How the FLSA “tip credit” is applied has been pushed and pulled numerous times over the last two decades. In the latest volley, the Fifth Circuit entered an order on August 23, 2024, vacating the Department of Labor’s 2021...more
8/29/2024
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Final Rules ,
Labor Reform ,
Labor Regulations ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Minimum Wage ,
Rate of Pay ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
State and Local Government ,
Tax Credits ,
Tipped Employees ,
Tips ,
Wage and Hour
It is every employer’s nightmare: You find out that employees (or former employees) are claiming that they were not paid properly and are due overtime for the last two or three years. This primarily arises because you...more
The DOL issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing, among other things, to increase the salary threshold for white-collar overtime exemptions. You may recall that there was a lot of discussion about this back in 2016...more
9/7/2023
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Highly Compensated Employees ,
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) ,
Over-Time ,
Proposed Rules ,
White-Collar Exemptions
Does a plaintiff have to specify not only the facts but also the law that applies? In Bye v. MGM Resorts, Inc., the Fifth Circuit looks at a common pleading issue: What do you do when a plaintiff pleads facts that may or may...more
The joint employer rule has been a hot topic in the last several years, mostly in the context of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Recall the drama of the Trump administration's narrower definition of a joint employer for...more
What is the right way to dismiss a case the parties have settled, and are FLSA cases different? Typically, when parties to a lawsuit settle a case, they merely alert the court of the settlement and then file a stipulation of...more
2/15/2022
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ,
Minimum Wage ,
Misclassification ,
Settlement ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Wage and Hour
You may have missed it, but Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh perked up some ears last week when he discussed possibly raising the FLSA salary threshold for certain exempt employees. In testimony before a Congressional...more
For those of you craving a non-COVID-19 issue to chew upon, the Department of Labor opened the floodgates of debate by withdrawing the partial lists of establishments that could either be “recognized as retail” or “having no...more
The Department of Labor recently issued a final rule about how to calculate an employee’s regular rate of pay for overtime purposes under the Fair Labor Standards Act. As everyone knows, under the FLSA you have to pay...more
1/13/2020
/ Compensation & Benefits ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Final Rules ,
Labor Regulations ,
New Rules ,
Over-Time ,
Rate of Pay ,
Wage and Hour
Here’s to hoping all our readers have a great New Year’s, but do not forget that the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division is changing the threshold amount of salary necessary to meet the numerous overtime exemptions....more
Yesterday, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division issued a final rule regarding the threshold amount of salary necessary to exempt an employer from the obligation to pay overtime. The threshold since 2004 was $455...more
9/25/2019
/ Bonuses ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Final Rules ,
Highly Compensated Employees ,
Incentive Compensation ,
Minimum Salary ,
Over-Time ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
Sometimes employment laws can make the common person’s head spin. That certainly could be the case for a recent Fifth Circuit opinion examining the “highly compensated” regulatory exemption from the overtime requirements of...more
9/5/2019
/ Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employment Litigation ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Highly Compensated Employees ,
Independent Contractors ,
Minimum Salary ,
Over-Time ,
Summary Judgment ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Wage and Hour
When is sleeping working? According to a recent DOL Opinion Letter, probably not when it occurs off duty in a sleeper berth of an over-the-road truck.
A trucker’s job is to haul a load from Point A to Point B, which often...more
If you see your waiter or waitress grumbling during the holiday season, it could be due to the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division’s revision of the rules dealing with minimum pay due to “tipped” employees. Under the FLSA and...more
12/12/2018
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Food Service Workers ,
Hospitality Industry ,
Minimum Wage ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Tip Credit ,
Tipped Employees ,
Tips ,
Wage and Hour
When do you have to pay an employee before a shift? In Llorca v. Sheriff (Collier County, Florida), the Eleventh Circuit waded into the rich history of what types of pre-shift activities might qualify for hourly compensation....more
On January 5, 2018, the Department of Labor announced two employer-friendly changes applicable to interns and volunteers. Specifically, the DOL has adopted an employer-friendly approach to internships and has reinstated a...more
1/30/2018
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employee Definition ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Internships ,
Misclassification ,
Primary Beneficiary Test ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Unpaid Interns ,
Volunteers ,
Wage and Hour
Determining when an unpaid intern is really an employee has been a moving target for the last several years. However, on January 5, 2018, the Department of Labor announced that its Wage and Hour Division will now use the...more
1/10/2018
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employee Definition ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Internships ,
Minimum Wage ,
Misclassification ,
Over-Time ,
Primary Beneficiary Test ,
Unpaid Interns ,
Wage and Hour
While the Portal-to-Portal Act sounds more like a science fiction movie than a wage statute, it comes into play every day for hourly employees. Enacted in 1947 in response to litigation following the relatively new (at the...more
Can a plaintiff get emotional distress damages in a wage and hour claim? In December 2016, the Fifth Circuit issued an opinion of first impression where it found that a plaintiff filing a retaliation claim as part of an...more
This week, the Ninth Circuit held that Ernst & Young’s (E&Y) arbitration agreement that prohibited its employees from filing class actions violates the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). E&Y required as a condition of...more
8/25/2016
/ Appeals ,
Arbitration ,
Class Action ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Collective Actions ,
Dismissals ,
Ernst & Young ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
NLRA ,
Pre-Employment Agreements ,
Section 7
In a 100+ page opinion, federal Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero of the Northern District of California refused to grant the Plaintiffs’ motion to certify a class of minor league baseball players and instead granted the baseball...more
Providing legal scholars nationwide a unique opportunity to opine on worm-farming, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held on Friday, October 2, that farm workers involved in the growing of bait worms are exempt overtime...more
Last week, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a lower court decision that certain unpaid interns had to be paid for their work in the entertainment industry. The district court had held that Fox Searchlight Pictures...more
Viacom recently announced a settlement of $7.2 million dollars to end litigation by numerous unpaid interns for the Company’s television networks. In 2013, two former interns sued Viacom claiming that it violated the Fair...more
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that Amazon does not have to pay its temporary warehouse workers for the time that they spend waiting in line to go through security checks as they leave the facilities. The...more