Wage and Hour Defense Blog

In putative class action lawsuits, it is not uncommon for counsel for the employer to interview putative class members about the claims in the lawsuit. A new decision from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has concluded that such communications could be improper, at least in that state.

In Weller v. Dollar General Corp., No. 17-2292 (E.D. Pa.), a case in which the plaintiff brought both putative class action claims under Fed. R. Civ. P. 23 and a proposed collective action on the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), the employer interviewed ...

The New York State Department of Labor (“NYSDOL”) recently announced that it would no longer pursue employee scheduling regulations concerning “call-in” (or “on-call”) pay and other so-called predictive scheduling matters. As we previously reported, the proposed regulations, if adopted, would have required most employers in New York State to provide call-in pay under various circumstances, even though the employee had not actually worked or, in some situations, had not even reported to work.

Proposed Regulations

The NYSDOL’s proposed regulations had ...

The U. S. Supreme Court established limitations on personal jurisdiction over non-resident corporate defendants in state court “mass” actions in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California, San Francisco Cty., 137 S. Ct 1773 (June 17, 2017) (hereafter “BMS”).  BMS’s key holding was that the necessary nexus between an appropriate court for a mass action and a corporate defendant required more than just the company’s connections in the state and the alleged similarity of claims by resident plaintiffs and non-resident plaintiffs.  The practical effect is ...

The U.S. Department of Labor has released a proposal to update the overtime rules under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. Employers should be prepared to raise salaries to meet the minimum thresholds, pay overtime when appropriate, and otherwise adhere to the new rules if they go into effect.

Federal overtime provisions are contained in the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"). Unless exempt, employees covered by the FLSA must receive overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. To be exempt from overtime (i.e., not entitled to receive overtime), an exemption must apply ...

The obligations of a district court to analyze conflicting evidence regarding class and collective action certification was recently addressed by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Reinig v. RBS Citizens N.A., 912 F.3d 115, (3d Cir. 2018) (“Citizens”). In that case, the Third Circuit opined that Fed.R.Civ.P. 23 class certification orders (i) must explicitly define the classes and claims that are the subject of a certification order and (ii) provide an analysis of how the court reconciled any conflicting evidence supporting class certification.

In addition, the Third ...

Illinois Governor Pritzger has signed a bill raising the Illinois minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025, making Illinois the first Midwestern state to hike the minimum wage to that level. States on both coasts, including California, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, have already moved to enact such a hike.

Currently, the minimum wage in Illinois is $8.25 per hour. Under the new legislation, the minimum wage will increase to $9.25 by January 1, 2020 and to $10 on July 1, 2020. The minimum wage will then increase by $1 per hour each January 1 until it reaches $15 per hour in 2025.

The business ...

As we previously shared in this blog, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) issued an opinion letter in November 2018 changing the Department’s position regarding whether and when an employer with tipped employees, such as a restaurant, can pay an employee a tipped wage less than the federal minimum wage.

The issue was whether an employer must pay a tipped employee the full minimum wage for time spent performing what the industry calls “side work”: tasks such as clearing tables or filling salt and pepper shakers that do not immediately generate ...

Joining California and New York, New Jersey has become the third state with a phased-in $15 minimum wage requirement for most employees. On February 4, 2019, Governor Phil Murphy signed into law A15 (“Law”), which raises the state minimum wage rate for employers with six or more employees to $10.00 per hour on July 1, 2019, and then to $11.00 per hour on January 1, 2020. Thereafter, the minimum wage will increase annually on January 1 by $1.00 per hour until it reaches $15.00 per hour on January 1, 2024. The minimum wage hike will phase in at a slower rate for employers with five or ...

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a federal statute that governs interstate trucking does not preempt the application New Jersey’s ABC test for distinguishing between employees and independent contractors.

In Bedoya v. American Eagle Express Inc., New Jersey-based delivery drivers for AEX alleged that the company misclassified them as independent contractors rather than employees in violation of the New Jersey Wage and Hour Law and the New Jersey Wage Payment Law. AEX moved to dismiss the drivers’ claims as preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration ...

On February 4, 2019, a divided panel of the California Court of Appeal issued their majority and dissenting opinion in Ward v. Tilly’s, Inc.  It appears to be a precedent-setting decision in California, holding that an employee scheduled for an on-call shift may be entitled to certain wages for that shift despite never physically reporting to work.

Each of California’s Industrial Welfare Commission (“IWC”) wage orders requires employers to pay employees “reporting time pay” for each workday “an employee is required to report for work and does report, but is not put to ...