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Citing the interest expressed by “law firms, unions, and advocacy organizations, among others,” the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has extended the period for public comment on recently-issued Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) regarding amendments to the regulations concerning determination of the “regular rate” of pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and to…

The California Supreme Court has held that, under state law, when an employee earns a flat-sum bonus during a pay period, the overtime pay rate will be calculated using the actual number of non-overtime hours worked by the employee during the pay period. Alvarado v. Dart Container Corp., 2018 Cal. LEXIS 1123 (Cal. Mar. 5,

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Last year, a Manhattan federal district judge reviewed a decision of a federal bankruptcy court and held that Lehman Brothers was not required to pay a $350,000 performance bonus referenced in the offer letter of a prospective employee who never provided services. In doing so, the Court observed that the Firm terminated the contractual relationship…

Fixed payments made on other than an hourly basis to non-exempt (i.e., overtime eligible) workers often must be included in the regular rate of pay for purposes of calculating overtime.  One type of payment that may be excluded from the regular rate calculation is payment for “reasonable payments for travel expenses, or other…

This blog has stressed (most recently here and here) the importance of carefully drafting incentive compensations plans to avoid unintentionally converting incentive compensation into earned “wages” protected under state law.   Another recent decision, this one from the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reinforces the employer benefits of careful drafting. Lawson v. Sun…

As we recently noted in our discussion of Massachusetts law, incentive compensation has the potential to become “wages” protected by state labor law once it is “earned.” However, when an employer conveys to the employee that it retains discretion to award or not award incentive compensation in any specific amount, such potential incentive compensation…

An employee’s entitlement to incentive compensation continues to be a litigation issue. Recently, a Massachusetts federal district court held that an employer’s refusal to award an employee a discretionary bonus does not violate the Massachusetts Wage Act. Comley v. Media Planning Grp., No. 14-10032, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 76383 (D. Mass. June…

The importance of detailed drafting of employment documents – particularly those calling for commissions, bonuses or other types of incentive compensation – was highlighted recently by a plaintiff’s claim that, as a conditional hire who never worked a day at now-defunct Lehman Brothers, the Bank’s rescinding of her employment offer triggered its obligation to pay…