Wage and Hour Defense Blog

[caption id="attachment_2734" align="alignright" width="113"] Julie Badel[/caption]

Addressing an unusual set of facts, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia has dismissed a suit challenging an employer’s practice of retaining tips that customers give to valets. The plaintiff in Malivuk v. Ameripark, No. 1:15:cv-2570 WSD (N.D. Ga. 2016), alleged that she was promised an hourly wage plus tips but that her employer, who provided valet parking services, retained a portion of the tips.

The defendant moved to dismiss the case because the plaintiff did not ...

Featured on Employment Law This Week: Employers in the city of Chicago will soon be required to offer up to 40 hours of paid sick leave a year.

The City Council unanimously approved the paid sick leave ordinance, which will apply to all individuals and businesses with at least one employee. Chicago will now join more than two dozen other U.S. cities that require employers to provide paid sick leave. The mayor is expected to sign the ordinance, which is scheduled to go into effect July 1, 2017.

View the episode below or read more about this ordnance in an Epstein Becker Green Act Now ...

Our colleagues Denise Merna Dadika and Brian W. Steinbach, attorneys in the Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practice at Epstein Becker Green, have a post on the Health Employment and Labor blog that will be of interest to many of our readers: "U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Review DOL Home Care Rule"

Following is an excerpt:

On Monday, June 27, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding the new U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) requirement that home care providers pay the federal minimum wage and overtime to home care ...

As anticipated in our posting on June 9, 2016, on June 21, 2016, the Washington, DC, Council unanimously passed on second reading the Fair Shot Minimum Wage Amendment Act of 2016, without substantive amendment. As discussed in our prior posting, this bill increases the District of Columbia minimum wage – already set to increase to $11.50 on July 1, 2016 – by additional annual increments until it reaches $15.00 on July 1, 2020. It also increases the tipped minimum wage in annual increments starting July 1, 2017 from the existing $2.77 to $5.00 on July 1, 2020. Both rates will increase in ...

[caption id="attachment_2651" align="alignright" width="113"] Kevin Sullivan[/caption]

The cities of Santa Monica, Pasadena, and San Diego have each recently passed ordinances increasing the minimum wage effective July 1, 2016. And two of them have passed ordinances providing for paid sick leave beyond that required by California state law.

Santa Monica

The City of Santa Monica has passed a new ordinance providing for a city-wide minimum wage of $10.50 beginning July 1, 2016, $12.00 beginning July 1, 2017, and $13.25 beginning July 1, 2018, $14.25 beginning July 1, 2019 ...

Washington, D.C. is poised to join California and New York by raising its minimum wage to $15.00 per hour.

On June 7, 2016, the D.C. Council, with support of Mayor Muriel Bowser, unanimously passed on first reading the Fair Shot Minimum Wage Amendment Act of 2016 . The bill will continue to raise the District of Columbia minimum wage – currently $10.50, but previously set to increase to $11.50 on July 1, 2016 – in additional annual increments until it reaches $15.00 by July 1, 2020. Beginning on July 1, 2021, the minimum wage will increase further based on the increase in the Consumer ...

After spending the last few years litigating with Domino’s franchisees over wage hour violations, the New York Attorney General has filed suit contending that franchisor Domino’s Pizza Inc. is a joint employer with three franchisees, and therefore is liable for the “systematic underpayment” of franchise employees.

The New York Attorney General also claims that, regardless of whether it’s a joint employer, Domino’s is liable for misrepresentations and nondisclosures that led to the underpayment of employees at the three franchises and violated the New York ...

Nearly a year after the Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to address an increase in the minimum salary for white collar exemptions, the DOL has announced its final rule, to take effect on December 1, 2016.

While the earlier notice had indicated that the salary threshold for the executive, administrative, and professional exemption would be increased from $23,660 ($455 per week) to $50,440 ($970 per week), the final rule will not raise the threshold that far.  Instead, it will raise it to $47,476 ($913 per week).

According to the DOL’s Fact Sheet,

One of the top stories featured on Employment Law This Week: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reaffirms an employer’s time-rounding practice. A call-center employee in California recently brought a class action lawsuit against his employer for time-rounding practices. The employee claims that the policy caused him to be underpaid by a total of $15 over 13 months. Relying on a California Court of Appeals precedent, the Ninth Circuit found that the company’s facially neutral rounding policy—one that rounds time both up and down—is legal under California ...

On May 2, 2016, the Ninth Circuit issued a published opinion in Corbin v. Time Warner Entertainment-Advance/Newhouse Partnership. The Corbin Court best summarized the action in its opening sentence: “This case turns on $15.02 and one minute.” The “$15.02” represented the wages the plaintiff claimed he lost over a period of time as a result of the company’s neutral time-rounding policy. And the “one minute” represented the amount of off-the-clock time that the plaintiff worked, which the Court held was de minimis and, therefore, not compensable.

Federal and ...