Wage and Hour Defense Blog

On April 29, 2015, the California Supreme Court granted the employee’s petition for review of the Court of Appeal’s decision in Augustus v. ABM Security Services, Inc., which reversed a near-$90 million judgment awarded in the favor of a certified class of current and former security guards on rest period claims, and also held that while “an on-call guard must return to duty if called to do so, [] remaining available to work is not the same as actually working.” We previously wrote about the Augustus decision here. Importantly, because the California Supreme Court has decided ...

Our colleague, Matthew A. Goodin, has written a piece about California’s new paid sick leave law entitled “California Employers Beware: It’s Time to Rewrite Your Sick-Leave And PTO Policies.”

The law impacts at least one wage-hour issue – paystub requirements – which are explained in Matthew’s  piece:

Paystub requirements Under the new law, an employee’s paystub (or another document provided to the employee on the employer’s designated payday) must set forth the amount of accrued sick leave the employee has available. Unless employers want to issue a ...

In a case that has strategic implications for employers’ use of arbitration agreements in response to collective claims brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), the Eighth Circuit has held that former servers at an Arkansas pizzeria chain lack standing to challenge the pizzeria’s enforcement of an arbitration agreement that bars current employees from joining the FLSA collective action.  Conners v. Gusano’s Chi. Style Pizzeria, No. 14-1829 (8th Cir. Mar. 9, 2015).

In Conners, the plaintiff filed a proposed collective action lawsuit on behalf of herself and ...

The United States Supreme Court has upheld an Administrator’s Opinion issued by the United States Department of Labor stating that “typical” mortgage-loan officers are not covered by the Administrative exemption to the FLSA’s overtime requirements.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Perez v. Mortg. Bankers Ass'n reversed a Circuit Court decision vacating the Opinion for failure to comply with the procedural requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”).  Specifically, the Supreme Court ruled that the APA expressly exempts the Department of Labor ...

It is not often that long-standing laws cause a federal court to throw up its arms, but for the second time in little over a year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has done just that in attempting to understand a California employment law.

Last year, the Ninth Circuit threw up its hands and asked the California Supreme Court to clarify California’s obscure “suitable seating” laws, about which we wrote here.

Now, in Mendoza v. Nordstrom, Inc., the Ninth Circuit has thrown up its hands again, this time asking the California Supreme Court to clarify California’s day-of-rest laws.

Employers in California – and healthcare employers in particular – have been besieged by wage-hour class actions for more than a decade. They have been sued repeatedly on claims that they have not complied with the terms of Industrial Welfare Commission (“IWC”) Wage Orders. Now, as a result of a new decision from the California Court of Appeal, they may face lawsuits based not on a failure to comply with the language of a Wage Order, but because they in fact relied upon language in a Wage Order. It is a development that may lead many employers to throw up their hands and quote the old ...

On January 29, 2015, the California Court of Appeal published its long-awaited decision in Augustus v. ABM Security Services, Inc., reversing a near-$90 million judgment awarded in the favor of a certified class of current and former security guards on rest period claims. The decision is a welcome development for California employers, particularly those who ask employees to remain on-call while on breaks in case they are needed.

The Court of Appeal explained that the trial court’s judgment had rested on the false premise “that California law requires employers to relieve their ...

Just over three weeks after vacating a regulation barring third party employers from claiming the companionship exemption for minimum wage and overtime, in a January 14, 2015 decision in Home Care Association of America v. Weil, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon has also vacated the Department of Labor’s attempt to drastically narrow the definition of “companionship services” (29 CFR Sec. 552.6,). Judge Leon had previously stayed the changes in the new definition, originally scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2015.

The new definition of “companionship ...

On January 12, 2015, the California Supreme Court issued its decision in Mendiola v. CPS Security Solutions, Inc. While it will have no impact upon most employers, it is a decision that will have significant impact on some. It may well lead to the filings of class action lawsuits against some employers alleging that they did not pay employees for sleep time – lawsuits those employers now may have great difficulty defending.

To the surprise of some, the Court concluded that security guards who are assigned 24-hour shifts, but sleep 8 of those hours, must be compensated for the entire 24 ...

On January 14, 2015, in Hargrove v. Sleepy's LLC, the New Jersey Supreme Court answered a certified question from the Third Circuit and held that the “ABC” test governs whether a plaintiff is an employee or an independent contractor under the New Jersey Wage Payment Law and the New Jersey Wage and Hour Law.

Therefore, companies defending their independent contractor classifications in either litigation or government investigations under these statutes will be required to show that an individual providing services:

(A)       is free from the company’s control in performing the ...