The underlying dispute centers on Abbott's six Nutrition Division facilities, which manufacture products including Similac, Ensure, PediaSure, and Pedialyte. Workers at those facilities are required to wear designated shoes, shirts or shirt covers, pants or pants covers, hairnets, beard nets, hearing protection, and safety glasses. Named plaintiffs Myra Wheat, who worked at Abbott's Columbus, Ohio facility, and Lucas Walters, who worked at the Sturgis, Michigan facility, each sued under the Fair Labor Standards Act for unpaid overtime.
Wheat alleged that Abbott's time-rounding practice — which rounds a clock-in to the scheduled shift start if the employee clocks in within 17 minutes of that start time — left her uncompensated for pre-shift donning and sanitizing. Chief Judge Sarah D. Morrison held that Wheat demonstrated a strong likelihood that she is similarly situated to other 12-hour shift production and manufacturing employees at Abbott's Columbus and Tipp City, Ohio facilities, who faced the same rounding policy and the same donning requirements. Abbott acknowledged that all Ohio 12-hour shift employees were subject to the same rounding policies and were required to don and sanitize before attending their first scheduled meeting, which the court held undercut Abbott's argument that individualized defenses would overwhelm common questions. The court noted that any variation in how much time each plaintiff went uncompensated goes to damages, not liability.
The meal-break collectives fared differently. Both Wheat and Walters alleged that Abbott automatically deducted 30 minutes for meal breaks while requiring employees to don and doff PPE during that time, leaving them without a full uninterrupted break. Judge Morrison denied notice for both the proposed Ohio Lunch Break Plaintiffs and the proposed Out-of-State Lunch Break Plaintiffs. The court held that an automatic meal deduction is not unlawful per se under the FLSA, and that the declarations submitted — drawn from a potential collective of over 4,200 employees with 70 different job titles and more than 500 supervisors — were insufficient to show a company-wide unlawful application of the policy. No declarant explained how he or she had actual knowledge that other employees were not compensated for their break time, and none of the declarations pointed to a policy driving the alleged violation, meaning an individualized analysis of each employee's experience would be required.
On the notice itself, the court sustained in part Abbott's objection that the proposed form incorrectly described conditional opt-ins as having joined the case rather than merely sought to join. The court overruled Abbott's request to warn potential opt-ins of possible fee liability, citing its prior holding that such a warning may unfairly chill participation given the slight likelihood that opt-in plaintiffs would ultimately owe attorney's fees to a prevailing defendant. The court set the lookback period to June 18, 2022, measured from the date Wheat filed her motion for court-facilitated notice. The parties were ordered to meet and confer and file a joint proposed notice within 14 days.