Authored by Cheryl Luce
Employers often grapple with what to do when their policies prohibit off-duty work, like working on mobile devices after hours, that employees don’t follow. Even if it has a policy prohibiting off-duty work, if the employer knows (or should know) an employees is working, the employer must compensate the employee for the off-duty work. The same
Continue Reading Seventh Circuit Sends Police Officers’ Off-Duty BlackBerry Claims to Spam Folder
Authored by Alex Passantino
Seyfarth Synopsis: On July 26, 2017, the U.S. Department of Labor will publish its anticipated Request for Information on the White-Collar Overtime Exemption in the Federal Register. The RFI will give the regulated community 60 days to provide its comments in response.
The RFI seeks input on a wide variety of topics, many of which involve
Continue Reading DOL Seeks Comment on Overtime Rule
Authored by Holger G. Besch
Perhaps signaling the importance of the issue for American businesses and jurisprudence, the U.S. Supreme Court chose the first day of its term beginning in October as the date to set oral arguments in three petitions for certiorari asking whether employees can be required to waive their rights via arbitration agreements to file class and
Continue Reading SCOTUS Puts the Class Action Waiver Issue at the Top of Its Agenda
Authored by Alex Passantino
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Wage & Hour Division announced its regulatory plan for the next year and it is less ambitious than some may have anticipated. A request for information on the overtime rule and a proposal to rescind a limited tip credit regulation are all that is on the immediate horizon for employers.
Each spring and
Continue Reading What’s on the Agenda? Tips and OT
Co-authored by Kristin McGurn and Kevin Young
Seyfarth Synopsis: At a time when the Massachusetts meal break landscape is increasingly friendly to employees, a federal judge in the state recently denied class certification in a meal break case, Romulus, et al. v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc. At issue were store policies, common in retail, that called for in-store key-holder coverage whenever
Continue Reading Should I Stay or Should I Go Now: Federal Court Denies Class Certification to Supervisors Claiming In-Store Meal Breaks Violate Massachusetts Law
Co-authored by Robert J. Carty, Jr., John Phillips, and Alex Passantino
Seyfarth Synopsis: On June 30, the Department of Labor filed its reply brief to support its appeal from a preliminary injunction that enjoined the DOL from implementing its 2016 revisions to the salary-level tests for determining applicability of the FLSA’s executive, administrative, and professional exemptions.
Continue Reading Finally Briefed: Appellate Experts’ Perspective on the Fully Briefed 5th Circuit EAP Exemption Appeal
Co-authored by Brett Bartlett, Alex Passantino, and Kevin Young
At last, the federal government has filed its reply brief in the Fifth Circuit concerning its appeal from a Texas district court’s order preliminarily enjoining the 2016 revisions to the FLSA’s executive, administrative, and professional exemptions. Because of the substantive and procedural complexities facing the Department of Labor
Continue Reading Finally Briefed: DOL Files 5th Circuit Reply Defending its Authority to Set Salary Level for EAP Exemptions
Authored by Alex Passantino
Today, the DOL’s Wage & Hour Division (WHD) sent its anticipated Request for Information (RFI) on the overtime rule to the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). Review of the RFI by OIRA is one of the final steps before publication in the Federal Register.
The RFI is expected to
Continue Reading DOL Sends OT Request for Information to White House for Review
Co-authored by Noah Finkel and Andrew Scroggins
Employers have faced questions about the enforceability of arbitration agreements with class and collective action waivers since the NLRB’s highly controversial D.R. Horton decision in 2012, which held that the waivers violate employees’ right to engage in protected concerted activity. The Fifth Circuit refused to enforce the decision, and other courts followed
Continue Reading Mandatory Arbitration, Class Waivers, and the Future of Wage-Hour Litigation: 6th Circuit Shows One Reason Why High Court Rejection of D.R. Horton Theory Would Not Kill Collective Actions
Authored by Alex Passantino
On June 7, Department of Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta announced the withdrawal of the DOL’s 2015 and 2016 Administrator Interpretations (“AIs”) on joint employment and independent contractors. These documents were statements of the Wage & Hour Division’s interpretations of the FLSA’s (and Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection
Continue Reading DOL Withdraws Guidance on Joint Employment, Independent Contractors