Wage and Hour Defense Blog

On November 21, 2019, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry (“DLI”) formally withdrew new regulations that would have increased the minimum salary requirements for the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act’s (“PMWA”) white-collar exemptions.  The withdrawal occurred on the same day the state’s Independent Regulatory Review Commission (“IRRC”) was scheduled to consider the new requirements and rule upon them at a public meeting.

The Withdrawn Rule

The final rule was issued on October 17, 2019, and would have increased the minimum salary threshold for the ...

After a brief, two-month hiatus, the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor (“WHD”) has issued another round of opinion letters answering various questions submitted by the public.  Specifically, these opinion letters address the calculation of overtime pay for nondiscretionary bonuses, the application of the highly compensated employee exemption to paralegals, and rounding hours worked under the Service Contract Act (“SCA”).  This guidance marks the first issued by the new Wage and Hour Administrator Cheryl Stanton, who has been in the seat since April.

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 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 ...

On October 21, 2016, a Pennsylvania appeals court found that a group of franchisees were in violation of the state’s Wage Payment and Collection Law (“WPCL”) when they required employees to be paid with payroll debit cards. While the WPCL only permitted wage payment in cash or check, the Pennsylvania court noted that voluntary use of payroll debit cards may be an appropriate method payment. In this case, the court held that mandatory use of payroll debit cards was not lawful, as it may subject the employee to fees without his or her consent.

Two weeks later, on November 4, 2016, the ...