Authored by Noah Finkel
California has long been regarded as the epicenter of wage and hour litigation. It is where the most cases are filed. It has the most onerous wage and hour laws. And those laws contain the most draconian remedies. Because of this, California wage and hour claims tend to carry higher settlement value than FLSA claims or
Continue Reading 1 California Class Member = 9 FLSA Collective Action Members
Authored by Adam J. Smiley
A New York federal judge gave an initial thumbs-up last Thursday to what is believed to be the largest unpaid internship settlement on the books: $450,000.
Elite Model Management was sued by a former unpaid intern in February 2013 (See Complaint), claiming that Elite deliberately misclassified interns as non-employees who were not protected
Continue Reading Run[a]way Recovery: Unpaid Modeling Agency Interns Set to Cash In
Co-authored by Noah Finkel and Giselle Donado
Parties might be able to privately settle their FLSA disputes without court approval — and without disclosing the amount — provided they don’t care if they obtain a valid release.
Finally a court has untangled the web of case law that often mistook the fact that a release of FLSA claims in a
Continue Reading Judge Says Courts No Longer Need To Play Big Brother To FLSA Settlements
Co-authored by Robert S. Whitman and Adam J. Smiley
In February, this blog reported on two FLSA collective actions filed by former unpaid interns for The Hearst Corporation and Fox Searchlight Pictures. These interns claimed, respectively, that they should have been paid for work performed for about 20 magazines and on the production of the 2010 film “Black Swan.”
Hot on the
Continue Reading Former Athletics Department Intern Throws Flag On Hamilton College’s Pay Practices
Co authored by Steve Shardonofsky and Noah Finkel
Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision to deny certiorari in Martin et al. v. Spring Break ’83 Productions, L.L.C. et al. This decision leaves in place the Fifth Circuit’s ruling enforcing a private FLSA settlement—a first for any federal appellate court.
In Martin, four union-represented plaintiffs
Continue Reading Could The Tide Be Turning On The Enforceability of Private FLSA Settlements?
By: Louisa Johnson
It is common for one or more named plaintiffs to bring a wage and hour lawsuit as a putative class or collective action but then settle with the defendant-employer on an individual basis. This may happen because the named plaintiffs and defendant settle before a class certification motion is brought. It may also happen because the named
Federal district and appellate courts historically have refused to enforce settlements and/or waivers of FLSA rights without Department of Labor or court approval. We recently blogged here, for example, about a recent ruling from the Southern District of New York that rejected a proposed settlement of overtime claims because the proposed agreement contained a confidentiality clause. In Martin
Continue Reading Fifth Circuit Enforces Private FLSA Settlement And Makes Its Own Summer Blockbuster
Co-authored by Robert S. Whitman and Robert T. Szyba
Experienced practitioners have long understood that very few wage-hour class or collective actions go all the way to trial. Nearly all cases that are not decided by a dispositive motion are resolved by a settlement. In a noteworthy recent decision, Wolinsky v Scholastic Inc., Judge Jesse M. Furman of the
Authored by Noah Finkel and Abad Lopez
Last month, a federal district court in Maryland rejected a proposed FLSA settlement as unreasonable based on the amount of the proposed attorney’s fees. In Gionfriddo v. Zinc, et al., the Court compared the amount the individual plaintiffs were to recover ($15,000.18) to the proposed attorney’s fees ($100,000), and found the disproportionate
Continue Reading Should Disproportionate Attorney’s Fees Doom Proposed FLSA Settlements?
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