By: Beth Pelliconi and Noah Finkel
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has provided a helpful guide to employers seeking to defeat class and collective certification of claims that employees worked off-the-clock and skipped meal and rest periods in order to meet productivity standards.
“We can’t get our work done in the time you’ve allotted” is a common
Continue Reading Tenth Circuit Shows How to Defeat Cert on Off-the-Clock ClaimsBy: Robert S. Whitman and Kyle D. Winnick
In Perry et al. v. City of New York, the Second Circuit upheld a large jury verdict in favor of a collective of workers regarding off-the-clock work. In doing so, the Court reaffirmed the principle that employers will ordinarily not be liable under the FLSA when employees fail to follow a reasonable
Continue Reading Second Circuit Addresses Off-The-Clock WorkBy Alison Silveira and Kerry Friedrichs
Seyfarth Synopsis: Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that employers can deduct from an employee’s PTO bank for failure to meet clearly defined productivity minimums without violating the salary basis test and jeopardizing the employee’s exempt status. Higgins v. Bayada Home Health Care Inc. provides
Continue Reading On the Heels of Helix: Third Circuit Confirms PTO Is Not Part of an Employee’s Salary for the Purpose of Evaluating the Salary Basis Test
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 WHD’s current thinking on increasingly
Continue Reading New Year’s Gift From WHD: Guidance on Continuous Workday Rule in the WFH Era
By Zheyao Li and Kevin Young
Seyfarth Synopsis: The U.S. DOL has suspended its “continuous workday” rule for employees working from home as a result of COVID-19. This development has important implications for how small businesses may schedule and compensate non-exempt employees working from home due to the pandemic.
The wave of new law, new guidance on that law, and
Continue Reading WFH is the New Black, Part 2: The DOL Presses Pause on the “Continuous Workday” Rule
By Kevin Young and Zheyao Li
Seyfarth Synopsis: What a difference a couple of weeks make. The COVID-19 outbreak has forced change upon all aspects of society, and the workplace is no exception. Many workers who escaped layoffs or furloughs are now adjusting to a new normal: working from home. In this post, we explore best practices for mitigating the
Continue Reading WFH is the New Black: Avoiding Wage and Hour Pitfalls as Work From Home Hits the COVID-19 Mainstream
Co-Authored by Sheryl Skibbe, Jon Meer, and Michael Afar
Seyfarth Synopsis: A recent court decision credited Nike’s time and motion study showing employees spent mere seconds of time in off-the-clock bag checks, finding the checks to be too trivial and difficult to capture to require payment. In contrast, the class failed to present actual evidence showing any amount
Continue Reading Nike Prevails On Bag Check Case
Co-authored by Steve Shardonofsky and Kevin A. Fritz
Seyfarth Synopsis: As employers begin to pick up the pieces following Hurricane Harvey, management will likely encounter questions about employee pay, benefits, and leaves of absence during and after this disaster, and may also have questions about how to help their workers get by during this difficult time. After making sure your
Continue Reading Practical Advice for Weathering Pay and Leave Issues Following Hurricane Harvey
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
Co-authored by Kara Goodwin and Noah Finkel
Pending before the United States Supreme Court is a petition for writ of certiorari asking the Court to determine whether an employer may use payments for bona fide meal periods as an offset/credit against compensable work time. If the Supreme Court accepts the case, it would also provide an excellent opportunity for the
Continue Reading No Good Deed Goes Unpunished – The Supreme Court May Decide Whether Payments for Meal Breaks Can Offset Alleged Off-The-Clock Work