On January 15, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas signed a stipulation and order in Pearson v. Colt Oilfield Services, LLC, No. 5:18-cv-1029-OLG, conditionally certifying an FLSA collective of salaried oilfield operators. In this Colt Oilfield overtime lawsuit, the parties agreed to conditional certification and to the notice, and the court signed their agreement as an order. The Siegel Law Group represented the workers.
The plaintiffs and two defendants, Colt Oilfield Services, LLC and an individual defendant, filed the stipulation. They said that, “[t]o preserve resources and in the interest of judicial economy,” they had agreed the case should be conditionally certified under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The court signed the order on January 15, 2019. The order also states: “Despite this stipulation, Defendants continue to deny that they have violated the FLSA in any respect.”
The group that was to receive notice was defined as “All current and former non-supervisory Operators, Field Operators, Hydrostatic Operators, and Completion Operators employed by Colt Oilfield Services, Inc., within the last three years, in Louisiana, New Mexico, or Texas paid on a salary basis that worked more than 40 hours during one workweek and who were not paid overtime.” The defendants did not have to provide contact information for anyone who had already sued them for alleged FLSA violations.
The order set these notice terms:
This was an agreed order, not a contested ruling: both sides chose to skip a fight over conditional certification so notice could go out to operators in three states, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Texas.
The order also protected workers from delay. If the contact list came late, the limitations clock would pause for each extra day. And a consent counted as filed on the day the workers’ lawyers received it, not on a later court filing date. Read our guide to FLSA filing deadlines.
Conditional certification does not decide whether Colt Oilfield owed anyone overtime.
The court-approved notice attached to the order says the case was filed on October 1, 2018. According to that notice, the named plaintiffs claimed Colt paid them a salary without paying overtime for hours over 40 a week, and Colt denied those claims. The notice also told workers that federal law bars retaliation for joining an overtime case.
As general information, a salary alone does not make a worker exempt from overtime. The FLSA’s white-collar exemptions also require specific job duties, and federal rules say they do not cover manual laborers (29 C.F.R. § 541.3(a)). Learn more about salaried pay and overtime.
The order itself does not describe a legal standard. At the time of this 2019 order, many Texas federal courts used a lenient two-stage approach to conditional certification. 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). Swales now governs federal courts in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
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.
Have you worked as an operator, field operator, hydrostatic operator, or completion operator in the oilfield? Were you paid a salary with no overtime when you worked more than 40 hours? A lawyer can review how you were paid. Contact the Siegel Law Group for a free consultation.
Related rulings: Snively v. Peak Pressure, another oilfield operator overtime case in the Western District of Texas, Rodriguez v. Peak Pressure Control, another oilfield operator overtime case, and Robinson v. RWLS, another Western District of Texas case for salaried field crews.
Being on salary does not decide the question, because overtime exemptions require both a qualifying salary and qualifying job duties. Hands-on equipment work in the field generally does not meet the white-collar duties tests. A non-supervisory operator who works over 40 hours a week may be owed overtime even when paid a salary.
No. Federal law forbids employers from firing, demoting, or otherwise retaliating against workers who take part in an overtime case or assert their wage rights. The court-approved notice in Pearson v. Colt Oilfield Services told workers exactly that. If you faced payback after raising pay concerns, you may have a separate retaliation claim.
The 2019 order defined the group as current and former non-supervisory Operators, Field Operators, Hydrostatic Operators, and Completion Operators employed by Colt Oilfield Services within the last three years in Louisiana, New Mexico, or Texas. They had to be paid a salary, have worked more than 40 hours in a workweek, and not have been paid overtime. Its opt-in deadline was fixed by the court in the Colt Oilfield case.
No. The stipulating defendants agreed to conditional certification and notice “[t]o preserve resources and in the interest of judicial economy.” The signed order also records that, despite the stipulation, they continued to deny any FLSA violation. Agreeing to send notice was not a ruling that any operator was owed overtime, and the order left that question open.
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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