Twelve separate lawsuits from California, Florida, Kansas, Texas, and Washington, all of which allege that Bank of America (either Bank of America, NA or Bank of America Corp.) “routinely fails to pay its employees for off-the-clock overtime work in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act [FLSA] and/or state law”, have been moved to the District of Kansas for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings by the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (the Panel). One of the cases “seeks to certify a class of all Bank of America non-exempt employees in the United States” for a class action suit against Bank of America.
The Panel considered not moving some of the cases. Some cases were moved even though the allegations were related to specific jobs, because the allegations were similar to those in other cases, “including allegations that Bank of America systematically prohibits overtime eligible employees from accurately recording their time and, as a result, does not pay its employees for all hours worked, including overtime pay.” Others considered similar “allege that that the timekeeping system used by Bank of America allows managers to modify or decrease the time recorded, and time worked is regularly deleted to avoid paying overtime.” Some cases moved included unrelated allegations, “such as discrimination (the Zhou action), retaliation, defamation and violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act (the Carrero action).” The Panel felt that any differences were not significant enough to outweigh the benefits of moving the cases for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings.
The Panel recommended that, with the consent of the District of Kansas, the coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings be assigned to the Honorable John W. Lungstrum, who “has the experience, energy and time to handle this litigation efficiently.”
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