?  “So did Family Dollar!”  Morgan, these plaintiffs have exclaimed, has required that employees like these must be “similarly situated,” the key requirement to proceed collectively.  After all, the Eleventh Circuit upheld the multi-million dollar verdict against Family Dollar.

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