UnitedHealth Group subsidiaries Optum and Advisory Board on Monday prevailed over a class action lawsuit where workers claimed the company misclassified them as independent contractors and underpaid them.
A Minnesota federal judge decertified the class action, saying the Optum and Advisory Board consultants’ experiences across Maine, New York and Maryland are too different to be combined in litigation.
Plaintiff Oluro Olukayode first sued the UnitedHealth subsidiaries in April 2019, alleging overtime compensation violations under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the New York Minimum Wage Act and the Maryland Wage and Hour Law.
Olukayode worked as a consultant for Advisory Board and Optum until April 2017, training medical personnel to use electronic medical record software.
A federal judge in August 2019 granted Olukayode’s motion for conditional certification under the FLSA, limiting the conditional class to “individuals who, either, in their individual capacity or through their business entity, signed contracts to work as independent contractors providing ATE services for defendants prior to September 15, 2018.”
But on Monday, U.S. District Judge David Doty found that “significant and material disparities exist” between the 145 possible class plaintiffs, making it difficult to determine which would qualify for the suit as independent contractors.
In order to separate employees from independent contractors, the court would have to view unique evidence from each plaintiff regarding their training, supervision, project lengths, equipment and hourly pay as well as their ability to work for competitors and negotiate pay.
Doty deemed this process “cumbersome and unmanageable.”
Because the lawsuit did not meet the predominance requirement of a class action and the court could not find that Olukayode was an independent contractor under New York, Maine or Maryland law, the defendants’ motion to decertify the collective action was granted.
UnitedHealth Group and Optum declined to comment. The plaintiff’s counsel did not respond to requests for comment.
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