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WILLIAMSPORT -- A federal judge has been asked to approve a $1.9 million settlement in a 15-year-old civil suit that affects more than 1,000 oil and natural gas rig workers then employed by a Texas company.
The issue in the case was whether rig workers were entitled to overtime pay for the time it took them to put on and take off their required protective gear.
The workers also complained they were not paid when post-shift safety meetings ran long.
The settlement involves 1,006 employees of Precision Drilling Corp. and Precision Drilling Oilfield Services of Houston at rigs across the country.
The payment is the equivalent of almost 13 minutes of unpaid overtime on approximately 215,000 shifts of those workers. The average straight time pay in 2011 when the suit was filed was $28.32 an hour.
Besides the settlement, U.S. Middle District Judge Matthew W. Brann was asked to approve 40 percent or $760,000 for attorney fees and $80,670 for out-of-pocket litigation costs for plaintiffs' counsel, the New Jersey-based law firm of Swartz Swidler.
That is in addition to the $55,256 reimbursed in 2019 in a $410,000 partial settlement of the case. The two settlements bring the total amount recovered for the workers to more than $2.3 million.
Rodney Tyger and Shawn Wadsworth, of Renovo, who filed the suit, each will receive service awards of $15,000. They accused Precision of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The case has seen both sides prevail at certain junctures with Brann. In 2018, he denied motions for partial summary judgment and the following year approved the $410,000 settlement on certain claims.
Later in 2019, he granted summary judgment to Precision on the remaining claims but the plaintiffs appealed.
The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in October 2020 approved and vacated parts of Brann's decision and remanded the case back to him.
The parties the following year renewed their summary judgment motions on the remaining issues and Brann again ruled in favor of Precision.
He found the workers failed to prove their basic personal protective equipment transcends ordinary on-the-job risks.
The plaintiffs appealed again and in 2023 a panel of the Third Circuit issued a precedential opinion vacating the judge's summary judgment and remanding the case for trial.
Precision's motion for re-argument before the full appeals court was denied and the U.S. Supreme Court in 2004 declined to accept an appeal.
Brann last December allowed Tyger and Wadsworth to file an amended complaint adding a count under the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act and the Pennsylvania Wage Payment and Collection Law.
Negotiations that began in March resulted in the settlement the judge was asked to approve, a court document states.
Tyger and Wadsworth were hourly employees in Precision's Appalachian division who typically worked 12-hour shifts on a schedule of 28 days on, 14 days off or 21-days on, one day off.
Each rig hand has a basic set of personal protective equipment consisting of steel-toed boots, fire retardant coveralls, a hard hat, safety glasses, ear plugs and gloves, which company rules and industry regulations require him to wear.
Precision argued during the course of the litigation that the 10 to 15 minutes needed to put on and take off the protective gear was minimal in a 12-hour shift and not compensable.
The plaintiffs contended the time needed was substantially greater, Precision never recorded it and the equipment was indispensable because of possible exposure to drilling fluids and hazardous materials risks.
The appeals court held those issues were for a jury to decide.