Co-authored by Kyle A. Petersen and Molly C. Mooney
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Second Circuit recently upheld a district court order denying a bid for class certification by personal bankers claiming their managers refused to approve timesheets with overtime hours, shaved reported overtime hours, and pressured them to work off the clock. Because the company’s policy governing (and limiting) overtime work
Continue Reading Too Personal To Proceed: Personal Bankers’ Certification Bid Bounced Again
Authored by Ryan McCoy
Seyfarth Synopsis: On May 2, 2017, the House of Representatives passed a bill amending the Fair Labor Standards Act to permit private employees to choose to take paid time off instead of monetary overtime compensation when working more than 40 hours in one week. Passed along party lines in the House, the bill would still
Continue Reading Cash Now or Paid Time Off Later? House Passes FLSA Amendment to Permit Private Sector Comp Time
Co-authored by Brett Bartlett and Kevin Young
Seyfarth Synopsis: Last Thursday, the Senate confirmed Alexander Acosta as the 27th United States Secretary of Labor. Filling the final post in President Trump’s cabinet, Acosta will lead a Department of Labor that has, since inauguration, operated without political leadership in the Secretary role. With Secretary Acosta in place, the DOL now
Continue Reading Acosta Takes the Helm
Authored by Brett Bartlett
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently set forth a new standard for determining whether two or more businesses may be held responsible as joint employers for overtime pay due to a single worker because they are joint employers. Although more expansive than other courts’ standards — and even more so than former Wage
Continue Reading Wait! Did the Fourth Circuit Just Define FLSA Joint Employment More Broadly Than Obama’s DOL?
Co-authored by Rachel M. Hoffer and John Phillips
Seyfarth Synopsis: Vampire Weekend crassly and rhetorically asked us, “Who gives a f*** about an Oxford comma?” As it turns out, lots of people: First Circuit judges, dairy farmers in Maine, truck drivers, your authors—the list goes on.
And when lists go on—as a Maine dairy company recently learned the hard
Continue Reading Comma, Comma, Comma, Comma, Comma Chameleon: Liability Comes and Goes with Oxford Comma
Authored by Kevin Young
Will the Department of Labor’s new overtime rule go into effect? When will a new Secretary of Labor be confirmed? We don’t have the answers just yet, but a lot has happened over the last few weeks to inch us closer. As things heat up, we wanted to update our readers on all the latest.
Where
Continue Reading New Rules, New Secretary? As Spring Inches Closer, We’re Getting Warmer.
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)
Co-authored by Robert S. Whitman and Howard M. Wexler
With employers about to ring in 2017, the New York State Department of Labor—with only two days to spare—has finalized regulations to increase the salary threshold for exempt status. The regulations, originally introduced on October 19, 2016, take effect on December 31, 2016.
Employers were hopeful that the State
Continue Reading NY DOL Approves Regulations to Increase Salary Threshold for Exempt Employees
Co-authored by Steve Shardonofsky and Tiffany Tran
Resolving a split in the lower courts and deciding an issue of first impression for the Court, the Fifth Circuit earlier this week held that prevailing plaintiffs in FLSA retaliation cases may recover emotional distress damages. While perhaps not unexpected, since the result joins with the majority rule in other Circuits, the outcome
Continue Reading Fifth Circuit Approves Emotional Distress Damages and Invites FLSA Retaliation Plaintiffs to Sit on Freudian Couch
Authored by Michael Kopp
With all the drama of a get-away chase, the Third Circuit recently brought to a screeching halt plaintiffs’ counsel’s elaborate maneuvers to end run repeated decertification of their FLSA actions, and held as a matter of first impression in Halle v. West Penn Allegheny Health System, Inc. that opt-in plaintiffs have no right to appeal decertification.
Continue Reading Opt Ins are Out (of Luck) Appealing Decertification