On February 7, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico conditionally certified a collective action of salaried, non-supervisory field employees in Bell v. Madron Services, Inc., No. 17-CV-954 KG/CG, by granting the parties’ revised stipulation. In this Madron Services oilfield overtime lawsuit, the court also approved notice by mail, email, and text message. Jack Siegel, with co-counsel, represented the workers.
On August 23, 2018, the plaintiff filed a Revised Stipulation in which the parties asked the court to conditionally certify the case as a collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). U.S. District Judge Kenneth J. Gonzales found it “well taken” and granted it in an order filed February 7, 2019.
The collective the court conditionally certified included “All of Defendants’ current and former non-supervisory field employees paid on a salary basis employed over the past three years.” The order listed these job titles:
Notice terms. Under the order:
The court approved a short text message for that notice. It told recipients that Madron’s records showed they had been paid on a salary basis and might be eligible to join the case, with a link to more information.
The order also protected workers on timing: the date counsel received each consent counted as its filing date for statute of limitations purposes. This was an agreed order, and the defendants “continue to deny that they have violated the FLSA in any respect.” Conditional certification is an early step, not a finding that anyone broke the law.
The FLSA requires time-and-a-half overtime pay for hours over forty in a workweek unless an exemption applies. As general information, a salary alone does not make a roustabout or pumper exempt, because the white-collar exemptions also require specific duties. Federal rules state that those exemptions do not apply to manual laborers and other blue-collar workers; learn more about salaried vs. hourly pay and overtime.
Because the parties agreed, the order did not discuss a legal standard for certification. Some federal appeals courts have since changed the two-step approach many courts used — the Fifth Circuit in Swales v. KLLM Transport Services (2021) and the Sixth Circuit in Clark v. A&L Homecare & Training Center (2023). Read more about how collective actions are certified.
This page describes a 2019 court order. The time to join that collective was set by the court in that case. If you have worked in a similar role, the Siegel Law Group can evaluate your own claims.
Were you paid a salary with no overtime for long weeks in a field job like those above? Contact the Siegel Law Group for a free consultation.
Related rulings: Rodriguez v. Peak Pressure Control, another oilfield overtime case in the District of New Mexico, Olivas v. C & S Oilfield Services, another District of New Mexico case for salaried field personnel, and Weaks v. Nova Mud, another District of New Mexico case for salaried field personnel.
Often, yes. Getting a salary is not enough to take a roustabout outside the federal overtime law, because the main exemptions also call for office, managerial, or professional duties. Federal rules say they do not reach blue-collar workers who do manual work using physical skill and energy. A salaried field worker whose job is mostly physical labor generally falls outside the white-collar exemptions, so time and a half is typically owed for hours over forty unless another exemption applies.
They can, if they share the pay practice at issue. In Bell v. Madron Services, the collective was defined by pay and role rather than one job title. It reached non-supervisory field employees paid on a salary basis, naming titles from roustabout to laborer, plus other titles with similar duties.
The 2019 order reached the defendants’ current and former non-supervisory field employees who were paid on a salary basis and employed within the three-year period the definition covered. Notice went by mail, email, and text. Each worker had sixty days from the first notice to file a consent, a deadline the court set for that case.
Tolling pauses the deadline to file a claim. In this case, the defendants had fourteen days to turn over worker contact details. If they were late, the order provided that the statute of limitations would be tolled for each extra day, so workers would not lose time because of the delay. You can read more about time limits for wage claims.
The Siegel Law Group is a national overtime and wage law firm devoted entirely to representing workers denied overtime pay. Where many firms include wage cases as a small part of a broader employment practice, the Siegel Law Group has built its entire practice around overtime litigation — and the results reflect that commitment: $100M+ recovered for workers, 50+ class and collective action certifications, and 100+ federal lawsuits filed in 27+ federal courts nationwide. Founding attorney Jack Siegel is a Bloomberg BNA contributing author on wage and hour law.
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