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The laws governing wages and hours of work affect nearly everyone. How employees are paid, whether as hourly non-exempt, salaried-exempt, tipped, or commissioned sales workers, and how much they are paid, are questions of deep interest to employees and employers alike. And because the laws regulating wages generally apply only to employees, as opposed to…

Upholding a jury verdict in favor of the defendant “black car” (limousine service) company, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit concluded that the plaintiff-employee was properly classified as overtime-exempt under both the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and New York Labor Law (NYLL). Suarez v. Big Apple Car, Inc., 2020 U.S.…

On March 16, 2020, the Colorado Overtime & Minimum Pay Standards (COMPS) Order 36 went into effect, bringing sweeping changes to Colorado’s wage and hour laws.  COMPS Order 36 represents a dramatic shift from previous Colorado wage orders, significantly increasing the coverage of the rules, placing greater limitations on exemptions from the overtime requirements, expanding…

Noting the legal and conceptual differences between, as well as the penalties available in, a claim under the state’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) and an employee’s individual suit for damages and statutory penalties, the California Supreme Court recently held that an employee may bring a PAGA claim even if the employee has settled or…

On January 14, 2020, the latest session of the New Jersey legislature ended and, with it, so did Senate Bill (SB) 4204. The bill, which in many respects mirrored California’s recently-enacted Assembly Bill (AB) 5, sought to codify the “ABC test” as the proper method for determining whether an individual should be classified as an…

Concluding that it too broadly defined “employer” and raised a myriad of due process concerns that subjected it to risks of unconstitutionality, on December 31, 2019, Governor Andrew Cuomo vetoed a bill that would have allowed a current or former employee (or the New York State Department of Labor), alleging “wage theft” by an employer,…

In a closely-split decision by the full court of appeals, the Eleventh Circuit has held that the plaintiffs lacked standing to pursue their claims against the named defendants in the lawsuit, specifically, the Attorney General for the State of Alabama. As a result, the Court of Appeals had no authority to determine whether the plaintiffs’…