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By Lennon Haas and Noah Finkel

Seyfarth Synopsis:  Employers frequently struggle with questions around the compensability of certain activities, classification of employees, and how to structure their policies to avoid Fair Labor Standards Act violations.  Getting the answers wrong can be costly.  But getting them wrong without making reasonable efforts to comply with the law doubles an employer’s exposure.  According…

Continue Reading Calling Your Wage and Hour Lawyer Might Save Your Company $22 Million

By: Kevin Young, Brett Bartlett, Scott Hecker, Noah Finkel, and Leon Rodriguez

Just days before Labor Day, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) unveiled its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”), aimed at revising the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime exemptions for executive, administrative, and professional employees. While the proposal—the cornerstone of which is a minimum salary…

Continue Reading DOL Delivers a Proposed Salary Bump to FLSA Overtime Thresholds for Labor Day

By: Andrew McKinley, Kyle Winnick & Alex Simon

On October 11, 2022, the Department of Labor (DOL) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (“NPRM”) defining employee versus independent contractor status under the Fair Labor Standards Act.  We previously discussed the way in which the NPRM proposes to shift the analysis of the control factor, particularly as related to legal, safety…

Continue Reading DOL’s Proposed FLSA Independent Contractor Rule: Control and Scheduling

By: Andrew McKinley

Seyfarth Synopsis: Businesses with arbitration programs often oppose the issuance of notice in FLSA collective actions on the ground that many potential recipients have binding arbitration agreements precluding them from participating in a case. The majority of federal appellate courts have not yet addressed whether arbitration must be addressed before or after notice issues. The Sixth…

Continue Reading Sixth Circuit Joins the Chorus of Appellate Decisions Requiring Arbitration to Be Assessed Before FLSA Notice Issues

By: Kevin Young and Noah Finkel

Seyfarth Synopsis. Businesses familiar with FLSA litigation are aware of the frustrating ease with which some courts have turned single-plaintiff cases into large-scale collective action proceedings. But the tides are shifting, as the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has joined the Fifth Circuit in rejecting the “lenient standard” for collective action certification and demanding…

Continue Reading A “Strong Likelihood” of Change: Sixth Circuit Joins the Fifth in Raising the FLSA Certification Bar

By: Christine M. Costantino

Seyfarth Synopsis: In what could become a trend, Judge T.S. Ellis, III recently broke with other courts in the Eastern District of Virginia when he rejected the two-step conditional certification process commonly used in FLSA collective actions and endorsed the one-step process and rationale outlined in 2021 by the Fifth Circuit in Swales v. KLLM…

Continue Reading Eastern District of Virginia Judge Rejects Two-Step Conditional Certification Process for FLSA Collective Actions

By Ryan McCoy, Alex Simon, and Cary Burke

Seyfarth Synopsis: Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that a crane mechanic who performed some work on a truck chassis came within the purview of the Motor Carrier Act exemption to the Fair Labor Standards Act, irrespective of the percentage of time he spent performing…

Continue Reading An Uplifting Motor Carrier Act Exemption Victory At The Fifth Circuit

By: Andrew McKinley, Kyle Winnick & Alex Simon

Seyfarth Synopsis: This first part of a multi-part series explores the implications of the Department of Labor’s proposed independent contractor rule under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Specifically, it focuses on proposed changes to the control factor concerning legal, safety, contractual, and other similar requirements.

As we detailed here, on…

Continue Reading DOL’s Proposed FLSA Independent Contractor Rule: Control—Part I

By: Annette Idalski, Kyle Winnick, A. Scott Hecker, and Ethan Goemann

Seyfarth Synopsis: The Supreme Court held that highly-compensated employees paid solely on a day rate must meet the so-called “reasonable relationship test” to satisfy the salary basis requirement.

In Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. v. Hewitt, the Supreme Court considered whether a day-rate employee earning…

Continue Reading Supreme Court Holds That Highly-Compensated Employees Solely Paid a Day Rate Must Meet Reasonable Relationship Test

By: Noah Finkel and Kyle Petersen

Seyfarth Synopsis:  The DOL has issued guidance to its staff – that might be relied upon by courts – that any break less than 20 minutes while working from home is compensable time, regardless of the reason for the break.

Especially because this post is being released on a Friday, chances are that you…

Continue Reading Not Remotely Helpful: DOL Issues Guidance on Compensability of Teleworking Breaks