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Hillary Massey

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Hillary is a Senior Counsel in Seyfarth Shaw’s Wage & Hour Litigation Practice Group in Boston. Hillary specializes in advising clients on compliance, updating them on new laws, and defending against large class actions related to wage and hour claims. With extensive experience in misclassification issues and off-the-clock work, she combines her litigation and counseling skills to provide practical solutions for employers.

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Seyfarth Synopsis: Advancing the trend of courts unwilling to rubber stamp the conditional certification of FLSA collective actions, Publix developed an early record of evidence that—when properly scrutinized—warranted the denial of collective certification in a case brought by five alleged representative plaintiffs claiming that they and thousands of others worked off-the-clock in violation of policies expressly prohibiting it. This hallmark…

Continue Reading The Facts Matter: Publix Defeats Certification of Off-The-Clock Assistant Manager Claims

Seyfarth Synopsis:  Furthering a recent trend, a judge in the District of Massachusetts denied a motion for conditional certification because there was no personal jurisdiction over non-Massachusetts entities with respect to the claims of employees who worked outside the state.

As we have discussed previously, several courts have held that plaintiffs in nationwide FLSA collective actions must either sue…
Continue Reading Keeping it Local: Another Court Denies FLSA Conditional Certification Due to Lack of Personal Jurisdiction

Authored by Robert Whitman

Seyfarth Synopsis: The Second Circuit has upheld summary judgment against magazine interns seeking payment as “employees” under the FLSA.

In an end-of-semester decision that may represent the final grade for unpaid interns seeking minimum wage and overtime pay under the FLSA, the Second Circuit has firmly rejected claims by Hearst magazine interns challenging their unpaid status.
Continue Reading Interns Flunk the Class

Co-authored by Noah Finkel and Cheryl Luce

Seyfarth Synopsis: On Monday, the DOL issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking announcing rescission of a rule that regulates tip pooling by employers who do not take the tip credit.

The DOL has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding the tip pooling regulations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The FLSA…
Continue Reading Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division Proposes to Nix Unpopular Tip Pooling Rule

Co-authored by: Steve Shardonofsky and John P. Phillips

Seyfarth Synopsis: On November 7, 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Save Local Businesses Act. If passed by the Senate, the bill would overturn Obama-era decisions and agency guidance broadly defining and holding separate, unrelated companies liable as “joint employers” under federal wage & hour and labor law. Perhaps more …
Continue Reading Passage of the Save Local Businesses Act in the House May Signal a Broader Rejection of Obama-Era Rules On Joint Employment

Authored by Andrew L. Scroggins, Noah A. Finkel, and David S. Baffa

Seyfarth Synopsis:  The NLRB has withdrawn the significant concession it offered at oral argument on the nature of the NLRA rights it seeks to assert in the face of employers’ mandatory arbitration programs.

As noted in our earlier blog post, the Supreme Court heard oral…
Continue Reading NLRB About-Face Highlights Lack of Reasoning on the Class Action “Right” It Seeks to Assert

Co-Authored by Sheryl Skibbe, Jon Meer, and Michael Afar

Seyfarth Synopsis: A recent court decision credited Nike’s time and motion study showing employees spent mere seconds of time in off-the-clock bag checks, finding the checks to be too trivial and difficult to capture to require payment. In contrast, the class failed to present actual evidence showing any amount …
Continue Reading Nike Prevails On Bag Check Case

Co-authored by Steve Shardonofsky and Kevin A. Fritz

Seyfarth Synopsis: As employers begin to pick up the pieces following Hurricane Harvey, management will likely encounter questions about employee pay, benefits, and leaves of absence during and after this disaster, and may also have questions about how to help their workers get by during this difficult time. After making sure your …
Continue Reading Practical Advice for Weathering Pay and Leave Issues Following Hurricane Harvey

Co-authored by Noah Finkel, Colton Long, Kyle Petersen, and John Giovannone

Seyfarth Synopsis:  FLSA cases holding against employers typically invoke a canon of construction that the FLSA should be construed broadly, and any of its exemptions narrowly. But a study of the roots of this language shows that the canon has a dubious foundation and that it …
Continue Reading Can We Finally Retire the Notions of Construing The FLSA’s Overtime Provisions Broadly But Its Exemptions Narrowly?

Co-authored by John Giovannone, Kyle Petersen, and Noah Finkel

Seyfarth Synopsis: Earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit chose to side with the Second Circuit, and not the Sixth Circuit, to opine that mortgage underwriters fail to meet the FLSA’s administrative exemption from overtime test because underwriting duties “go to the heart of… marketplace offerings, not to the internal …
Continue Reading Making A Mountain Of The Administrative/Production Dichotomy Molehill