Decertification

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Co-authored by Gerald L. Maatman, Jr. and Matthew J. Gagnon

In a huge win for restaurant companies everywhere, Judge William Dimitrouleas of the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida recently decertified a nationwide collective action against Darden Restaurants, Inc. – the corporate home of such iconic brands as Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse – in Mathis …
Continue Reading A WRONG IS RIGHTED: DARDEN’S POLICIES VINDICATED IN DECERTIFICATION OF NATIONWIDE COLLECTIVE ACTION

Co-authored by Jacob Oslick and Timothy Rusche

California requires written waivers if an employee misses a second meal break, right? Not exactly, clarified the California Court of Appeal in Fayerweather v. Comcast Corp. Instead, a waiver only is needed if the employer makes an employee miss a second meal break and not if the break is voluntarily skipped. The court…

Continue Reading The New Comcast Decision: Not Hungry? No Meal Break Waiver Needed.

Authored by Kyle Petersen

What happens if plaintiffs break their promise to present evidence that their claims can be decided on a classwide basis at trial?  In Dilts v. Penske Logistics, LLC, the Plaintiffs found out this harsh lesson when the Court decertified the case mid-trial because Plaintiffs failed to present classwide proof of their claims.  This decision out…
Continue Reading Court Makes A U-Turn and Decertifies Class At Trial

Seventh Circuit.jpgCo-authored by Laura Reasons, Giselle Donado, and Noah Finkel

In an opinion likely to make it more difficult for wage-hour plaintiffs to certify a class action and maintain certification of a collective action, the Seventh Circuit affirmed the Western District of Wisconsin’s decertification decision in Espenscheid v. DirectSat USA, LLC on the grounds that trial was not manageable…

Continue Reading Seventh Circuit Raises The Bar On Collective And Class Certification of Wage-Hour Claims

N.D. Ohio.bmpAuthored by Kristin G. McGurn

A federal judge in the Northern District of Ohio continued a recent trend in automatic meal break deduction litigation by decertifying a conditionally-certified nationwide class of HCR Manorcare’s nursing home employees (click to link HERE). The potential class included 44,000 current and former HCR workers from 300 short- and long-term assisted living, skilled nursing…

Continue Reading Rehabilitating Long-Term Care Provider’s Auto-Deduct Defense: Decertification at Last

N.D. Ala.gifCo-authored by Brett Bartlett and Kevin Young

Last month, we reported on a ruling handed down by Judge Scott Coogler, a U.S. District Court Judge in Alabama, decertifying a nationwide FLSA collective action of store managers who claimed that they were misclassified as overtime-exempt.  As is common in store manager cases under the FLSA, the plaintiffs in that case, Knott…

Continue Reading More Than Morgan: Federal Court Decertifies Nationwide FLSA Collective Action Despite Arguments Likening it to Plaintiff-Friendly Result in Morgan v. Family Dollar

ND Ill Seal.bmpCo-authored by Noah Finkel, Kristin McGurn, and Laura Reasons

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois recently decertified an FLSA collective action and denied certification of a Rule 23 class in Camilotes v. Resurrection Health Care Corporation, No. 10-cv-366 (Oct. 4, 2012).  Camilotes is part of a rash of cases filed around the…

Continue Reading Are Hospital Automatic Meal Period Deduction Cases Now On Life Support?

N.D. Ala.gifCo-authored by Brett Bartlett and Kevin Young

Any employer that has faced a putative FLSA collective action in Florida, Georgia, or Alabama since 2008 should be aware of Morgan v. Family Dollar Stores, Inc., a case in which the Eleventh Circuit upheld a $35 million trial verdict against the Family Dollar chain and refused to reverse a pretrial decision…

Continue Reading A Dutiful Result: Finding Differences in Management Duties, Federal Court Decertifies Nationwide FLSA Collective Action Brought By Dollar Tree Store Managers

We write today to ask for your help. The American Bar Association is holding a competition for the 100 best legal blogs. Through this competition, the ABA is seeking to identify legal blogs that people in the legal profession should know about.

Seyfarth’s Wage & Hour Litigation Blog is a one-of-a-kind reference site that provides a one-stop resource for employers…

Continue Reading Calling All Readers Of The Wage & Hour Litigation Blog: We’re In The Running for The 100 Best Legal Blogs And We Need Your Vote!

tools.jpgAuthored by Alfred L. Sanderson, Jr.

Can a group of retail store managers who were uniformly classified as exempt under the executive exemption, who worked under the same job description, and who were all subject to the same company policies maintain a collective action for the nonpayment of overtime?  According to a District Court in Kansas, that evidence alone is…

Continue Reading Harbor Freight Store Managers Don’t Have The Tools To Maintain A Collective Action