Leading employment law firm Seyfarth Shaw has updated its definitive guide to the litigation of wage and hour lawsuits. Co-authored by three Seyfarth partners and edited by the chair of the firm’s national wage-hour practice, Wage & Hour Collective and Class Litigation is an essential resource for practitioners. The unique treatise provides insight into litigation strategy through all phases of wage & hour lawsuits, and is now updated with additional significant cases through 2014.

Among many other topics, the treatise’s authors examine how employers in multiple industries are targeted for wage-hour lawsuits and provides substantive procedural and practical considerations that determine the outcome of such actions in today’s courts. Principally designed to assist employment litigators and in-house counsel, the treatise also proves useful to senior management seeking to fend off wage-hour actions before they strike.

Authors Noah Finkel, Brett Bartlett and Andrew Paley, who practice in the firm’s Chicago, Atlanta and Los Angeles offices respectively, as well as Boston-based Richard Alfred, who is Chair of Seyfarth’s National Wage & Hour Litigation Practice Group, are each experienced wage and hour litigators who have handled numerous collective and class actions asserting violations under both state and federal law.

“The growth of wage and hour decisions at the appellate level has continued, and will have a significant impact on pending and future litigation,” said Alfred. “Our updated edition arrives at the perfect time for corporations looking for the most current insight and strategy on wage & hour litigation. New have touched on pleading requirements, the enforcement of class waivers in arbitration agreements, exemptions, and use of statistical evidence and sampling in class trials, among others. This handbook delves into these new developments and offers practical litigation advice to all employers navigating this complex space.”

Wage & Hour Collective and Class Litigation covers the complex rules surrounding all types of wage and hour lawsuits. These include claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act, claims under state wage and hour laws, or hybrid cases involving both, as well as special issues involving government contractors. It provides readers guidance around: how to respond to a wage and hour complaint; what to consider when deciding whether to remove a case to federal court; how to assess the particular merits of a claim; whether to settle; how to oppose plaintiffs’ motion to facilitate notice for conditional certification; what kinds of affirmative defenses are best; and how to tilt the odds in favor of the defense.

In its fourth update to the treatise, Wage & Hour Collective and Class Litigation features discussions of recent decisions from appellate and trial courts and their effect on wage and hour litigation, emphasizing the following developments:

  • Recent federal appellate court decisions, including the Third Circuit’s decision in Davis v. Abington Memorial Hospital, analyzing what is necessary to plead a plausible claim for relief to avoid a motion to dismiss in wage and hour cases.
  • The California Supreme Court’s recent decision in Duran v. U.S. Bank.  This case establishes important principles in the class action setting on the use of statistical evidence and sampling, on employers’ due process rights to present evidence on their affirmative defenses and the use of trial plans to determine if class actions are manageable.  Although controlling law only in California, Duran establishes principles that may be helpful to employers litigating class actions in any forum.
  • The Second Circuit decision in Pippins v. KPMG on the application of the professional exemption to entry-level accountants.
  • The California Supreme Court’s decision in Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, LLC, which overruled its prior decision in Gentry v. Superior Court.  The Iskanian ruling provides California employers with far more flexibility to utilize arbitration agreements in the employment setting and avoid class action litigation.
  • The Third Circuit’s decision in Thompson v. Real Estate Mortgage Network  applying a more lax federal common law standard to determine successor liability under the FLSA.

The 2015 update to Wage & Hour Collective and Class Litigation is published by American Lawyer Media’s Law Journal Press.  It is available online at www.lawcatalog.com.