Requested Extension is Latest Point of Contention in Suit Against Safelite Solutions
October 4, 2011

The plaintiffs who filed a class action suit last year against Safelite Solutions have requested an extension of 120 additional days for discovery in the case. The class action suit was filed by a group of customer service representatives (CSRs) last August and is related to allegations about overtime pay.

The plaintiffs allege that they need an expert related to Safelite's computer systems for the case, along with "a statistical expert who can conduct statistically sound sampling of what are anticipated to be over 400,000 pages of employee records, in order to calculate damages."

The request for an extension was filed on September 26-just four days before the September 30 deadline. Plaintiffs have requested a new deadline of January 27.

Plaintiffs cite the way Safelite keeps its employment records as one reason for the extension.

"Plaintiffs have been informed that the work records showing the number of hours worked and whether the employee worked at least 40 hours per week are kept by date, not by employee, and consist of more than 400,000 pages of records," write the plaintiffs.

Safelite officials have called this "another late filing by the plaintiffs in the case."

"Plaintiffs filed their motion while both parties and their counsel were together in a conference room taking the deposition of plaintiff Joshua Pursley," writes the company. "At no time before or during this deposition did plaintiffs mention their desire to extend witness discovery or that they would be filing (or had filed) this motion … The extension the plaintiffs now seek would unduly prejudice [the] defendants' ability to respond to discovery and prepare its summary judgment motion … "

Safelite officials also claim plaintiffs learned of how the records are kept in late August, a month before the motion requesting an extension was filed.

In addition, the company argues in its memo opposing the motion that the discovery deadline already was extended once; the court originally set a discovery deadline of June 1, but extended to October 1 in April.

The class action suit currently contains more that 200 current and former Safelite Solutions CSRs who allege that the time CSRs spend booting up their computers each day is not calculated into their pay.

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