Don't Take it to the Bank: Judge Denies Conditional Certification of PNC Assistant Branch Managers

Despite the lenient standard employed by many courts on motions for conditional certification, a federal judge in Pennsylvania recently denied conditional certification of an FLSA collective action based on scant factual support.  In Moore v. PNC Bank, N.A. [here], the court concluded that the plaintiff could not bring her claim as a collective action because there was no factual nexus between her alleged experiences and the experiences of a proposed nationwide class of over 2,000 current and former assistant branch managers.  The opinion demonstrates that just a common job title and job description do not make employees similarly situated to each other, even at the conditional certification stage.

The plaintiff was a former PNC Bank assistant branch manager (“ABM”) who worked at two branches in southern Ohio.  According to the plaintiff, PNC Bank classified her as exempt from overtime wages, yet required her to perform non-exempt duties, such as customer service, the vast majority of the time she spent on the job.  The plaintiff further alleged that PNC Bank ABMs across the country were misclassified as exempt and improperly denied overtime wages under the FLSA. 

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