Court also holds that arbitrability questions must be resolved by the arbitrator -
The 10th Circuit has decided two significant issues in an otherwise garden-variety off-the-clock case, one relating to arbitration and the...more
11/7/2023
/ Appeals ,
Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employment Litigation ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
FRCP 23 ,
Reversal ,
Unpaid Overtime
Ten years ago, the Ninth Circuit upheld the certification of a sprawling nationwide class action in Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., only to see that decision overturned a year later by the Supreme Court. ...more
Unreported opinion will also impact potential counterstrategy -
Just three months ago, the Supreme Court rendered its decision in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, 138 S. Ct. 1632 (2018), in which it rejected perhaps the...more
My father grew up in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II and would tell the story of how an official would come to his family’s home to modify their radio so they could not receive BBC broadcasts. Shortly after the...more
An improper class still isn’t a class even if you settle - Here’s something you don’t see every day. A district court has rejected the settlement of a proposed class and collective action – not due to the usual reasons such...more
Fast food enterprises are frequent targets for claimed wage and hour violations. Because in many instances the places where the plaintiff worked is actually a franchise, the scope of a claim or proposed class may be limited...more
Four years ago, a wave of cases involving unpaid internships looked to be the next “big thing.” As those cases sputtered, however, and employers reduced or eliminated internships, the flood of anticipated litigation never...more
With waves of cases already having addressed common targets for wage and hour litigation – assistant managers, healthcare workers, loan officers, donning and doffing claims, and the like – cases alleging more arcane claimed...more
In many cases, particularly in light of last year’s decision in Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo, it is the plaintiff who tries to use statistical evidence in an off-the-clock case to estimate damages. But that same data may...more
As we’ve noted before, many courts have applied the standard for conditional certification so leniently that in places the requirement of a group of “similarly situated” employees under the FLSA has all but disappeared. So,...more
It has become almost part of the plaintiff playbook to bring wage and hour claims despite lawful employer policies by claiming some sort of “class-wide” policy of deviating from those policies. Sadly, this tactic works at...more
It’s unusual to see an employment class action based on breach of contract by nonunionized employees. A recent case from the District of Columbia involving the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), reflects...more
If you have Amazon Prime, you get free delivery in two business days. If you want to pay extra (whether Amazon Prime or not), you can get your order the next day. So how long does it take for Amazon to get rid of a case the...more
Congress passed the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) in 2005 to address a series of well-documented abuses of the class action process. Among the protections of the act were provisions enabling class action defendants to...more
We’ve commented on numerous occasions about the peculiar paths taken by wage and hour class litigation, particularly with respect to collective actions under the FLSA. Two cases involving the same employer decided only days...more
Disparate impact cases are different in kind from the far more common disparate treatment claims that are the staple of single-plaintiff discrimination cases. Disparate treatment claims, of course, are ones in which an...more
A recent case reflects that some courts will look not only to the presence or absence of conflicts or litigation misconduct but also to the plaintiffs’ counsel’s experience in other class action cases.
In Goers v. L.A....more
We’ve written many times in this blog about the two-step procedure used by many courts in Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) cases in collective actions. The first step is to provide notice to the proposed class and is typically...more
“As far as overtime, you (like I) can only bill a 40hr work week even though we put in like 60hrs at times.”
This isn’t exactly the email you want to see if you are defending an off-the-clock wage and hour claim, but...more
For 33 years, unionized employers in the Sixth Circuit had to deal with the holding and, worse still, the application of the decision in UAW v. Yard-Man, Inc., 716 F.2d 1476 (6th Cir. 1983), which created what it called an...more
While the number of class or collective action lawsuits has exploded, decisions from Circuit Courts of Appeal, particularly on procedural issues, are still infrequent enough to warrant comment. In Pippins v. KPMG, Case No....more
Alright, we all know in the wake of Italian Colors, Concepcion, and now many other cases that the presumption of arbitrability isn’t just a doctrine to recite in the manner of saying grace before invalidating an agreement,...more