The U.S. Supreme Court gave employers a proverbial slap on the wrist when it issued its decision in Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez,2016 BL 14352 (2016), on Jan. 20. In its ruling, a 6-3 majority ruled that a defendant employer’s mere offer of a Rule 68 Offer of Judgment was not enough to moot the plaintiff’s individual or class action claims. This decision comes a mere three years after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the employer in a similar situation inGenesis HealthCare Corp. v. Symczyk, 133 S. Ct. 1523 (2013).
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“It is now clear,” according to James N. Boudreau, a shareholder with Greenberg Traurig, LLP in Philadelphia, Pa. that “with respect to FLSA actions and others, that merely serving an offer of judgment for the full amount of claimed relief will not moot the case in the event the plaintiff rejects the offer or it is withdrawn or otherwise expires.”
Boudreau, who is the chair of the Labor & Employment Practice’s Class and Collective Action Group, also added that “it is important to understand that Genesis HealthCare did not address the mootness question, having assumed that the named plaintiff’s claim in that case was in fact moot (and plaintiff in that case did not argue otherwise).”