Employers have a new tool for opposing conditional and class certification of overtime claims by financial advisors and other exempt employees—last week, a judge in the District of New Jersey denied conditional and class certification of such claims because the plaintiffs failed to show that common issues predominated. The court, pointing to other decisions denying class status to financial advisors in recent years, concluded that the advisors' duties varied significantly and required individual treatment. While recent headlines have announced large settlements of class claims by financial advisors, this decision bolsters employers' opposition to those and other purported wage and hour class and collective claims.
The four named plaintiffs brought suit under the FLSA and the laws of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut, claiming that they and the purported class members were entitled to overtime pay and business expenses, and proposing three classes and an opt-in federal collective. Plaintiffs contended the bank's uniform categorization of financial advisors as exempt was improper because the advisors regularly made sales "cold calls," regularly attended networking events to attract new clients, were paid based on their ability to generate sales, were heavily supervised, and had no role in managerial decisions affecting the bank's business.
Denying plaintiffs' motions, the judge first concluded that plaintiffs failed to establish their claims were typical and they were adequate representatives of the class because, unlike the plaintiffs, many proposed class members had signed releases of all claims. The court explained it was unclear how the class representatives would challenge releases they did not sign.
On predominance, the judge concluded that the bank's policies, plaintiffs' depositions, and the declarations submitted with the bank's opposition demonstrated that financial advisors varied in:
- how often they sold financial products;
- how they were supervised;
- how they were paid;
- what types of clients they served; and
- how much autonomy they enjoyed.
For example, one plaintiff testified that some advisors did cold calling while others did not, and plaintiffs testified that as their business became more established, they spent less time generating sales. The record also showed that some managers were involved in the day-to-day work of their financial advisors, but others were more hands off. Thus the court concluded that common questions did not predominate.
As in another case we recently discussed, where the Sixth Circuit upheld the dismissal of a proposed collective action of bank loan underwriters, the court here also rejected plaintiffs' heavy reliance on the DOL's 2010 Administrative Interpretation concerning mortgage loan officers' non-exempt status, noting that that the Interpretation did not apply to financial advisors.
Finally, despite a "lenient standard," the judge denied plaintiffs' motion for conditional certification under the FLSA. Plaintiffs could not meet their burden by merely showing that the bank had a uniform policy of treating financial advisors as exempt, and the significant class discovery record revealed that financial advisors' duties varied greatly.
The case will now proceed on the merits of the claims of the four individual plaintiffs only.
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