In Landers v. Quality Communications (9th Cir. 12-15890-1/26/15), the Court of Appeal affirmed the district court’s order dismissing plaintiff’s complaint pursuant to Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure finding that it is not enough for a complaint under the FLSA merely to generally allege that the employer violated wage and overtime laws. Rather, the allegations in the complaint must plausibly state a claim that the employer failed to pay minimum wages or overtime wages. Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 500 U.S. 544 (2007) and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009).
Landers’ complaint alleged that he was employed by Quality in its cable division, that his employment was subject to the FLSA’s minimum wage and overtime pay requirements, and that he was subject to a “de facto piecework no overtime” wage system, whereby he worked in excess of forty hours per week without being compensated for his overtime. Landers further generally alleged that the defendants failed to pay minimum wages or overtime wages for the hours worked, and that the defendants falsified payroll records to conceal their failure to pay required wages. Notably absent from the allegations in Landers’ complaint was any detail regarding a given workweek in which Landers worked in excess of forty hours and was not paid overtime for that given workweek and/or was not paid minimum wages.
This case affirms that an employee asserting a claim to overtime payments must allege facts that he/she worked more than forty hours in a given workweek without being compensated for the hours worked in excess of forty during that week. “Although plaintiffs in these types of cases cannot be expected to allege with mathematical precision the amount of overtime compensation owed by the employer, they should be able to allege facts demonstrating there was at least one workweek in which they worked in excess of forty hours and were not paid overtime wages.”
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