Jose Flores, et al. v. FS Blinds, LLC

Houston, Texas employment law lawyer represented Plaintiffs who sued Defendant on Fair Labor Standards Act violation theory.



This is an overtime case. Three installers of window blinds sued FS Blinds, L.L.C., the company for which they worked. The district court granted summary judgment to FS Blinds, determining that Plaintiffs had not

met their prima facie burden to show they worked overtime.



FS Blinds, a seller and installer of window blinds in Texas, engaged

Plaintiffs Jose Flores, Jean Romero-Rodriguez, and Brandon Villarreal to

install blinds. Flores worked for FS Blinds from mid-April 2018 until early

October 2019. Romero-Rodriguez did so from early March until late October

2019, and Villareal worked from early August 2018 until early April 2020,

though he performed no work for FS Blinds for several weeks during that

period.

Plaintiffs measured windows for blinds, delivered and installed blinds,

and repaired damaged blinds, mostly in newly constructed homes. While the

company's office and warehouse are in Pearland, Plaintiffs traveled to job

sites across the greater Houston area. Because FS Blinds treated Plaintiffs as

independent contractors, it did not maintain records of the hours Plaintiffs

spent performing work for the company. Instead, Plaintiffs received flat fees

for each window measurement, blinds installation, or blinds repair completed

without regard to how long the job took or the travel time from one job site

to the next. FS Blinds owned the warehouse and maintained the inventory

of blinds, but Plaintiffs traveled to job sites in their own vehicles and used

their own tools to complete the jobs.

Plaintiffs did not have set work schedules. Instead, each afternoon,

FS Blinds sent them lists of jobs for the next day. The next morning,

Plaintiffs picked up the day's blinds from FS Blinds's warehouse. Flores and

Romero-Rodriguez had early pickup times, arriving at the warehouse

between 5:00 and 5:30 a.m. Villarreal had a later time, between 7:00 and 8:00

a.m. After pickup, Plaintiffs left the warehouse and traveled to job sites to

complete their assignments. Each Plaintiff was largely responsible for

managing his own schedule throughout the day. So long as the day's job list

did not specify otherwise, Plaintiffs could complete the jobs in any order they

chose. And if they failed to complete all the jobs on the day's list, they could

roll jobs over to the next day.

Plaintiffs' daily quitting times varied. Flores usually finished between

8:30 and 10:00 p.m. but sometimes worked as late as midnight. RomeroRodriguez usually finished between 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. Villarreal, between

7:00 and 10:00 p.m.

While their usual weekly work schedules were Monday through

Friday, Plaintiffs sometimes worked Saturdays. Other times, they worked

fewer than five full days, at times working as little as one day a week. And as

noted above, Villareal did no work at all for FS Blinds during several weeks

over the course of his year-and-a-half stint with the company. Despite the

variations in their schedules, Plaintiffs assert they each worked an average of

"around 70 hours per week.”

In October 2019, Plaintiffs sued FS Blinds for failing to pay overtime

compensation, as required under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). See

29 U.S.C. § 207. FS Blinds countered that "Plaintiffs were classified as

independent contractors” and therefore were ineligible for overtime

compensation. See id.

After discovery, both sides moved for summary judgment. The

district court denied Plaintiffs' motions, but it granted summary judgment to

FS Blinds. The court determined that Plaintiffs had failed to meet their

prima facie burden to show they worked overtime. Based on that conclusion,

the court dismissed Plaintiffs' claims. The court denied summary judgment

as to whether Plaintiffs were independent contractors, stating only that "a

genuine question of material fact exists regarding Plaintiffs' employee

status.” After the district court entered its final judgment, Plaintiffs timely

appealed

Reversed