For decades, the Department of Labor (DOL) has recognized the impracticability of requiring Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) nonexempt employees to clock in exactly at the beginning of their scheduled shifts. In most...more
As it turns out, yes, people do care about time. Two recent court cases highlight some of the risks for employers when pay and timekeeping practices don’t comport with wage and hour laws. We’ll provide overviews of each case...more
On April 8, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, re-certified three classes of packaged tuna buyers, rejecting a Ninth Circuit panel-majority’s per se rule regarding a de minimis number of...more
There have been a host of federal cases recently focusing on whether time spent waiting in security lines is compensable. Some have gone for the plaintiffs and others for the employer, as these cases are nuanced and...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit recently weighed in on the effect of uninjured class members on class certification—decertifying three classes in Olean Wholesale Grocery Coop. v. Bee Foods LLC. Olean concerned...more
Judge Louis L. Stanton of the Southern District of New York recently granted defendant Wegmans Food Markets’motion to dismiss claims alleging that Wegmans falsely labels its vanilla ice cream. Plaintiffs sued Wegmans for...more
Food and beverage companies doing business in the United States should be aware that lawsuits are being brought against businesses based on small amounts of ingredients and trace amounts of substances that are incidentally in...more
Going Deep on the California Consumer Privacy Act - The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) has been called the beginning of America’s GDPR. As the most comprehensive privacy law in the United States, entities doing...more
This month’s key employment law cases address meal periods and payment of wages....more
In recent years, courts have reached divergent conclusions about the circumstances in which a damages class containing uninjured persons can be certified. Although there is some room to debate what constitutes injury, it is...more
California’s wage-and-hour laws are the most protective in the country. These protections, however, often lead to bankrupting, class-action lawsuits. Originally posted in The Press-Enterprise and other Southern California...more
It is a small world after all. Last week, the California Supreme Court decided that the de minimus rule, imported by the U.S. Supreme Court into the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in 1946 (Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery...more
There has been a lot of discussion surrounding class action litigation over the course of the last several years. The U.S. Supreme Court has tackled a variety of issues ranging from the use of class action waivers in...more
The Supreme Court recently granted review in a case that involves whether, or in what circumstances, cy pres relief may be used in class action settlements. ...more
A challenge to the use of a cy pres charitable donations to settle privacy claims against Google will be heard by the Supreme Court. In Frank v. Gaos, petitioners seek reversal of lower court decisions rejecting their...more
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether parties to a class action may agree to a settlement that confers cy pres awards upon various nonprofit institutions and organizations, but provides no monetary relief for...more
I have blogged several times recently on the rash of “check bag” cases that have percolated through the courts. Another example. A class of workers employed by Converse Inc. have now asked the Ninth Circuit to revive a class...more
The Ninth Circuit this week blessed an employer’s policy of rounding employee time punches to the nearest quarter hour, affirming summary judgment in favor of the company on an employee’s challenge to the rounding policy...more
In our November 2015 Blakes Bulletin: De Minimis Rule is Back in the Context of Class Actions, we analyzed the Sofio c. Organisme canadien de réglementation du commerce des valeurs mobilières (Sofio) decision of the Court of...more
De minimis non curat praetor — this ancient legal maxim suggests that judges should not have to hear trivial cases. The maxim seems to have lost most of its significance in the context of class actions. In several instances,...more
One of the “hot” issues in class actions today is whether, or to what extent, a class can be defined to include members who were not injured, and do not have standing to sue. ...more