On November 21, 2016, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas conditionally certified, by stipulation, a collective of workers paid per foot or per job in Scheriger v. Gabe’s Casing & Laydown Service, Inc., No. MO:16-CV-00323-RAJ-DC. In this Gabe’s Casing oilfield overtime lawsuit, the parties had filed a joint stipulation, the pay at issue was per foot of pipe laid or per job, and the court also approved notice to those workers by both mail and email. The Siegel Law Group represented the workers.
The Order Granting Conditional Certification (Doc. 21) was signed in the Midland/Odessa Division by Senior United States District Judge Robert A. Junell. On November 18, 2016, the plaintiff and the defendants, Gabe’s Casing & Laydown Service, Inc. and two individual defendants, filed a joint stipulation agreeing that the case should be conditionally certified as a collective action. The court acted “pursuant to the agreement of the Parties,” approved the notice attached to the stipulation, and granted conditional certification.
The order described the group the plaintiff sought to certify as “all workers employed by Defendant Gabe’s Casing & Laydown Service, Inc. over the past three years from the date of this order who were paid on a Per-Foot of Pipe Laid or Per-Job Basis.” The order does not list any job titles for the workers in that group.
Notice terms. The order set out these rules for getting notice to workers:
The group was defined by how workers were paid rather than by job title, which put the pay method itself at the center of the notice. Pay by the foot or by the job can make it hard for a worker to see how overtime should be figured, or whether any was owed at all.
Because this was an agreed order, it is not a finding that Gabe’s Casing failed to pay overtime or broke the law; the defendants agreed that notice should go out, and the court entered an order allowing it.
As general information, piece-rate and job-rate pay do not remove a non-exempt worker’s right to overtime. Under the Department of Labor’s regulations, a worker paid by the piece is generally owed additional half-time pay for each hour worked beyond forty in a workweek. The regular rate is found by dividing the week’s total piece earnings by all hours worked (29 C.F.R. § 778.111), and a similar rule applies to day rates and job rates (29 C.F.R. § 778.112).
In 2016, most district courts within the Fifth Circuit followed the two-stage Lusardi approach, and this order applied it. At the first “notice stage,” a court asks whether workers’ claims are similar enough to send notice, using a lenient standard. After workers opt in and discovery ends, the employer may then move to decertify the group under a stricter, more detailed review.
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. Our guide explains conditional certification and how it has changed since this order was signed.
This page describes a 2016 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 by the foot of pipe laid, by the job, or by another piece rate, with long weeks and no time and a half? A lawyer can review how you were paid, even if your employer described your pay as a flat footage or job rate. Contact the Siegel Law Group for a free consultation.
Related rulings: McClure v. Rocky Mountain Casing, another overtime case involving piece-rate pay, Key v. Permian Power Tong, entered the same day for workers paid per foot of pipe laid or per job, and Gutierrez v. Butch’s Rat Hole, another Western District of Texas case for piece-rate casing workers.
The group the court certified in 2016 reached workers employed by Gabe’s Casing & Laydown Service over the three years before the order whose pay was set per foot of pipe laid or per job. The order listed no job titles. Under the order, workers had sixty days from when the company turned over the contact list to send in consent forms, a period the court fixed in that case.
Yes. The order let plaintiff’s counsel send the court-approved notice by both mail and email during the sixty-day notice period. Workers could likewise mail or email their consent forms back to plaintiff’s counsel before that period ended. As general information, each court decides which notice methods to allow.
In November 2016, after the parties filed a joint stipulation, Senior Judge Junell of the Midland/Odessa Division granted conditional certification. The group reached back three years and covered Gabe’s Casing workers paid for each foot of pipe they laid or for each job. The order approved mail and email notice, but it did not decide whether overtime was owed.
Courts set those rules case by case. Under the Gabe’s Casing order, phone numbers served one narrow purpose: confirming a street or email address after a mailed notice bounced back. Counsel could not use them to solicit workers. The approved notice itself went out by mail and email.
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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