Campbell v. City of Los Angeles

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's decertification of two related collective actions brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by LAPD officers, alleging a pervasive, unwritten policy discouraging the reporting of overtime. The panel held that the officers can appeal a decertification order when they were dismissed from the collective action before final judgment and without prejudice to their individual FLSA claims. The panel held that opt-in plaintiffs are parties to the collective action, and an order of decertification and dismissal disposes of their statutory right to proceed collectively. Therefore, they have standing to appeal and may do so after the interlocutory decertification order to which they are adverse merges with final judgment.The panel also held that the collective actions in this case were properly decertified and the officers properly dismissed for failure to satisfy the "similarly situated" requirement of the FLSA. The panel's de novo review of the record demonstrated that the officers failed, as a matter of law, to create a triable question of fact regarding the existence of a Department-wide policy or practice. View "Campbell v. City of Los Angeles" on Justia Law