In April 2020, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that paying an employee a set amount for each day that he works (i.e., on a “day rate” basis) does not satisfy the “salary basis” component required to qualify as overtime-exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA),
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Virginia employers are at increased risk of class action wage litigation following passage of the Virginia Overtime Wage Act.
“Previously, Virginia had been content to rely on the overtime pay requirements of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA),” note Kristina H. Vaquera and Shaun M. Bennett in a recent Jackson Lewis legal alert…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in a case of first impression, has developed a required framework for a district court to evaluate a plaintiff’s request that the court authorize notice to putative class members who have entered into arbitration agreements with their employer.
The Seventh Circuit held on January 24, 2020,…
The District Court for the Southern District of New York refused to conditionally certify a collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) acknowledging that although the bar for conditional certification of a FLSA collective action is low, “it is not this low.” Sanchez v. JMP Ventures, LLC, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14980…
Plaintiffs seeking to certify a California class of current and former assistant stores managers and other differently titled managers and associates were denied class certification of their state law claims under Rule 23. Saks, Inc., the operator of high-end retail department stores across the United States, also convinced the district court to grant its preemptive…
Given the lenient standard of proof required of plaintiffs, experienced wage and hour attorneys agree that employers, in most jurisdictions, fight an uphill battle when trying to defeat conditional certification of a collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). When an employer cannot completely defeat a motion for conditional certification, the next best …
Supermarket clerk asserting that she and others similarly situated had been denied overtime pay as a result of a time-shaving policy wherein her employer allegedly deducted one hour per day for lunch breaks while she and others were only provided 30 minutes for such breaks was denied conditional certification of her wage and hour claim…
Generally speaking, certifying an off-the-clock wage and hour class action is quite difficult as the following two consolidated cases in the District Court of the Southern District of New York illustrate. Personal bankers who sought to bring such an action against Wells Fargo and Wachovia Bank (acquired by Wells Fargo in 2008) were unable to…
Following the granting of conditional certification under FLSA 216(b) in July 2012, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr.) granted the plaintiffs’ motion to certify a class of umpires who alleged that the United States Tennis Association’s (USTA) improperly classified them as “independent contractors” …
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas (Judge Susan Webber Wright) denied a FLSA 216(b) motion for conditional certification by seven former employees of a strip club in Jacksonville, Arkansas who filed a putative class and collective action against the club’s owners and managers alleging that they had been improperly…
