The Court hereby preliminarily approves the Settlement Agreement and the Settlement of the New Mexico Minimum Wage Act and Illinois Minimum Wage Law class action claims as fair, reasonable and adequate based on consideration of the criteria set forth in Fed. R. Civ.

The Settlement Agreement is the result of arm’s-length negotiations between experienced attorneys who are familiar with class action litigation in general and with the legal and factual issues of this case in particular.

The Court has considered the pleadings and arguments in support of the Motion and finds that the proposed Settlement Class is proper.

The Court also approves Nora Candelaria and Kimani Singleton as Settlement Class Representatives.

This Order is not a determination of liability and does not constitute any opinion of this Court as to the merits of the claims and defenses in this action.

The class action is not a lawsuit that involves a "report of any airbag or seatbelt malfunction reportedly occurring during a crash." None of the class representatives allege they were in a crash.

While those extensions were consented to by opposing counsel and approved by the Court, Defendants are nonetheless not in a strong position to cite the length of these proceedings as weighing against amendment, since at least some ...

Plaintiffs’ counsel has been working diligently to provide substantive responses to Defendants First Set of Interrogatories (“Roggs”) and First Request for Production of Documents (“RFP”) (collectively, “Discovery Requests”) for Discovery Plaintiffs Carolina Gutierrez, David Watts, Diana Meier, Katherine Potts, Lisa Messinger, Patrick Shanahan, Phyllis Padilla, Randall Berner, and Susan Luscomb (collectively, “MTC Plaintiffs”).

On October 25, 2021, Defendants sent Plaintiffs’ counsel a deficiency letter via email regarding, among other things, the substantive discovery responses for Carolina Gutierrez, David Watts, Diana Meier, Katherine Potts, Lisa Messinger, Patrick Shanahan, Phyllis Padilla, Randall Berner, and Susan Luscomb.

This was Defendants’ only attempt to meet and confer regarding the specific issues raised in its Motion, namely the substantive discovery responses of the MTC Plaintiffs.

Defendants have produced personnel documents responsive to items 2 and 4 above (Defendants’ “View Worker” profile, which serves as Magellan’s electronic personnel file and contains information on an employee’s employment history, educational background, licenses and certificates, and employment history at Magellan), resumes responsive to item 1 above, and background checks responsive to item 4 above (which contain employment history and educational background) for the MTC Plaintiffs as identified by the beginning Bates stamp numbers in the following chart4: Background Check View Worker Profile Resume MTC Plaintiff Carolina Gutierrez MAGELLAN_23689 MAGELLAN_23743 MAGELLAN_29720 David Watts

Additionally, Carolina Gutierrez, Phyllis Padilla, Patrick Shanahan, Katherine Potts, and Diana Meier have responded that they do not have LinkedIn accounts, responsive to item 3 above.

Defendant is aware of this letter because Dr. Lanzi discussed it in Plaintiff’s medical records and noted that Plaintiff wanted him “to attest that [Plaintiff’s] injuries are worse because his airbag did not deploy and his seatbelt did not work to restrain him.” Doc. 116-4 at 2.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(3)(A) protects documents and tangible things that “are prepared in anticipation of litigation or for trial by or for another party or its representative,” subject to a few exceptions.

This substantially incorporates the work-product doctrine, first recognized in Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495 (1947), which “shelters the mental processes of the attorney, providing a privileged area which he can analyze and prepare his client’s case.” In re Qwest Commc’n Int’l Inc., 450 F.3d 1179, 1186 (10th Cir. 2006) (citing United States v. Nobles, 422 U.S. 225, 238 (1975)).

The first line of the second paragraph essentially sets forth three assumptions: (1) the front airbag in Mr. Munoz’s vehicle did not deploy, (2) the seatbelt did not restrain him, and (3) he hit his face, head, shoulder, and knee on the steering wheel and dash.

For this same reason, the penultimate sentence of the letter also only restates what is already known from the complaint: Plaintiff’s theory that his injuries were the result of his face and body hitting the steering wheel and dashboard when his air bag did not deploy.