Part of our managed care overtime cases →
On April 30, 2020, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri conditionally certified a seven-state collective of salaried, exempt-classified care management workers in Del Toro v. Centene Management Company, LLC, Case No. 4:19-cv-02635-JAR. In this Centene case manager overtime lawsuit, the workers were case managers, care coordinators, and program specialists. They had asked for a nationwide collective, so the court granted their motion only in part. The Siegel Law Group represented the workers.
Judge John A. Ross signed the Memorandum and Order on April 30, 2020, over Centene’s opposition. The plaintiffs, called Care Management Employees (“CMEs”), had asked for a nationwide collective of all salaried, exempt-classified CMEs from the last three years. They filed seventeen sworn declarations from CMEs working in seven different states.
The court concluded that the plaintiffs had provided modest factual support
for their allegations that a class of similarly situated employees likely exists based on a single, potentially FLSA-violating policy. But it held that they had not offered enough support for a nationwide collective.
The “in part” limitation was geographic. The declarations came from only seven states and six job titles. The plaintiffs also had experience with only about one fifth of the Centene subsidiaries that employed would-be members. And some declarants were not classified as exempt, which made the court more hesitant about a nationwide collective.
So the court limited the collective to the seven states where the declarants had direct experience. It did not limit the collective by job title. It wrote: The Court will not limit the class to the job titles represented by declarants at this early stage of the proceeding.
It noted that the claims rested in large part on Centene’s alleged use of arbitrary job titles to skirt overtime rules.
In close paraphrase, the collective the court conditionally certified in 2020 had three requirements:
The collective excluded anyone who had filed a consent to join three other cases: Rotthoff (E.D.N.Y.), Gudger (S.D. Fla.), and Linnear (N.D. Ill.).
The order did not set notice terms. It told the parties to meet and confer about any objections to the plaintiffs’ proposed timing and method of notice. Centene had fifteen days to file any unresolved objections in writing.
The plaintiffs said their managed care work included collecting and entering data and applying set criteria (utilization management). It also included arranging appointments and referrals, getting authorizations, and educating members. Their sworn declarations said CMEs in every location and division did this work under Centene’s policies, procedures, and software guidelines. They also said CMEs could not significantly deviate from those guidelines.
The job-title ruling matters. The plaintiffs alleged there were no significant differences in daily duties between CMEs with different titles. Because the court did not narrow the collective to the declarants’ six titles, a CME in one of the seven states was not left out just because no declarant shared that title.
The order was a preliminary step toward notice. It did not find that Centene misclassified anyone or broke the law.
The plaintiffs alleged that Centene misclassified CMEs as exempt from overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act and under New York and Ohio labor law. They argued that Centene wrongly classified them under the Learned Professional and Administrative exemptions. They also argued that their duties did not meet the statutory definition of nursing work, which includes providing care in a clinical setting and using clinical judgment.
As general information, an employer that claims an FLSA exemption has to prove it. The learned professional exemption generally covers salaried jobs whose main duty requires advanced knowledge in a field of science or learning. The administrative exemption requires pay on a salary basis at or above a set minimum, plus a main duty of office or non-manual work directly related to the management or general business operations of the employer or its customers. That duty must also include the exercise of discretion and independent judgment on matters of significance.
The court applied, at the time of this 2020 order, the two-step process that courts in its circuit typically used. At step one, conditional certification, the court used a lenient standard. That standard required only substantial allegations that the workers were victims of a single decision, policy, or plan. Some federal appeals courts have since changed this approach — the Fifth Circuit in Swales v. KLLM Transport Services (2021) and the Sixth Circuit in Clark v. A&L Homecare & Training Center (2023).
This page describes a 2020 court order. The time to join that collective was set by the court in that case. The case later settled, and the court approved the settlement on May 5, 2021.
Related rulings: Kelly v. Evolent Health, another multi-state collective of salaried care management workers.
It depends on the job’s actual duties. Being paid a salary and labeled exempt does not, on its own, make a case manager exempt under the FLSA. The employer must prove the worker’s actual duties fit an exemption, such as the learned professional or administrative exemption. Case managers who follow company guidelines and set criteria may be owed overtime.
The workers asked for a nationwide collective, but their seventeen declarations came only from Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, New York, and Washington. The declarants also had experience with only about one fifth of Centene’s subsidiaries, and some were not classified as exempt. So the court limited the collective to those seven states.
Not for the collective in this case. The court declined to limit it to the declarants’ six job titles. The 2020 collective took in salaried, exempt-classified Care Management Employees employed by Centene Management Company, LLC in the seven states within the order’s three-year window. People who had joined the three other named cases were excluded.
Not automatically. For RNs, the duties side of the learned professional exemption is generally met, according to 29 C.F.R. § 541.301(e)(2). The employer must also show the nurse was paid on a salary basis and that the main duty truly called for advanced knowledge. Whether a particular RN case manager job qualifies turns on the work the nurse actually did.
Under 29 U.S.C. § 255(a), a case manager generally has two years after each short paycheck, or three for a willful violation, to bring an FLSA claim. A case manager who opts in generally stops that clock only on the date the case manager’s signed written consent is filed in court, under section 256(b) of the Act. State laws, such as the New York and Ohio laws named in this case, may set different deadlines.
Siegel Law Group PLLC concentrates in unpaid overtime cases under the FLSA and state wage laws. The firm has filed more than 100 federal overtime cases, obtained 50+ class and collective certifications in 20 federal judicial districts across 15 states, and recovered more than $100 million for workers. It has never represented an employer in a wage case. Free consultation. Contingency fee: we advance case costs, and they are repaid from any recovery. No recovery, no fee and no costs. Phone: (214) 790-4454 | Email: [email protected]
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