The plaintiffs, Luis Alberto Ocampo and Carlos Jiminez, sued Guaranteed Home Improvement LLC — a Plainview, New York chimney-service company — along with its three co-owners, Justin Romano, Abraham Finkler, and Ricardo Martinez, alleging willful violations of the FLSA and the New York Labor Law. The core claim is straightforward: workers were paid a flat weekly salary regardless of hours worked, received no overtime pay for the substantial hours they logged beyond 40 per week, and were never given accurate wage statements or wage notices.
The factual record before Magistrate Judge Anne Y. Shields was built almost entirely on plaintiff-side declarations. Ocampo, who worked for GHI from approximately June 2020 through March 12, 2024, described a routine schedule of 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday — roughly 78 hours per week — for a flat salary ranging from $975 to $1,200, plus a non-discretionary cash bonus averaging about $500 per week. Jiminez, employed from November 13, 2023 through February 13, 2024, worked 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on the same six-day schedule, totaling 84 hours per week, for a flat $975 weekly salary. Two opt-in plaintiffs submitted similar declarations: Alexis Javier Munoz Rivero described a 90-hour week at the same $975 flat rate, and Eduardo Vizcaino Perez described an 85-hour week at the same starting rate. Each declarant stated that he observed at least 18 to 25 other non-managerial employees working the same hours under the same pay structure.
Defendants opposed certification, arguing the declarations were too vague and that poor recordkeeping alone does not warrant collective certification. The court was unpersuaded, noting that defendants submitted only a letter brief from counsel — in direct violation of a September 18, 2025 court order requiring formal motion papers with memoranda of law and supporting affidavits. Defendants offered no declarations from the individual owners and no documents to counter the plaintiffs' submissions.
Applying the lenient first-step standard in the Second Circuit, the court held that plaintiffs made the required modest factual showing that GHI's non-managerial chimney technicians and helpers were subject to a common compensation and timekeeping practice that denied them overtime. The court also rejected defendants' attempt to frame the opposition as raising factual disputes, noting that the merits of plaintiffs' claims are not at issue at the conditional certification stage.
On the scope of notice, the court declined plaintiffs' request for a six-year lookback period tied to the NYLL's statute of limitations, instead limiting notice to the three years preceding the complaint's filing — from October 2, 2021 to the present — consistent with what the court described as the growing trend in the Second Circuit for FLSA-only collective actions. The court approved notice by first-class mail and text message, with reminder notices 30 days after initial distribution and a 60-day opt-in period. Defendants must also post the court-approved notice on the door to the office at GHI's warehouse at 500 Old Bethpage Road in Plainview, New York for the duration of the opt-in period. Defendants have 14 days to provide plaintiffs with names, mailing addresses, home and mobile telephone numbers, primary languages spoken, and dates of employment for all potential collective members.