In an
unpublished opinion, the Second Circuit vacated the Southern
District of New York's order in Cuevas v. Citizen's
Financial Group certifying a Rule 23 class of assistant branch
managers (ABMs) who claimed they were misclassified as exempt.
The Second Circuit agreed with the company that in deciding the
plaintiff satisfied the commonality requirement under Rule 23(a),
the district court failed to resolve factual disputes regarding the
ABMs' duties. Although the plaintiff had submitted policy
documents and job descriptions that suggested the ABMs performed
primarily the same duties company-wide, many of the declarations
submitted to the district court from the ABMs, bank managers,
regional managers, and others suggested that the ABMs' primary
duties varied in material ways. The Second Circuit held that these
factual disputes must be resolved to determine whether the claims
in the case were capable of class-wide resolution, as required by
Dukes. The Second
