By: Amanda Mazin and David D. Kadue
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Ninth Circuit has held that a weekly per diem benefit paid by a healthcare staffing agency to its traveling clinicians is a wage that increases the employee’s regular rate used to calculate overtime pay. Clarke v. AMN Services, LLC.
Facts
Plaintiffs worked as traveling clinicians
By: Tim Watson, Brian Wadsworth, and John Phillips
Seyfarth Synopsis: In an important decision for employers, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the all-too lenient but commonly accepted Lusardi standard for conditional certification under the FLSA. In its place, the court adopted a more practical, common sense approach in deciding whether trial
By Ariel Fenster and Kevin Young
Seyfarth Synopsis. In the final hours of 2020, the U.S. DOL’s Wage & Hour Division issued an opinion letter containing guidance on the compensability of time commuting to the office, or tending to personal matters, for employees primarily working from home. While fact-specific, the letter offers a glimpse into
By: Brian A. Wadsworth and Andrew L. Scroggins
As COVID-19 cases surge again in the United States, state and local governments continue to recommend or require remote work arrangements, and some employers have already announced plans to permit remote work to continue well into 2021 and even beyond.
Remote work is not new, and many
By: Andrew McKinley and Louisa Johnson
Seyfarth Synopsis: The U.S. DOL has confirmed that there is no per se violation of the FLSA’s minimum wage requirement when low-wage employees are reimbursed for their use of a personal vehicle at a reasonable rate that is less than the IRS standard mileage rate and clarified that, in
By: Catherine M. Dacre and Christina Jaremus
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division earlier this week published additional employer guidance regarding compliance with the FLSA during the COVID-19 pandemic (“Guidance”). The Guidance is a helpful aide in understanding general wage and hour principles during the crisis. But it leaves some
By: Michael Steinberg, Hillary Massey, and Barry Miller
Seyfarth Synopsis: Two recent Department of Labor Opinion Letters addressing the FLSA’s outside sales exemption provide helpful guidance and flexibility to employers with unique business models.
In contrast to some of the FLSA’s more byzantine exemptions, the outside sales exemption (“OSE”) is a surprisingly simple
By: Ala Salameh
Employees under heightened demands to care for their health and families are using time off and sick leave in record numbers. This has left many employers, particularly those qualified as “essential businesses,” short-staffed in a phase of critical need. To fill the void, employers are contemplating a temporary reshuffle of work assignments
By: Nolan R. Theurer, Ryan McCoy, and Kyle Petersen
Seyfarth Synopsis: Effective April 8, 2020, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (“FMCSA”) extended an emergency rule suspending “Hours of Service” rules that generally limit the number of hours certain truck drivers can stay on the road. This marks the first time that the
By: Yao Li and Kevin M. Young
Seyfarth Synopsis: The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage & Hour Division has entered the final phase of issuing a new rule concerning the fluctuating workweek (FWW) method of compensation under the FLSA. The new rule represents the culmination of a regulatory seesaw that began with a Bush