The appeal regarding the validity of the federal overtime rule will not be fully briefed until May 1, 2017, according to an order issued by the Fifth Circuit on February 22, 2017, granting an unopposed request by the Department of Justice for an extension. When the Department of Labor first appealed the nationwide injunction issued … Continue Reading
In the latest round in the litigation between 21 States, led by the State of Nevada, and the Department of Labor regarding the Final Rule, the State Plaintiffs filed their appeal brief today with the Fifth Circuit, urging the Court to affirm the district court’s order, which issued a nationwide injunction blocking the rule. “As … Continue Reading
The Texas AFL-CIO recently filed a motion to intervene as a defendant in the action filed against the Department of Labor (DOL) regarding its highly publicized regulation expanding overtime coverage. Fearing the DOL under President-Elect Donald Trump might abandon its appeal to the Fifth Circuit of a nationwide preliminary injunction issued by a Texas District … Continue Reading
On December 1, 2016, the Department of Labor appealed the district court’s preliminary injunction ruling. It is expected that the DOL will request the Fifth Circuit to rule on the appeal quickly, but the Fifth Circuit may not grant this request, and the appeal may not be resolved prior to January 20, 2017. If the … Continue Reading
Following a pair of lawsuits aimed at blocking the Labor Department’s “white collar” overtime rule, House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections Chair Tim Walberg (R-Michigan) introduced legislation which would delay the rule’s effective date by six months, from December 1, 2016, to June 1, 2017. The proposed legislation, entitled The Regulatory Relief for Small Businesses, Schools, and … Continue Reading
While Department of Labor regulations interpreting the FLSA remain the primary source of employer guidance regarding the Act’s requirements, they are not necessarily the final word on what federal wage law requires. This is so even where they have been subject to “notice and comment,” triggering a higher level of judicial deference. A federal court … Continue Reading
The U.S. Department of Labor has issued a new FLSA poster, available for download here. Covered employers should replace old posters with the Department’s new versions. Employers should periodically review their compliance with FLSA and state law posting and notice requirements, particularly as related to tipped workers.… Continue Reading
On July 26, 2016, Judge William S. Duffey of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia issued a decision holding that an employer does not have to ensure tipped employees retain all of their tips if the company is not using the employee’s tips to satisfy part of the minimum wage … Continue Reading
Earlier this week, in a matter of first impression within the Second Circuit, Judge P. Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York held that employees who teach English as a second language (“ESL”) at a privately-owned ESL learning center qualify for the professional exemption under the FLSA as “teachers.” Fernandez v. Zoni Language … Continue Reading
The substantive provisions of the FLSA protect covered non-exempt employees’ right to receive minimum wage and, as applicable, overtime pay. The statute’s anti-retaliation provision is co-extensive: it protects employees from termination or other adverse employment action in response to complaints that those provisions were violated. The FLSA however does not extend anti-retaliation protections to employees … Continue Reading
In 2013 the Department of Labor announced new regulatory language that substantially limited the scope of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s companionship exemption. Those regulations, of course, were challenged through litigation which remains ongoing, and their implementation by the USDOL was delayed until many months after the original effective date of January 1, 2015. Though … Continue Reading
Courts addressing FLSA misclassification claims brought by employees classified as salaried exempt workers must determine damages. In a new decision from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, Judge Jane Triche Milazzo ruled that successful Plaintiffs in one such misclassification case are only entitled to “half-time” damages. Further, the Court ruled … Continue Reading
Last week, an Indiana federal court dismissed a lawsuit brought by former University of Pennsylvania (“Penn”) athletes against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA”) and a number of its member schools over their alleged employment status and corresponding minimum wage protection under the FLSA. Berger, et al. v. NCAA, et al., S.D. Ind., No. 1:14-CV-01710, … Continue Reading
Overtime claims based on alleged “off the clock” work often turn on the question of whether the employer has “suffered or permitted” the employee to work uncompensated hours in excess of forty in the workweek. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has affirmed a Mississippi district court’s finding that an employer did not … Continue Reading
On Friday, the United States Supreme Court agreed to resolve the current split among the Circuit Courts regarding whether “service advisors” are exempt from overtime under the 213(b)(10) exemption, an exemption applicable to any “salesman, partsman, or mechanic” who is primarily engaged in “selling or servicing automobiles.” Both the Fourth and Fifth Circuits have held … Continue Reading
Though the USDOL’s new rule regarding overtime-eligibility for home care workers is currently in force, pending appeal, litigation continues over the prior rule. A new appellate ruling addresses the scope of the term “private home” for purposes of the prior rule, clarifying that the former exemption applies to caregiver work in the private homes of … Continue Reading
In the latest chapter in the ongoing saga regarding contract attorneys claiming to be overtime eligible, Judge Ronnie Abrams of the Southern District of New York ruled that a contract attorney reviewing documents for litigation firm Quinn Emanuel was “practicing law” and thus exempt from overtime pursuant to 29 C.F.R. § 541.304(a)(1). Henig v. Quinn … Continue Reading
Providing much needed guidance to industry employers still wrestling with fallout from the United States Department of Labor’s drastic reduction to the scope of the companionship exemption, District Court Judge Sandra S. Beckwith held this week that a home care agency properly relied on the temporary vacatur of the DOL’s new federal regulations in electing … Continue Reading
The definition of an “employer” under the FLSA is, like a number of FLSA provisions, not well defined, as set forth in a long and thoughtful opinion from Judge Manish S. Shah of the Northern District of Illinois. Schneider v. Cornerstone Pints, Inc., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 166993 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 1, 2015). However, it … Continue Reading
Last week, an Ohio, a federal judge held that a home health aide failed to demonstrate that she performed general housework unrelated to the care of her patients, and therefore qualified as a provider of companionship services under the Fair Labor Standards Act’s previous formulation of the “companion” exemption. As such, the home health aide … Continue Reading
Since the United States Department of Labor announced its intention, in response to the President’s directive, to more than double the salary basis necessary to qualify for the “white collar” exemptions from overtime, the business community has swung into action. Employers and associations have both been lobbying for a more modest increase to the minimum … Continue Reading
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, covered employers must pay non-exempt employees overtime wages for hours worked in excess of forty in a workweek. To comply, while employers must define the workweek, they retain the flexibility to do so as they see fit, as demonstrated by venerable Brooklyn-based federal Judge Jack Weinstein in a new … Continue Reading
Time spent by employees in meal and other breaks continues to prompt litigation against public and private sector employers. In a recent decision, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that corrections officers at a Pennsylvania prison failed to allege a violation of the FLSA by challenging the County’s failure to compensate them … Continue Reading
Five days into the DOL’s enforcement of the new rule rendering most home health aides eligible for overtime under the FLSA, questions abound regarding how state Medicaid and Medicare-funded programs will comply with the rule within their current budgets. One new report cautions consumers of home health care and their advocates to be aware of … Continue Reading
