BREAKING NEWS!!

Updated 5/25/05

We are proceeding with trial preparations on three broad fronts. First, we are in the process of reviewing and cataloging tens of thousands of manuals, policies, scheduling, and other documents produced by the defendants in the discovery process. Many of these documents will form the basis for identifying the policies and procedures the NYPD and City have adopted with respect to a number of the claims in the lawsuit.

Second, in addition to the paper documents, we have received literally millions of electronic payroll records from the defendants. The payroll records cover the majority of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, going back to 1999. Because of the resources necessary to review, process, and query the large volume of records, we are consulting with an expert on data analysis.

Third, because a number of the claims in the lawsuit are not particularly susceptible to proof by simply analyzing the payroll data (e.g., the denial of compensatory time claim), we are working in conjunction with the defendants to create and administer a survey to be directed towards a randomly sampled portion of the plaintiff class. If you are chosen to participate in the survey, you will hear more about the process from our firm in the future. We appreciate your participation in any interviews associated with the lawsuit.

All three discovery-related procedures will help us develop all of the relevant facts we need to move forward with motions before the court, possible settlement considerations, and, ultimately, trial. As always, please give us a call at 800-811-6530 if you have any questions or concerns.

12/17/04 Update

As of December 2004, the lawsuit continues to progress through the discovery phase of litigation. The City has produced the payroll records for most, if not all, of the plaintiffs. By analyzing the records on a pay period-by-pay period basis, Aitchison & Vick will be able to determine the actual damages attributable to each plaintiff as a result of the City's violations of the FLSA. In particular, we anticipate that the payroll data will reveal information relevant to Claim 1 (denial of compensatory time off); Claim 3 (uncompensated time); and Claim 4 (regular rate). Further, Aitchison & Vick, together with its expert, continues to work with the City towards devising a stastical modeling approach for the purposes of developing evidence related to Claim 2 (forced acceptance of compensatory time off) and Claim 5 (15-minute claim). We anticipate that the respective data analysis procedures will confirm the alleged FLSA violations and put both parties in a position to begin meaningful discussions of resolution of this case. The court has not yet set a deadline on discovery or scheduled a trial date.

History

The lawsuit was filed on 11/27/02.

On 2/24/03, plaintiffs filed an Amended Complaint. The defendants responded to the Amended Complaint by filing an Answer and Affirmative Defenses on 3/28/03.

The lawsuit is currently proceeding in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. In July 2003, the Court approved a notice to be sent to all potential plaintiffs advising them of their right to join the lawsuit. The notices were mailed out to all potential plaintiffs in August and September of 2003 and potential plaintiffs had until 1/15/04 to join the lawsuit. The plaintiffs are in the process of undertaking "discovery," such as requesting documents and taking depositions. The defendants have responded to the plaintiffs' first written discovery request by providing over 7,000 pages of documents.

The class closed on 1/15/04, with no additional plaintiffs now allowed to be added to the case. As of April 2004, 15,873 plaintiffs have opted in to the FLSA lawsuit, making this lawsuit one of the largest collective action of its kind in the country. The FLSA lawsuit is progressing through the "discovery" and pre-trial motion phases of the litigation. The attorneys have sought and received literally tens of thousands of pages of documents related to the City's pay practices. The attorneys are continuing to seek, receive and review time records, paystubs, and comp time reports, among other things, for all 15,873 plaintiffs in the case. The attorneys expect to be able to create a statistical representation of every individual plaintiff's claims. The statistical representation will be important in establishing damages across the board without the need to depose every single plaintiff in this lawsuit. In addition, the parties are preparing and presenting pre-trial motions to the court that will help define the parameters of the claims for trial.

As of August 2004, the lawsuit continues to progress through the discovery phase of litigation. We are continuing to receive information from the City that is relevant to the lawsuit. Among our recent requests to the City are all payroll records that the City maintained for each plaintff for the last few years. The number of plaintiffs obviously impacts the timeline and procedures employed in collecting this information. You may have been contacted recently by Aitchison & Vick for additional information relevant to the lawsuit. If you have not, please contact one of our attorneys so that we may update our records. Updating our records will help facilitate the anticipated transfer of information from the City to our firm.

Once we have received all the payroll records, we will proceed to analyze the individual records as they pertain to the claims in the lawsuit. We also have enlisted the help of an expert for purposes of establishing damages based on a representative sample of plaintiffs, rather than proceeding in the normal course, which would entail allowing the City to depose each and every plaintiff. We anticipate reaching an agreement with the City regarding the use of representative sampling in the near future. The information we gather through the payroll records and sampling reports will put us in a better position to evaluate the claims in the lawsuit and enter into meaningful settlement discussion.

We also continue to brief legal issues to the court, such as, for example, the validity of the plaintiffs' claim based on the City's unlawful denial of compensatory time off requests. We recently received a favorable ruling from the court on the comp time claim. To date, the court has not established a timeline for completing discovery or a trial date.