Wage and Hour Defense Blog

by Michael S. Kun, Eric A. Cook, and Jennifer A. Goldman

California Governor Jerry Brown has signed two employment-related bills into law, raising the stakes for employers doing business in California. The two laws, which increase the penalties for employers that wrongly classify employees as independent contractors or engage in "wage theft," both go into effect on January 1, 2012.

Read the full advisory online

By Evan J. Spelfogel

For several years, employers’ counsel have moved to block the combining of state wage and overtime claims with federal Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) claims, arguing that Rule 23 opt-out class actions were inherently inconsistent with FLSA collective opt-in actions. For support, they cited to the decision of the Third Circuit in De Asencio vs. Tyson Foods, Inc., 342 F. 3d 301 (3^rd Cir. 2003) reversing a district court’s exercise of supplemental jurisdiction because of the inordinate size of the state-law class, the different terms of proof ...

by Michael Kun

As we have mentioned previously on thisblog, the latest wave of wage-hour class actions to hit California employers is based on a claim that employees were not provided "suitable seating" under an obscure provision of California's Wage Orders.  To avoid having these cases removed to federal court,and to avoid the burden of establishing the elements for class certification, many plaintiffs' counsel have taken to filing these lawsuits not as class actions, but as representative actions under California's Private Attorneys General Act ("PAGA").

PAGA -- sometimes ...

by Dean L. Silverberg, Jeffrey M. Landes, Susan Gross Sholinsky, and Jennifer A. Goldman

On September 21, 2011, the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") announced a new program that will give businesses the opportunity to resolve prior worker classification issues by voluntarily reclassifying their non-employee workers (such as consultants, freelancers, and independent contractors) as employees for federal employment tax purposes. Officially called the "Voluntary Classification Settlement Program" ("VCSP"), this program is part of a larger "Fresh Start" initiative at the ...

By Michael Kun

It appears that oral argument before the California Supreme Court in Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior Court will be broadcast live on-line on the California Channel on November 8, 2011 at 9 a.m.   While it is unlikely this will inspire families to gather around their computers as they gathered around their radios to listen to breaking news decades ago, more than a few employers with operations in California may want to listen to this oral argument on a critical issue that affects all such employers – whether employee meal and rest breaks must be “ensured” or merely ...

By Michael Kun, Regina Musolino and Aaron Olsen

Since the Supreme Court’s historic ruling in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, attorneys have debated the scope and impact of the decision.  Not surprisingly, plaintiffs’ counsel have argued that the decision was limited to its facts, or to discrimination cases, or to cases involving nationwide claims.  And they have argued that Wal-Mart has no application whatsoever to wage-hour class actions and collective actions.  In only a few words, the Supreme Court may have answered some of these questions.

Earlier this month, the United ...

By Michael Kun

Some were beginning to wonder whether it would ever happen.  After more than two years, the California Supreme Court has announced a hearing date in the much-awaited Brinker v. Superior Court case -- November 8, 2011.

Unless the Court takes a detour, California employers should finally know the answer to a question that has long driven California's billion dollar wage-hour class action industry -- must an employer "ensure" that employers take meal and rest periods, or are they only required to make them "available" to employees. 

Should the Supreme Court rule that ...

By Amy Traub and Christina Fletcher

Once a settlement has been reached in an FLSA collective action, the defendant-employer typically wants that settlement to go into effect and end the case as soon as possible, so that the company can get past the myriad of distractions brought by the suit. However, as litigants increasingly are finding, the parties’ agreement to settle an FLSA collective action is nowhere near the end of the road, or the end of the case. There is a “judicial prohibition” against the unsupervised waiver or settlement of claims brought under the ...

By Kara M. Maciel

As Hurricane Irene is moving up the East Coast and threatening states from North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts, employers should refresh themselves on the wage and hour issues arising from the possibility of missed work days in the wake of the storm.

A few brief points that all employers should be mindful of under the FLSA:

• A non-exempt employee generally does not have to be paid for weather-related absences. An employer may allow (or require) non-exempt employees to use vacation or personal leave days for such absences. But, if ...

By Michael Kun

Understandably, employers have celebrated the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. ---,  --- S.Ct. ---, 180 L. Ed. 2d 374 (2011) and AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, 563 U.S. ---, 131 S.Ct. 1740, 179 L.Ed.2d 742 (2011).  At the very least, those cases would seem to suggest that the wage-hour class actions and collective actions that have besieged employers might be curtailed significantly, along with the costly settlements triggered by the in terrorem effect of such lawsuits.

California employers can stop celebrating, or at least tone down ...