Co-authored by Robert Whitman and Adam Smiley
While most New Yorkers rode out last weekend’s blizzard by binge watching television or enjoying playoff football, three Second Circuit judges apparently spent their time more productively, as the court on Monday issued an amended decision in its landmark ruling from last summer on unpaid internships.
As we have previously reported, the
Continue Reading Second Circuit Leaves Interns in the Cold—Again
Co-authored by Abad Lopez and Noah Finkel
The two-step “send notice now/worry later” approach to FLSA collective actions — in which courts approve notice to potential collective action members under the lenient standard but comfort defendant-employers with the bromide of “don’t worry, we can revisit the issue at the decertification stage under a more rigorous standard” — continues to leave
Continue Reading Out of the Pizza Oven, Into the Fire: Any Way You Slice It, Lenient Standard at Conditional Certification Stage Doesn’t Cut It
Authored by Geoffrey Westbrook
After more than four years of litigation, Citibank hauled in a significant victory last week against putative class and collective actions in Ruiz v. Citibank. Personal bankers from California, New York, Washington D.C. and other states alleged that Citibank withheld overtime pay under a nationwide scheme encouraging off-the-clock work. Although finding “systematic violations at the
Continue Reading Citibank Cashes In With Big Win On Nationwide Overtime Class and Collective Actions
Authored by Alex Passantino
It’s the week before Christmas, and we’ve accepted our mission,
The annual wage hour “sum-up” composition.
And to start it all off, we’ve got something nice,
‘Cause the Supreme Court addressed wage and hour stuff twice.
The year started out with the first one of those;
As Justice Scalia answered “What counts as clothes?”
With
Continue Reading Integral Clothes and Mistletoes: 2014 Year in Review
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
Co-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
Co-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
Co-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?