Update: Conditional certification granted to minor league baseball players

A California federal magistrate judge ruled that a group of minor league baseball players proved enough common issues to grant conditional certification of a collective action. The minor league players allege that Major League Baseball compensated them beneath the minimum wage and failed to provide them with overtime wages.

Judge Joseph Spero said the players met the burden of proof under the more lenient standard required for conditional certification. Forty players provided declarations stating they worked more than 40 hour weeks without receiving overtime wage. They specifically cite that they were paid as little as $1,100 per month for 50 hours of work per week. The class action represents an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 present and former players since 2011.

This FLSA suit was originally filed by Aaron Senne in February 2014 in California federal court. So far, eight of the 30 major league franchises have been dismissed from the suit.

Judge Spero ordered the Cleveland Indians to provide payroll data for a random sample of 35 players for every year beginning in 2008. This data will likely be one of the core pieces analyzed by statistical and economic experts providing testimony on the allegations of wage and hour violations. (You can learn more about how experts work with data in FLSA violation cases here.)

Bruce Simon of Pearson Simon & Warshaw said in a statement that “most of these players, many of whom sign right out of high school, are paid below minimum wage, or not paid at all for certain off season work.”

Aaron Senne et al. v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball et al., case number 3:14-cv-00608, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. You can view the case documents here and our original post about this case here.