{"id":1186,"date":"2019-09-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-19T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.johnsonfistel.com\/georgia-appellate-court-affirms-the-certification-of-a-class-of-firefighters-misclassified-as-part-time-employees\/"},"modified":"2019-09-19T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-19T00:00:00","slug":"georgia-appellate-court-affirms-the-certification-of-a-class-of-firefighters-misclassified-as-part-time-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnsonfistel.com\/georgia-appellate-court-affirms-the-certification-of-a-class-of-firefighters-misclassified-as-part-time-employees","title":{"rendered":"Georgia Appellate Court Affirms the Certification of a Class of Firefighters Misclassified as Part-Time Employees"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"col-md-5 col-xs-12\" style=\"float: left; margin: 0 .6em 0 .6em;\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Georgia Appellate Court Affirms the Certification of a Class of Firefighters Misclassified as Part-Time Employees <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/BwA7s6lRdM\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/t.co\/BwA7s6lRdM<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/News?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#News<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/FHfXqAhx3Q\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/FHfXqAhx3Q<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Johnson Fistel, LLP (@JF_LLP) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JF_LLP\/status\/1174823732516229120?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">September 19, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<p>In 2017, Johnson Fistel was retained to help several firefighters employed by the City of Roswell secure the employment benefits to which they were entitled. These firefighters were working full-time hours, but the City had been misclassifying them as \u201cpart-time\u201d so as to deprive them of \u201cfull-time\u201d benefits. After meeting with the firefighters, analyzing the City\u2019s \u201cPolicy Manual,\u201d and reviewing the basis for the City\u2019s treatment of its firefighters, Johnson Fistel agreed that the firefighters were wrongfully classified as \u201cpart-time\u201d and filed a class action on behalf of all similarly situated firefighters. Judge Tusan of the Superior Court of Fulton County agreed and certified the class, finding \u201c[t]he four requirements of O.C.G.A. \u00a7 9-11-23(a) have been satisfied: (1) sufficient numerosity \u2013 up to 149 potential plaintiffs; (2) commonality \u2013 all class members are employees or former employees, employed during a specified period of time, who were classified as part-time employees, while working 40 or more hours per standard week; (3) claims of member representatives are representative of the class as a whole \u2013 all class members allege they were denied full-time employee benefits they were entitled to; and (4) representative parties fairly and adequately protect the interests of [the] class as a whole.\u201d The City refused to accept Judge Tusan\u2019s ruling and appealed.<\/p>\n<p>On appeal, the City argued that Judge Tusan got it wrong by (1) relying on Plaintiffs\u2019 unsupported allegations; (2) finding that class issues predominate; (3) finding that Plaintiffs met their burden of proof as to numerosity; and (4) finding that Plaintiffs satisfied typicality. All three judges on the Court of Appeals panel disagreed with each of the City\u2019s arguments. Presiding Judge Carla W. McMillian wrote a 15-page opinion; Judge Christopher J. McFadden and Senior Appellate Judge Herbert E. Phipps concurred. The Court of Appeals reasoned that \u201cwhere each of the class members\u2019 claims arise out of identical terms in the [contract] and each of their claims are brought under the same causes of action,\u201d as was the case here, predominance is satisfied. In support of its finding that Plaintiffs met their burden to establish numerosity, the Court pointed to the City\u2019s own documents produced in discovery, which reflect \u201cthe names and work hours of potential class members during the relevant time period.\u201d And lastly, the Court determined that typicality was also satisfied because the class representatives\u2019 claims \u201care virtually identical to the claims of each proposed class member.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a great result for the firefighters of the City of Roswell,\u201d said Michael Fistel, partner at Johnson Fistel and lead attorney on the case. \u201cWe look forward to getting back in the trial court and fighting for the rights of these hard-working men and women who put their lives on the line day in and day out and deserve the benefits to which they are entitled under the law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Johnson Fistel team representing Plaintiffs and the Class are Michael I. Fistel, Jr., William Stone, Mary Ellen Conner, and Adam Sunstrom. <em>City of Roswell v. Bible et al.,<\/em> A19A1310 (Ga. Ct. App. Sept. 16, 2019).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2017, Johnson Fistel was retained to help several firefighters employed by the City of Roswell secure the employment benefits to which they were entitled. These firefighters were working full-time hours, but the City had been misclassifying them as \u201cpart-time\u201d so as to deprive them of \u201cfull-time\u201d benefits. After meeting with the firefighters, analyzing the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"post_statement":"","post_description":"","post_cta":"","post_button":"Read More","post_button_url":"","ub_ctt_via":"","compliance_id":"","post_disclaimer":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.johnsonfistel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/COR-Headline.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Matt Ostman","author_link":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnsonfistel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnsonfistel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnsonfistel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnsonfistel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnsonfistel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnsonfistel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnsonfistel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnsonfistel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnsonfistel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnsonfistel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}