Seyfarth Synopsis: Last week, the U.S. DOL issued a final rule limiting use of the FLSA’s tip credit for tipped employees who sometimes perform non-tipped work. Declining a more flexible approach advocated by many employers...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Plaintiffs asserting federal and state wage and hour claims in one action often pursue both class certification of state claims under Rule 23 and collective action certification under the FLSA. In that...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Since the Supreme Court’s 2017 decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, federal district courts around the country have wrestled with whether they may exercise personal jurisdiction over...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: If the gist of a proposed regulation is made final, the 80/20 rule will be back, and with a vengeance. Employers who take a tip credit for their tipped employees will have to ensure that those employees...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: After delaying the effective date of a finalized Trump-era interpretive regulation that would have brought much needed clarity to the definition of employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the DOL...more
In this excerpt from our FLSA Handbook, we provide a is a “Sample Job Assessment Questionnaire Form” which is useful for reviewing exempt classification. The Handbook’s appendices contain two sets of guidelines to support the...more
Because exempt misclassification issues are among those more prominently revealed during Wage-Hour Division investigations and are often the focus of costly litigation, this chapter of our FLSA Handbook explains the most...more
In this chapter of our FLSA Handbook, we provide an overview of measures that an employer can take to comply with state and federal wage and hour laws. We also provide an outline to assist employers in structuring their own...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals last week affirmed a district court’s denial of class certification of a state overtime claim on numerosity grounds, reasoning that the touchstone for that element is...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Just before the holidays, the Department of Labor’s Wage-Hour Division issued its final pay regulations governing tipped employees. The final regulations, which were published December 22, 2020 and will...more
1/5/2021
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Food Service Workers ,
Hospitality Industry ,
Minimum Wage ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Tip Credit ,
Tip-Pooling ,
Tipped Employees ,
Tips ,
Wage and Hour
Seyfarth Synopsis: Much has been written in the past few weeks about a recent federal court decision that invalidated the U.S. Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) joint employment rule. While the immediate reaction of some may be...more
For decades, companies have wrestled with whether certain workers must be treated as employees subject to various employment laws and company rules or whether they are appropriately classified as independent contractors with...more
9/23/2020
/ Comment Period ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Economic Realities Test ,
Employee Definition ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Gig Economy ,
Independent Contractors ,
Labor Reform ,
Labor Regulations ,
Misclassification ,
Wage and Hour
Seyfarth Synopsis: More than a decade after it was originally proposed, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage & Hour Division has finally promulgated a new rule concerning the fluctuating workweek (FWW) method of computing...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: By eliminating two interpretive regulations, the U.S. Department of Labor expanded the number of employers that may qualify as a “retail or service establishment” under Section 7(i)’s exemption of the Fair...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Even though the DOL abandoned its 20% tip credit rule in November 2018, one federal district judge has refused to defer to the agency, opting to defer to the old guidance instead....more
1/18/2019
/ 20% Rule ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Food Service Workers ,
Minimum Wage ,
Regulatory Standards ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Tip Credit ,
Tipped Employees ,
Tips ,
Wage and Hour
Seyfarth Synopsis: Because of a new law effect January 1, 2019, employers in Illinois should review and, if necessary, revise, their expense reimbursement policies to avoid a new source of potential class action exposure....more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The DOL has reissued a long-awaited opinion letter withdrawing its previous 20% tip credit rule and making clear that “no limit is placed on the amount of [related but non-tipped] duties that may be...more
11/13/2018
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Field Operations Manual ,
Food Service Workers ,
Hospitality Industry ,
Job Duties ,
Minimum Wage ,
Opinion Letter ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Tip Credit ,
Tipped Employees ,
Tips ,
Wage and Hour
Seyfarth Synopsis: Congress has once again proposed legislation that would seek to ban mandatory workplace arbitration of employment claims, despite a string of United States Supreme Court decisions upholding arbitration and...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In an en banc decision, the Ninth Circuit reverses its prior panel opinion rejecting the DOL’s interpretation of FLSA regulations on use of the tip credit to pay regularly tipped employees, finding that the...more
10/2/2018
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
En Banc Review ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Food Service Workers ,
Hospitality Industry ,
Minimum Wage ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Regulatory Standards ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Tip Credit ,
Tipped Employees ,
Tips ,
Wage and Hour
Seyfarth Synopsis: In one of the most significant employment cases in memory, a sharply divided United States Supreme Court held today that employers may require employees, as a condition of employment, to enter into...more
5/21/2018
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Class Action ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Employment Litigation ,
Epic Systems Corp v Lewis ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
SCOTUS
Seyfarth Synopsis: Employers seeking to show that they correctly have classified an employee as exempt from the FLSA’s overtime requirements often have faced hostility from courts under the misimpression that FLSA exemptions...more
4/3/2018
/ Car Dealerships ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Minimum Salary ,
Navarro v Encino Motorcars ,
Non-Exempt Employees ,
Over-Time ,
Salespersons ,
SCOTUS ,
Service Advisors ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
Seyfarth Synopsis: Pending bi-partisan legislation aimed at preventing employers from enforcing arbitration agreements of sexual harassment claims might make employers unable to enforce arbitration agreements, and class...more
12/8/2017
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Class Action ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Labor Disputes ,
Legislative Agendas ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Sexual Harassment
Seyfarth Synopsis: On Monday, the DOL issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking announcing rescission of a rule that regulates tip pooling by employers who do not take the tip credit.
The DOL has issued a Notice of Proposed...more
12/5/2017
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Food Service Workers ,
Franchises ,
Minimum Wage ,
NPRM ,
Public Comment ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Tip Credit ,
Tip-Pooling ,
Tipped Employees ,
Wage and Hour
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Ninth Circuit recently joined the Second, Fourth, Eighth, and D.C. Circuits in holding that the relevant unit for determining minimum-wage compliance under the FLSA is the workweek as a whole, rather...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: A recent decision highlights why the FLSA is not always the remedial statute created to protect low-income workers by holding that four commission-based sales representatives, each earning six figures, were...more