On June 8, 2017, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico entered a signed stipulation in Weaks v. Nova Mud, Inc., No. CIV 17-121 JB/GBW, conditionally certifying an FLSA collective action of salaried field personnel. In this Nova Mud oilfield overtime lawsuit, the parties agreed to conditional certification and to the notice and consent forms, and the court approved them. Jack Siegel, with co-counsel, represented the workers.
The filing was a “Stipulation and Proposed Order Regarding Notice to Potential Plaintiffs” (Doc. 35). United States District Judge James O. Browning signed it, and it was filed on June 8, 2017. The defendants were Nova Mud, Inc. and two individual defendants.
The stipulation’s key paragraph begins, “To preserve resources and in the interest of judicial economy.” It then states the parties’ agreement that the case, once the court signed, was conditionally certified as a collective action under 29 U.S.C. § 216(b). The defendants continued to deny that they had violated the FLSA in any respect.
The order required the defendants to produce contact information for these class members: “All field personnel paid on a salary or salary plus bonus basis whose primary duties involved the performance of technical or manual labor to provide Defendants’ services at job sites employed by Defendants over the previous three years.” A footnote said this specifically included, but was not limited to, the defendants’:
Notice terms. Under the order:
The group was defined by pay and duties rather than one job title, and the footnote’s list ran from drill pipe hands to mud engineers and truck pushers.
Two terms protected workers’ time: tolling for any late production of contact information, and treating the date counsel received a consent as its filing date. That matters because, in an FLSA collective action, a worker’s older weeks can fall outside the limitations period until the consent is filed.
Conditional certification by agreement is not a finding that anyone was misclassified or underpaid.
As general information, a salary alone does not make a field hand exempt from overtime. The FLSA’s white-collar exemptions generally require both a salary basis and certain job duties. For example, the administrative exemption requires a primary duty of office or non-manual work directly related to the management or general business operations of the employer or its customers. That primary duty must also include the exercise of discretion and independent judgment on matters of significance.
Federal rules say these exemptions do not apply to manual laborers or other blue-collar workers who do repetitive work with their hands, physical skill, and energy (29 C.F.R. § 541.3(a)). The order did not decide whether any Nova Mud worker was exempt. Learn more about salaried pay and overtime and the administrative exemption.
At the time of this 2017 order, many federal courts used a two-step approach: a lenient notice stage, then a stricter review later. 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 2017 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.
Did you work as a drill pipe hand, inspector, hardbander, mud engineer, truck pusher, sand loader, casing operator, swamper, or in a similar field job? Were you paid a salary, or salary plus bonus, for hands-on work at job sites while working more than forty hours a week? A lawyer can review how you were paid. Contact the Siegel Law Group for a free consultation.
Related rulings: Rodriguez v. Peak Pressure Control, another New Mexico overtime case for salaried field workers, Deschamps v. Nova Hardbanding, another 2017 District of New Mexico stipulated order for salaried field personnel, and Bell v. Madron Services, another District of New Mexico case for salaried field employees.
It depends on the actual duties, not the title or the salary. A salary alone does not make anyone exempt. Some engineering jobs can meet the learned professional exemption if the work truly requires advanced, specialized education. In Weaks v. Nova Mud, mud engineers and drilling fluid engineers were among the titles listed in the collective definition, which centered on technical or manual labor at job sites.
They were grouped together in this case. The 2017 Nova Mud collective turned on pay and duties, reaching salaried field personnel whose main work was hands-on technical or manual work where the company provided its services. Its footnote listed drill pipe hands, hardbanders, inspectors, swampers, and other titles. Whether different titles can share one collective depends on the facts of each case.
Under the signed 2017 stipulation in Weaks v. Nova Mud, the class members were salaried or salary-plus-bonus field personnel employed by Nova Mud and the other defendants over the previous three years whose primary duties were technical or manual labor at job sites. The footnote listed titles such as mud engineers, truck pushers, sand loaders, and casing operators. That court also set the window for joining.
No, not by itself. Salary plus bonus describes how someone is paid; it is not an exemption. Overtime turns on a worker’s real duties and whether an exemption truly fits them. For non-exempt workers, a nondiscretionary bonus generally counts toward the regular rate, which pushes the hourly overtime premium up as well.
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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