IBM Lawsuit Must Proceed Individually, Not Collectively

Charles Seward is “an IBM’er.”  And in his wage-hour lawsuit against the company, no other IBM’ers will be joining him.

That’s the upshot of the March 9, 2012 ruling of Judge Vincent Briccetti of the Southern District of New York in Seward v. IBM.  Judge Briccetti affirmed a decision to decertify a class of call center representatives at IBM’s facility in Atlanta.

The lawsuit, filed in 2008, alleges that call center representatives were not paid for time spent booting up their computers at the start of their shifts.  A different District Judge in 2009 granted Seward’s motion for conditional certification of his FLSA claim, and 39 other plaintiffs later opted in.

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