On Monday, David Coffman filed a collective and class action complaint in the Northern District of Ohio against AM Communications Inc., AM Communications Ltd., James Johnson LLC, and James Johnson for alleged Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Ohio law violations. He purported that the defendants failed to pay the plaintiff, collective, and class “all earned minimum and overtime wages.”
According to the complaint, the FLSA “was enacted ‘to protect all covered workers from substandard wages and oppressive working hours’” and Ohio ORC § 4111 “establishes the law regarding minimum wage and overtime within the State of Ohio.” The complaint stated that under the FLSA “employers must pay all non-exempt employees a minimum wage of pay for all time spent working during their regular 40-hour workweeks” and “employers must pay all non-exempt employees one and one-half their regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of 40 hours in a workweek.” Accordingly, Coffman filed this lawsuit “on behalf of himself and all similarly-situated current and former employees of Defendants who were Cable Installers classified by Defendants as independent contractors.”
The plaintiff alleged that the defendants, who “own and operate cable installation companies that contract with Spectrum Cable to provide cable installation and other related services,” violated the FLSA and Ohio law because of their failure to pay minimum wage and overtime. Coffman proffered that the defendants “have operated pursuant to a policy and practice of intentionally misclassifying Plaintiff and all other similarly-situated employees as independent contractors.” As a result of this purported misclassification, the defendants have “willfully refused to pay a minimum wage; willfully refuse(d) to pay overtime; and willfully reduced employee wages through unlawful deductions,” in violation of the FLSA and Ohio law, according to the plaintiff.
The plaintiff added that at all relevant times, the defendants retained and exercised control over the plaintiff and others regarding their work, including their “wages, hours, and working conditions.” Additionally, the plaintiff stated that he and other cable installers were not allowed to turn down assigned jobs. For example, Coffman reported that he “attempted to refuse jobs that were scheduled too late in the evening for him. When Plaintiff tried to refuse jobs, he was told that if he refused, he would no longer be permitted to work for the company.”
The plaintiff claimed that the defendants had the sole discretion to compensate the plaintiff “at a flat rate per service job he() performed. Plaintiff was compensated by Defendants in this manner, regardless of how many hours he worked in a given workweek.” Plaintiff Coffman stated that he “typically worked between 60 and 70 hours per week.”
Coffman alleged that he and others similarly situated were misclassified as independent contractors “in an() effort by Defendants to minimize labor costs and maximize profits across their enterprise.” The plaintiff asserted that under the FLSA’s economic reality test, he and others in similar positions are employees. As a result, the plaintiff stated that the defendants failed to pay a minimum wage or overtime pay. Coffman also proffered that he and others similarly situated were required to sign “illegal ‘Independent Contractor Agreements’ pursuant to which Plaintiff and others similarly situated were not paid an hourly wage equal to the applicable minimum wage and were not paid overtime compensation at a rate of one and one-half time their regular rates.”
The plaintiff seeks relief in his favor to compensate for unpaid overtime wages, an award for damages, pre- and post-judgment interest, an award for costs and fees, and other relief. The plaintiff is represented by Bendau & Bendau PLLC and The Law Offices of Simon & Simon.
