Jasmine Brown, individually and on behalf of all others similar situated, Plaintiff, v. Select One, Inc. and Daniel Geogievski, Defendant. (2026)

Order

Plaintiff Jasmine Brown on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated brought this lawsuit against his former employer, Defendant Select One, and its President, Daniel Georgievski, alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act, and a claim for unjust enrichment. Before the court are cross-motions for summary judgment. The court grants Plaintiff's motion and grants in part and denies in part Defendants’ motion.

I. Background

Select One is an Illinois corporation that provides services in transportation and logistics. [Dkt. 96, ¶ 7.]¹ On its website, Select One describes itself as a “customer-focused trucking company.” [Id., ¶ 2.]

Select One hired drivers to complete deliveries for its clients. [Id., ¶ 9.] Daniel Georgievski, through conversations with an attorney, determined that Select One should classify its drivers as independent contractors, not employees. [Id., ¶ 8.] So each driver entered into an “Independent Contractor Agreement” with Select One. [Id., ¶ 33.] The Agreement permitted Select One to make several deductions from the driver's compensation, including for trailer maintenance, damage to cargo, fuel advances, cash advances, fuel and highway use tax, tolls, expenses related to licenses and permits, occupation accident insurance premiums, and escrow payments. [Dkt. 100, ¶ 54; Dkt. 96, ¶ 36.] In addition to listing specific items for which deductions could be made, the Agreement allowed for other “appropriate deductions and charges” actually incurred or that Select One “reasonably expects to incur.” [Dkt. 100, ¶ 60.]

As for the escrow payments, Select One required drivers to place $2,500 in an escrow fund, either by directly providing the amount or by having deductions taken out of their pay. [Id., ¶ 40.] Select One then made various deductions from the driver's escrow account, such as 10 to 15 cents per mile for maintenance. [Dkt. 96, ¶ 56.] Select One drivers also paid for several items out of pocket without reimbursement, such as hotel fees, cell phone payments, parking, cleaning supplies, scale payments, and mandatory delivery clothing like hard hats and steel-toed boots. [Dkt. 100, ¶ 55.]

Many Select One drivers leased the truck they used for deliveries. While Select One did not own the vehicles the drivers leased, the company assisted drivers in leasing the vehicles and entered into deduction agreements with the drivers. [Dkt. 96, ¶ 35.] The deduction agreements were between Select One, the driver, and the third-party lessor. [Id., ¶ 35.] Under the agreement, the driver directed Select One to deduct the truck's weekly lease payment from the driver's weekly compensation and then to use that deduction to pay the lessor for the truck's weekly lease payment. [Id., ¶ 35.] The trucks and trailers leased to Select One drivers featured the Select One logo and were registered using Select One's DOT number. [Dkt. 100, ¶ 48.]

Select One applied deductions automatically to the driver's paycheck. [Id., ¶ 61.] Drivers were paid either on a per-mile or per-load basis. [Id., ¶ 63.] The amount of deductions varied week-to-week and Select One did not inform the driver of specific deductions in advance of receiving their weekly summary statements. [Id., ¶ 62.]

Upon hire, Select One drivers underwent a background check and a DOT-regulated drug test. [Id., ¶ 34.] The drivers also had to attend mandatory training at Select One's headquarters in Channahon, Illinois. [Id., ¶ 15.]² Drivers returned to Channahon at least once per year for updated vehicle registration stickers. [Id., ¶ 20.] The drivers could also use the Channahon office to rest between deliveries, and the office employed an on-site mechanic available to service Select One drivers’ trucks. [Id., ¶¶ 22–23.]

In 2022, Select One began outsourcing its dispatching and logistic services to a company called Select Junior. [Id., ¶ 11.] Select Junior dispatchers booked loads from third-party brokers and determined a rate of pay. [Id., ¶ 27.] The dispatchers then offered those loads to Select One drivers, relaying the pickup and delivery addresses, dates, times, price, and other logistics. [Id., ¶¶ 27, 28.] Select One drivers were free to accept or reject the load but could not negotiate the price. [Id., ¶ 27.]

Select Junior dispatchers regularly checked in with drivers during the course of their delivery assignments and remotely monitored the drivers through GPS systems that Select One required the drivers to install on their trucks. [Id., ¶ 29.] Drivers usually worked with the same dispatcher on a daily basis and Select One required them to sign an agreement during onboarding promising to contact their dispatcher daily. [Id., ¶¶ 30–31.] Drivers also reached out to their dispatcher when they experienced a maintenance problem on route. [Id. ¶ 32.] But the parties disagree as to whether the drivers were allowed to choose their own repair shop versus going to a repair shop of Select One's choosing. [Id.] When a driver completed a delivery, they had to submit proof of delivery documentation to Select One. [Id., ¶ 43.] The parties also disagree as to whether Select One drivers could use their truck to deliver for other companies. [Id., ¶ 49.]

Plaintiff Jasmine Brown is a resident of North Carolina and worked as a driver for Select One from January 2021 to March 2022. [Dkt. 96, ¶¶ 1, 3.] Brown represents a class of drivers who drove for Select One between February 2014 and April 2023, signed Select One's independent contractor agreements, and completed deliveries for Select One in Illinois and other states. [Id., ¶¶ 45–47.] The class members worked for Select One full time, around 70–80 hours per week. [Id., ¶ 52.] Select One made several deductions from each class members’ weekly paycheck and each class member paid for several items related to their deliveries for Select One without reimbursement. [Id., ¶¶ 54–55.] Brown asserts that he had several phone calls with and sent one email to his dispatcher requesting reimbursements for items like fuel, tolls, and occupational accident insurance. [Dkt. 102, ¶ 16.] He also talked with Georgievski about the deductions. [Dkt. 96, ¶ 37.]

II. Standard of Review

Summary judgment is proper where “the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a); see Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986). A genuine issue of material fact exists if “the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986); see also Birch|Rea Partners, Inc. v. Regent Bank, 27 F.4th 1245, 1249 (7th Cir. 2022). When reviewing cross-motions for summary judgment, the court views the facts and “construe[s] all inferences in favor of the party against whom the motion under consideration is made.” Med. Protective Co. of Fort Wayne, Indiana v. Am. Int'l Specialty Lines Ins. Co., 911 F.3d 438, 445 (7th Cir. 2018). Defeating summary judgment requires evidence, not mere speculation. See Weaver v. Champion Petfoods USA Inc., 3 F.4th 927, 934 (7th Cir. 2021).

III. Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment

The Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act protects “all employers and employees in [Illinois].” 820 ILCS 115/1. Plaintiff seeks judgment as a matter of law on one discrete issue: whether he and his fellow class members qualify under the Act as “employees in Illinois.”

A. Extraterritoriality

Because the IWPCA does not have exterritorial reach, the court begins by determining whether the class members performed work in the state of Illinois sufficient to trigger the Act's protection.

The exact scope of the IWPCA is unclear. The Illinois Supreme court has yet to speak on the issue. And the Seventh Circuit has only examined two extremes: in Glass v. Kemper Corp., it held that an employee who worked exclusively in Spain for an Illinois company was not covered by the Act, 133 F.3d 999, 1000–1001 (7th Cir. 1998), and in Adams v. Catrambone, the court concluded that the Act applied to a Michigan resident who completed most of his work in Illinois for an Illinois company, 359 F.3d 858, 862–65 (7th Cir. 2004). “No court of binding authority,” however, “has set forth a minimum quantum of work in Illinois to qualify as an employee under the Wage Act.” Yata v. BDJ Trucking Co., 2018 WL 3303290, at *5 (N.D. Ill. July 5, 2018).

An Illinois appellate court took an expansive view of what it means to perform work in the state. In Watts v. ADDO Management, L.L.C., the court reviewed a trial court's dismissal of an IWPCA claim brought by Illinois residents who worked as truck drivers and performed three roundtrip hauls from Illinois to Oregon. 97 N.E.3d 75, 77–79 (Ill. App. Ct. 2018). After calculating the mileage between Illinois and Oregon, the trial court concluded that the Act did not apply because only about 8% of the roundtrip route took place in Illinois. Id. 78–79.

The appellate court reversed. It began by concluding that the Act was ambiguous about what qualified as work “in the State.” Id. at 81. Turning, then, to regulations promulgated by the Department of Labor, the court observed that in 2014 the agency regulations interpreting the IWPCA shifted from a focus on the amount of work conducted in Illinois—excluding, for example, “sporadic work performed in Illinois for an employer located outside of Illinois” and work for an Illinois employer that occurs substantially outside of the state—to silence on the requisite amount of work in Illinois and an express statement that it covers work performed outside of the state. Id. at 81–82. On that basis, the appellate court held that the Act's “application is not limited to any specific quantum of work performed in Illinois but, in fact, may apply in certain circumstances even where all of the work is performed outside of” Illinois. Id. at 82. “The amount of work the plaintiffs performed in Illinois,” the court explained, “is irrelevant.” Id. at 84, n.2.

While Glass warrants against applying the IWPCA as broadly as the court in Watts, many courts in this district have found Watts’s reasoning persuasive. That is, courts have applied the Act so long as some work was performed in Illinois. See Johnson v. Diakon Logistics, 2025 WL 964939, at *8 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 31, 2025) (“This Court is persuaded by Watts, Prokhorov [v. IIK Transp., Inc., 2024 WL 3694523, at *6 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 7, 2024)] and Niiranen [v. Carrier One, Inc., 2025 WL 885701, at *17 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 22, 2025)]—as well as the multiple other courts that have followed Watts—and finds that the IWPCA applies to all work performed by plaintiffs and the class members on behalf of Diakon, whether inside or outside of Illinois, given that plaintiffs have performed some work in Illinois.”). This court, too, finds Watts persuasive.

The court also sees the employer's industry as relevant to the analysis. Select One offers interstate logistics and transportation services. By its very nature, interstate delivery service is a transitory job that is ill-suited to an inquiry that simply logs the amount of time an employee spends in each state. Routes vary in length. Some may take a week to complete while others may take just a day. Some drivers might spend weeks on the road traveling from one delivery location to the next while others return home each night. An analysis that tallies up the number of loads that originate in Illinois or the amount of time spent in the state would yield odd results—some of a company's employees would be covered by the Act while others in the same position performing the same task would not.

These considerations lead the court to conclude that the IWPCA applies to the class members’ work with Select One. Select One is an Illinois company in the business of providing interstate delivery services. Its headquarters, which is available for drivers as a rest stop and offers an in-house mechanic, is located in Illinois. It requires each driver to register with its Illinois DOT number and bear its company logo. And it conducts its driver training in Illinois. Under these circumstances, rather than focusing on an employee-by-employee analysis of the number and length of contacts each driver had with Illinois, it is sufficient that each class member performed some work in Illinois such that they qualify under the Act as “employees in Illinois.”³

B. Employee or Independent Contractor

Select One contends that the IWPCA does not apply to the class members because the class members are independent contractors, not employees.

The IWPCA broadly defines an “employee” as “any individual permitted to work by an employer in an occupation,” subject to a three-part, conjunctive exception. 820 ILCS 115/2. Under what courts often refer to as the “ABC test,” an individual is not an employee if he is (1) “free from control and direction over the performance of his work, both under contract of service with his employer and in fact,” (2) “performs work which is either outside the usual course of business or is performed outside all of the places of business of the employer,” and (3) “in an independently established trade, occupation, profession, or business.” Id. The onus of demonstrating that an individual satisfies each prong of the ABC test is on the employer. See Griffitts Const. Co. v. Dep't of Lab., 390 N.E.2d 333, 335 (Ill. 1979) (“Because the Act was passed with the public welfare in mind, construction of its provisions should favor inclusion, and there is a strict burden of proof placed upon one claiming an exemption.”). The court doubts that Defendants have created a genuine dispute of material fact with regard to any of the three prongs but, without a doubt, they have not demonstrated any dispute regarding prong two.

Defendants first argue that the court should deny summary judgment on this issue because Plaintiffs “did not argue nor provide any evidence that the driver's work was ‘performed outside of all places of business of Select One.’ ” This argument confuses the parties’ burdens. Defendants, as the employer, have the burden of proving each prong of the ABC test. Griffitts Const. Co., 390 N.E.2d at 335.

Next, in a footnote, Select One says that its drivers performed work outside of its usual course of business because Select One is a “service provider” who handles “booking, paying drivers, and billing services.” Presumably, Select One means to imply that its delivery services are incidental to these other services, and so the Act does not apply. See Prokhorov, 2024 WL 3694523, at *8 (An employer's usual course of business does not extend to services that are merely incidental.”). Not so.

Select One's website describes itself as a “customer-focused trucking company,” and, by its own admission, Select One is in the business of providing transportation and logistics services. A trucking company that provides transportation services cannot exist without its delivery drivers. See Carpetland U.S.A., Inc. v. Illinois Dep't of Emp. Sec., 776 N.E.2d 166, 186 (Ill. 2002) (“When one is in the business of dispatching limousines, the services of chauffeurs are provided in the usual course of business because the act of driving is necessary to the business.”); Johnson, 2025 WL 964939, at *7 (finding that delivery driving fell within the usual course of business for a “logistic provider which helps its customers arrange retailers’ products and orders for delivery”). That Select One provides other services in addition to the actual delivery (mostly all services related to or in furtherance of the delivery) does not change the analysis. See Prokhorov, 2024 WL 3694523, at *8 (“There may be many different roles at a company that all contribute to its usual course of business.”). Select One's argument to the contrary is borderline frivolous.

Because Select One provides delivery services throughout the United States, moreover, its “places of business” include the delivery routes driven by the class members. See, e.g., Carpetland U.S.A., Inc., 776 N.E.2d at 188 (observing that, for a company providing delivery services, places of business include the delivery route); Niiranen, 2025 WL 885701, at *18 (“Similarly, given the nature of a freight transportation business, Carrier One's place of business encompasses the roadways on which its drivers travel.”); Prokhorov, 2024 WL 3694523, at *8 (“[The motor carrier's] place of business extended to the delivery routes that drivers took regardless of whether those routes crossed state lines.”).

Defendants cannot seriously dispute that the class members’ work was performed both in Select One's usual course of business and at its usual places of business. So the court grants Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, holding as a matter of law that the class members qualify as employees under the IWCPA.

IV. Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment

Defendants move for summary judgment on Plaintiff's IWPCA claims under 820 ILCS 115/9 (“Deductions from wages or final compensation”) and 820 ILCS 115/9.5 (“Reimbursement of employee expenses”).

A. Deductions

Relevant here, an employer is authorized to make deductions from an employee's wages if the deductions are (1) “made with the express consent of the employee, given freely at the time the deduction is made,” or (2) “to the benefit of the employee.” 820 ILCS 115/9.

Consent

In interpreting the IWPCA, courts rely on the Illinois Department of Labor's regulations. See Watts, 97 N.E.3d at 81. The regulations deem consent freely given at the time the deduction is made if the deduction is to continue over a period of time and a written agreement (1) “provides for that period of time,” (2) provides for the same amount of deduction each period,” and (3) “allows for voluntary withdrawal for the deduction.” Ill. Admin. Code tit. 56, § 300.720 (2014).

Defendants are quick to point out how certain aspects of the Independent Contractor Agreements and the vehicle lease deduction agreements satisfy the regulation requirements. They say, for example, that the lease deduction agreement specified the exact amount of the weekly deduction and the relevant time period.

Yet Defendants entirely ignore the voluntary withdrawal portion of the regulation. Indeed, their briefs don't mention voluntary withdrawal once.⁴ Because Defendants point to no provision in their written agreements with the Plaintiff allowing for voluntary withdrawal from deductions, they cannot demonstrate that written consent for the deductions was freely given.

To the Employee's Benefit

Defendants next argue that the deductions are proper because they are for the employee's benefit. “Whether a deduction is to the benefit of the employee turns on whether the deduction itself benefits the employee as opposed to the underlying expense.” Niiranen, 2025 WL 885701.⁵ Defendants arguments on this front are underdeveloped. They say, for instance, that courts have held that a deduction is for the employee's benefit if it results in a discounted rate or tax benefits. But they set forth no facts suggesting that the deductions in this case provided their employees with any of those benefits.

The court rejects Defendants’ argument that deductions are a benefit to the employee based on the mere fact that the deductions eliminate the need for the employee to pay a third-party themselves. See Torres v. Nation One Landscaping, Inc., 2016 WL 7049048, at *5 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 5, 2016) (rejecting convenience as a benefit under the IWPCA where employer had not “subsidized the cost of the [uniform] rentals or ․ received a discounted rate for the group, which it shared with the employees”). But see Bell v. Bimbo Foods Bakeries Distribution, Inc., 2013 WL 6253450, at *4 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 3, 2013) (concluding that challenged “deductions benefitted [plaintiff] because they were convenient”—a fact plaintiff acknowledged in a deposition).

B. Reimbursement

Under 820 ILCS 115/9.5, an “employer shall reimburse an employee for all necessary expenditures or losses incurred by the employee within the employee's scope of employment and directly related to services performed for the employer.” Relevant here, an “employee shall submit any necessary expenditure with appropriate supporting documentation within 30 calendar days after incurring the expense, except that an employer may provide additional time for submitting requests for reimbursement in a written expense reimbursement policy.” 820 ILCS 115/9.5(a). Defendants argue that they owe no reimbursements because Plaintiff never submitted supporting documentation or requested reimbursement within 30 days of incurring any expenses.

For deductions Select One took directly from the class members’ paychecks, the reimbursement statute is inapplicable. An employer cannot “reimburse” an employee for money the employee never had and, thus, never spent. If Select One made impermissible deductions from the class members’ paychecks, their avenue for relief is 820 ILCS 115/9 (Deductions from wages or final compensation), not 820 ILCS 115/9.5 (Reimbursement of employee expenses).

For expenses that the class members paid out-of-pocket without reimbursement, the court grants summary judgment in favor of Defendants. While Plaintiff makes a few vague assertions about reaching out to his dispatcher and Georgievski about reimbursements and deductions, he does not provide a basis for a jury to find that he made requests for reimbursements within 30 days of incurring an expense. See Prokhorov v. IIK Transp., Inc., 2024 WL 6870247, at *2 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 18, 2024) (“Without evidence in the record of submitted expenses with supporting documentation, class members do not have a claim for reimbursements as a matter of law.”).

V. Conclusion

For these reasons, the court grants Plaintiff's partial motion for summary judgment, finding as a matter of law that the class members qualify as employees under the IWPCA. The court denies Defendant's request for summary judgment on Plaintiff's deduction claim under 820 ILCS 115/9 and grants summary judgment for Defendants on Plaintiff's claim for reimbursement pursuant to 820 ILCS 115/9.5.

Enter: 24 C 903

FOOTNOTES

1.   Citations to docket filings generally refer to the electronic pagination provided by CM/ECF, which may not be consistent with page numbers in the underlying documents.

2.   Defendants attempt to dispute this fact by citing the relevant portion of Georgievski's deposition testimony:Q: And just to kind of go back to what you talked about, so how often do drivers come to Select One's office?A: Well, I mean, when we hire them, they come. And after that, to be honest, they have to come once a year because we have to give them (indiscernible) – stickers. We have to give them the – the new insurance stuff and everything. It can happen. Not a lot, to be honest.In the court's view, Georgievski's testimony can only be read to support a finding that Select One drivers must go to Select One's office upon hire and once a year thereafter. One or two required visits a year is consistent with his statement that the visits “can happen,” but “not a lot.”

3.   Plaintiff's argument that the IWPCA applies because the parties’ Independent Contractor Agreement has a choice-of-law provision specifying that Illinois law governs lacks merit. See Cromeens, Holloman, Sibert, Inc v. AB Volvo, 349 F.3d 376, 385 (7th Cir. 2003).

4.   The regulations were amended in March 2023 to omit the voluntary withdrawal requirement and add a requirement that no agreements for a defined duration last longer than 6 months. It's possible that Defendants were referencing the new version when drafting their arguments, but the old version applies to this case.

5.   Defendants make a perfunctory argument that the deductions were required by law. What they really argue, though, is that Select One made deductions to pay for items required by law, like truck insurance and registration. But the law did not require the deductions themselves. In other words, the drivers could have paid for these items out of their own pockets or Select One could have covered the expenses itself.

Judge Lindsay C. Jenkins