Roderick Roberson and others sued Kansas City Southern Railway Co. (KCS) in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri, raising claims under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Plaintiffs moved to certify a class of current, former, and future KCS Train, Engine & Yard employees who were eligible for FMLA leave.
Factual Overview
The lawsuit challenged two KCS policies. First, plaintiffs alleged that KCS’s FMLA leave calculation policy, used from September 2021 to August 2022, improperly calculated available FMLA leave, resulting in employees exhausting their leave after taking only twelve days instead of the statutorily guaranteed twelve weeks. Second, plaintiffs challenged KCS’s “bottom-of-the-board” policy, which moved employees returning from FMLA leave to the bottom of job boards rather than restoring them to their previous positions.
The proposed class included all current, future, and former KCS Train Engine & Yard employees who worked enough hours to be eligible for FMLA leave during the three years preceding the complaint’s filing. Plaintiffs sought certification under both Rule 23(b)(2) for injunctive relief and Rule 23(b)(3) for monetary damages. Alternatively, they requested certification of issue classes or subclasses.
Legal Analysis
Rule 23(a)(2) Commonality: The court found that the proposed class failed to satisfy the commonality requirement because neither challenged policy applied to all class members. The FMLA leave calculation policy never applied to employees who left KCS before September 2021, and the bottom-of-the-board policy did not affect employees working fixed schedules.
Standing for Injunctive Relief: The court determined that former employees lacked standing to seek injunctive relief under Rule 23(b)(2) because they faced no realistic threat of future FMLA violations by KCS. While former employees actively seeking reinstatement might have standing, plaintiffs neither showed such employees existed nor distinguished them in the class definition.
Issue Classes and Subclasses: The court rejected certification of issue classes because they suffered from the same commonality problems as the main class. The court declined to sua sponte define subclasses, noting that plaintiffs only defined one potential subclass and failed to identify class representatives or demonstrate numerosity for potential subclasses.
The court denied plaintiffs’ motion for class certification, finding the proposed class failed to satisfy Rule 23’s requirements and included members who lacked standing to seek injunctive relief.
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