Wage and Hour Defense Blog

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 ...

By Michael Kun and Betsy Johnson

In a much-anticipated decision, the California Supreme Court has expanded the scope of California’s complex wage-hour laws to non-resident employees who perform work in California.  While the decision leaves more than a few questions unanswered, it will require a great many employers to review their overtime and other payroll practices.  Perhaps just as importantly, it will likely open the door to lawsuits, including class actions, regarding  prior overtime and payroll practices.

The case, Sullivan v. Oracle, has had a tortured history.  In the ...

By Betsy Johnson  and Evan J. Spelfogel

Employment litigation is growing at a rate far greater than litigation in general. Twenty-five times more employment discrimination cases were filed last year than in 1970, an increase almost 100 percent greater than all other types of civil litigation combined. Case backlogs at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") and in state and federal courts and administrative agencies nationwide number in the hundreds of thousands. Class and collective wage and overtime cases are inundating the courts. These types of cases now ...

By:  Kara M. Maciel

The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division in Norfolk, Virginia has announced that it will be stepping up its compliance audits and enforcement efforts against area hotels. In the past few years, the DOL stated it found violations at about 60% of local hotels. According to the DOL, the agency recently made spot checks at 10 area hotels since April. This is just one part of the agency’s nationwide enforcement program and its “Plan/Prevent/Protect” initiative against the hospitality industry. Common violations assessed by the DOL include:

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By Rhea G. Mariano and Betsy Johnson

The issue of whether California law requires employers to ensure that employees take meal periods or to merely make meal periods available is hotly contested and regularly litigated.  The issue is currently before the California Supreme Court in Brinker Restaurant v. Superior Court (review granted Oct. 22, 2008 (Brinker) and Brinkley v. Public Storage (review granted Jan. 14, 2009 (Brinkley)). 

While employers await the California Supreme Court’s decision in Brinker and Brinkley, on May 10, 2011, the California Court of Appeal, Second ...

By Michael Kun and Betsy Johnson

Under the Obama administration, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has implemented a number of initiatives in support of its enforcement of federal wage and hour laws and its mission of making employers more accountable for compliance with these laws.  These include the “We Can Help” and “Bridge to Justice” initiatives.

The DOL has now announced that it is launching a free application for smartphones.  This new “app” provides non-exempt employees with an electronic “timesheet” that allows them to independently track the hours they ...

Please join David Barron, Jay P. Krupin, and other attorneys from EpsteinBeckerGreen as we present eight panels covering labor and employment topics that have increasingly impacted employers in the health care industry.

Our first panel, entitled Significant Labor and Employment Issues that Affect Health Entities, will include representatives from the health care industry, such as a hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and emergency medical services. These executive panelists will discuss the critical labor and employment issues they are currently experiencing and ...

By Douglas Weiner and Charles H. Wilson

In a recently reported case from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, Applebee’s servers and bartenders alleged they spent a “substantial” amount of time performing non-tipped work, such as cleaning and maintenance, and, therefore, should be paid the minimum wage of $7.25 for the time spent performing non-tipped work, rather than the direct wage of $2.13 the FLSA allows employers to pay employees in tipped occupations See 29 U.S.C. § 203(m) and 29 U.S.C. § 203(t).

Applebee’s argued it properly applied a tip credit to the servers and ...

by Suzanne K. Brown

On August 23, 2004, the U.S. Department of Labor overhauled the Federal overtime exemption regulations with amendments that included elimination of the former “long” and “short” tests for exemption (the application of one or the other being determined by the employee’s salary level), in favor of a single, streamlined duties test for each category of exemption, including executive, administrative, professional and outside sales employees. Since that time, New Jersey’s overtime exemption regulations, which were modeled on the Federal ...

By Michael Kun

Employers who do business in California are already well aware of the wage-hour class actions that have besieged employers in virtually every industry.   Class claims for misclassification of employees as exempt employees or independent contractors first began to be filed more than a decade ago, and continue to be filed on a daily basis.  Claims for alleged work off-the-clock and missed meal and rest periods by non-exempt employees generally began later, but continue to be filed at an alarming rate.

Now we can add to those cases a new wave of California class actions ...