United States District Court, D. Colorado
SONDRA BEATTIE, individually and on behalf of all other similarly situated individuals, and FRANCIS HOUSTON, JR., individually and on behalf of all other similarly situated individuals, Plaintiffs,
v.
TTEC HEALTHCARE SOLUTIONS, INC., and TTEC HOLDINGS, INC., Defendants.
ORDER
RAYMOND P. MOORE UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.
This
matter is before the Court on Defendants' second and
third motions to compel arbitration (ECF Nos. 85, 96). For
the reasons below, the Court grants the second motion with
respect to the five Plaintiffs identified therein, partially
grants the third motion with respect to eight Plaintiffs
identified therein, and denies the third motion without
prejudice with respect to the remaining six Plaintiffs
identified therein.
I.
BACKGROUND
Former
Plaintiffs Beattie and Houston filed this lawsuit as a
collective and class action, alleging, among other things,
violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act
(“FLSA”). Numerous other Plaintiffs have opted in
to the lawsuit by filing consents to join (ECF Nos. 5, 25,
32-34, 38-50, 56, 58, 61-63, 65, 67, 69, 73-76, 78, 80, 81,
84, 87, 93, 94, 99, 100, 103, 107-180). On May 21, 2019, this
Court granted Defendants' motion to compel arbitration
with respect to Plaintiffs Beattie and Houston, while
allowing the case to proceed with respect to the other
Plaintiffs. (ECF No. 66.) On July 3, 2019, the Court granted
in part and denied in part without prejudice another motion
to compel, finding that fifty-five Plaintiffs who had
consented to join the case, having executed the same
agreement as the original Plaintiffs, were likewise compelled
to arbitrate their claims. (ECF No. 82.)
Defendants
filed the second and third motions to compel[1] after the Court
granted conditional certification, which Defendants
unsuccessfully appealed to the United States Court of Appeals
for the Tenth Circuit. Notice has now been sent to the
collective action class, and Plaintiffs have continued to
join the case while the motions were pending.
II.
ANALYSIS
A.
Second Motion to Compel
Defendants'
second motion to compel argues that five Plaintiffs who opted
in to the case electronically executed the same arbitration
agreement in the same manner as the fifty-seven Plaintiffs
who have thus far been compelled to arbitrate their claims.
Plaintiffs concede that the evidence with respect to these
five Plaintiffs is “substantially similar” to the
evidence relied upon to successfully compel those fifty-seven
Plaintiffs to arbitration. (ECF No. 90 at 2.) Therefore, the
Court grants the second motion to compel for the same reasons
provided in its previous orders. (See ECF Nos. 66,
82.)
B.
Third Motion to Compel
Defendants
seek to compel fourteen additional opt-in Plaintiffs to
arbitrate their claims. The Court finds that the evidence
with respect to eight of these Plaintiffs[2] is substantially
similar to the evidence relied on to compel other Plaintiffs
to arbitrate their claims, and therefore these Plaintiffs
must arbitrate their claims. However, six of these opt-in
Plaintiffs[3] have offered different evidence to support
their claims. In its previous orders, this Court concluded
that opt-in Plaintiffs statements that they could not recall
agreeing to arbitration were insufficient to create a genuine
issue of material fact in light of Defendants' business
records showing that they had electronically executed the
agreements. But these opt-in Plaintiffs have each filed sworn
declarations stating as follows: “I am certain that I
never physically or electronically signed or assented to an
arbitration agreement before or during my employment with
TTEC.” Additional statements in the declarations
directly refute Defendants' contention that these opt-in
Plaintiffs are bound by the arbitration agreement. For
present purposes, the Court finds that this testimony raises
a genuine dispute about the existence of arbitration
agreements that are binding on these six Plaintiffs.
Generally,
when there are genuine issues of material fact regarding the
making of agreement to arbitrate, a jury trial on the
existence of the agreement is warranted. See Avedon
Eng'g, Inc. v. Seatex, 126 F.3d 1279, 1283 (10th
Cir. 1997). However, this is a case where the total number of
Plaintiffs and the number of Plaintiffs subject to
arbitration agreements are moving targets. Accordingly, the
Court denies without prejudice the motion to compel these
Plaintiffs to arbitrate.
IV.
CONCLUSION
The
Court GRANTS Defendants' second motion to compel (ECF No.
85) and GRANTS IN PART and DENIES IN PART WITHOUT PREJUDICE
Defendants' third ...