State Laws/Claims

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N.D. CalAuthored by Eric Hill

Seyfarth Synopsis: Airline customer service representative denied pay for pre-employment 10-day classroom training program under the FLSA and California Labor Law.

The maxim “it is extremely difficult to find someone to pay you to learn” has been proven again! This must be why we, or at least most of us, eventually leave school to enter the…
Continue Reading Does It Feel Like School? Are You in a Classroom? If So, Soak in the Knowledge but Don’t Expect Pay for the Training Time!

Authored by Rachel M. Hoffer

It’s a common business model in the fast-food industry: a massive restaurant company provides the menu, the marketing—including catchy slogans and a universally recognized logo—and the basic operational standards for the restaurant,
and a franchisee provides the rest—including hiring, training, and firing restaurant employees. Unfortunately for the fast-food giants (the notorious FFGs, if you will)…

Continue Reading Ostensible Agency, Hold the Class Certification: Would You Like Franchise With That?

Co-authored by Gerald L. Maatman, Jr. and Jennifer A. Riley

Seyfarth Synopsis: In McCaster v. Darden Restaurants, the Seventh Circuit affirmed the District Court’s order denying class certification of claims for denial of earned vacation benefits at separation and granting summary judgment on part-time workers’ claims for accrual of benefits under policies that limited eligibility to full-time employees. The …
Continue Reading Vacation Policies Are Not All-Inclusive; Seventh Circuit Denies Bid to Certify Class And Affirms Summary Judgment on Part-Time Claims

Authored by Kerry McCoy Friedrichs

Seyfarth Synopsis: In what many employers will see as a “break” from workplace reality, the Supreme Court, in Augustus v. ABM Security Services, Inc., announced that certain “on call” rest periods do not comply with the California Labor Code and Wage Orders. As previously reported on our California Peculiarities Employment Law Blog,…
Continue Reading No Break for California Employers This Holiday Season

Authored by Robert S. Whitman and Howard M. Wexler

Amid the uncertainty concerning the DOL’s enjoined overtime exemption rules and similar state-led efforts to increase the salary threshold, such as in New York, the Second Circuit recently gave employers an early holiday present when it resolved a long-standing split among New York federal courts and held that “New York’s…
Continue Reading No “Double Dipping”! Second Circuit Rejects Combination of Liquidated Damages Under FLSA and NY Labor Law

NYDOLAuthored by Robert S. Whitman and Howard M. Wexler

As we all know, the revisions to the FLSA’s “white collar” exemptions will take effect December 1 and will increase the salary level required for the executive, administrative, and professional exemptions to $913 per week (or $47,476 per year).  Avid wage and hour practitioners in New York have been waiting to…
Continue Reading NY DOL To Increase Salary Threshold for Exempt Employees

Authored by Simon L. Yang

Seyfarth Synopsis: When the California Supreme Court said no to PAGA waivers in its 2014 Iskanian ruling, we asked whether employers would boldly go where few have gone before and implement arbitration agreements requiring arbitration of PAGA claims. A recent California Court of Appeal decision issued in Perez v. U-Haul Company of California warrants revisiting …
Continue Reading Agree to Arbitrate Representative Issues Much?

Authored by Christopher A. Crosman

We are excited to announce the 16th edition of Seyfarth Shaw’s publication Litigating California Wage & Hour and Labor Code Class Actions. As in previous editions, this publication reviews the most commonly filed wage and hour and Labor Code class and representative claims and the development of the law over the last several years,…
Continue Reading The 16th Edition of Litigating California Wage & Hour and Labor Code Class Actions Is Here!

Authored by Daniel C. Whang and Simon L. Yang

Seyfarth Synopsis: When an allegedly aggrieved employee attempts both to seek compensatory relief as an individual and to impose penalties as a proxy for the California Labor Commissioner under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (“PAGA”), the resulting comingling of the plaintiff’s interests as an individual and as a representative …
Continue Reading You Can’t Eat Your Cake And Have Your PAGA Too

Authored by Rob Whitman

Seyfarth Synopsis: Unpaid interns for Hearst magazines have been rebuffed again in their effort to be declared eligible to receive wages under the FLSA and the New York Labor Law.

In an August 24, 2016 ruling, Judge J. Paul Oetken of the Southern District of New York held that six interns, who worked for Marie …
Continue Reading In Final Exam, Court Rejects Hearst Interns’ Pay Claims