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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…

The best defense for employers confronted with claims of “off-the-clock”, (i.e., unrecorded) work under the FLSA are accurate contemporaneous time records created by employees based on clearly communicated time keeping practices. The effectiveness of such records was recently demonstrated in Roberts v. Advocate Health Care, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103631 (N.D.…

Unanimously reversing the Ninth Circuit, today the U.S. Supreme Court held that time spent by warehouse workers undergoing security screenings was non-compensable because it did not constitute a “principal activity,” nor was it “integral and indispensable” to the workers’ other principal activities.  Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, No. 13–433 (Dec. 9, 2014).

The…

Employers defending FLSA overtime claims brought by employees are often frustrated when such claims include alleged “off the clock” work despite the fact that the business properly maintained records of hours worked.  A new decision rejects one such allegation.  Gilson v. Indaglo, Inc., 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 20828 (11th Cir. 2014).

The sales employee…

Employees may have an understanding of their own “work week” for various employment purposes based on different business practices or employer scheduling.  However, with respect to calculating hours worked for purposes of determining overtime pay under the FLSA, DOL regulations simply require that an employer designate and use a standard work week for a given…

The issue of whether time spent “on-call” is compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act is a factual analysis, and thus the source of FLSA litigation.  A recent decision finding such time to be non-compensable highlights a preeminent principle in the analysis – in order for on-call time to be non-compensable, an employee must be…

Letting stand a decision of the Court of Appeals of the Sixth Circuit, the Supreme Court has denied review of an emergency room nurse’s claim for overtime based on work allegedly performed during unpaid meal breaks. White v. Baptist Mem’l Health Care Corp., U.S., No. 13-107, cert. denied 10/7/13. Plaintiff urged the Supreme Court to…

As previously discussed in this blog, many (if not most) courts agree that an employee who receives a fixed salary for varying hours of work has a “clear mutual understanding” with his/her employer that such salary covers all hours of work, and that in the event overtime is deemed owed because the employee was not…