On December 5, 2018, Plaintiff Stephanie Woznicki filed a class action in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Orlando against Raydon Corporation, as well as Donald K. Ariel, David P. Donovan, the ESOP Committee of the Raydon Corporation Employee Stock Ownership Plan and Lubbock National Bank under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) on behalf of herself and a class of participants in, and beneficiaries of, the Raydon Corporation Employee Stock Ownership Plan (“the ESOP” or “the Plan”) to restore losses to the Plan.

On November 9, 2018, the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut ruled that Defendant Computer Sciences Corporation in the matter of Strauch v. Computer Sciences Corp., No. 14-956 (D. Ct.), had to pay its misclassified professional and associate professional systems administrators who opted into the case pursuant to the standard time-and-a-half method for calculating unpaid overtime, rather than the half-time “fluctuating workweek” standard sought by CSC. This decision effectively results in these systems administrators being entitled to three times as much as they would have been entitled to under the fluctuating workweek methodology. In addition, the court ruled that systems administrators who opted into the case were entitled to liquidated damages equal to their claims for unpaid overtime under federal law.

Feinberg, Jackson, Worthman & Wasow, alongside co-counsel at Outten & Golden and Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann, & Bernstein, had previously succeeded at a trial on the merits of the misclassification issue in December 2017, with damages to be determined at a later date. Final damages in the case are still left to be resolved in light of the court’s latest order, in particular the appropriate inferences to be made where CSC produced incomplete records.

Press coverage of the November 9 order is here. For more information on the December 2017 CSC trial, click here.

On August 31, 2018, the Court granted final approval to the class action settlement, granted Plaintiffs’ motion for attorneys’ fees, costs and class representative service awards, and entered final judgment. The Court’s August 31 Order and Judgment are available for viewing. See also, Law360 article.

On August 8, 2018, Feinberg, Jackson, Worthman & Wasow LLP, along with co-counsel at Block & Leviton LLP, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, and Donahoo & Associates PC, filed a class action against Wawa, Inc. and related defendants on behalf of ex-employees of Wawa who were not part of  the class in prior litigation against the Wawa ESOP.

On June 15, 2018, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas denied in part a motion to dismiss by Fringe Benefit Group and its subsidiaries, Plan Benefit Services, Inc. and Fringe Insurance Benefits, Inc.

On May 14, 2018, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California denied a motion to compel arbitration of class members’ claims by defendants ABM Industries, Inc., et al., instead revising the class definitions to exclude claims by some Cleaners beginning in 2016, when three collective bargaining agreements containing arbitration clauses became effective.

On May 9, 2018, Feinberg, Jackson, Worthman & Wasow LLP and co-counsel Block & Leviton LLP filed a complaint on behalf of 2,000 participants in the Adams and Associates, Inc. Employee Stock Ownership Plan.

On April 12, 2018, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York granted preliminary approval of a $1.4 million class action settlement on behalf of the participants and beneficiaries of the Atrium Management Services, Inc. Employee Stock Ownership Plan (“Atrium ESOP”).

On March 20, 2018, Plaintiffs Manley Gough, Curtis Bryant and John Gouveia filed a motion in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California seeking preliminary approval of a $1.75 million class action settlement on behalf of the participants and beneficiaries of the Tennyson Electric, Inc.