Seyfarth Synopsis: The NLRB has withdrawn the significant concession it offered at oral argument on the nature of the NLRA rights it seeks to assert in the face of employers’ mandatory arbitration programs....more
10/4/2017
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Class Action ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Collective Actions ,
Epic Systems Corp v Lewis ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
SCOTUS
Seyfarth Synopsis: Following oral argument, employers should be cautiously optimistic that the Supreme Court will allow mandatory arbitration programs containing waivers of the ability to bring collective and class actions....more
10/4/2017
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Class Action ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Collective Actions ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employment Contract ,
Epic Systems Corp v Lewis ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
NLRA ,
NLRB
Seyfarth Synopsis: As previously discussed in this space, the Ninth Circuit recently chose to side with the Second Circuit, and not the Sixth Circuit, and ruled that mortgage underwriters fail to meet the FLSA’s...more
9/29/2017
/ Administrative Exemption ,
Appeals ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Mortgage Servicers ,
Over-Time ,
Petition for Writ of Certiorari ,
SCOTUS ,
Split of Authority ,
Underwriting ,
Wage and Hour
Seyfarth Synopsis: In the first argument of the first day of its new term, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in three cases presenting the issue of whether an employer may require employees to enter into...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Ninth Circuit has created a circuit split by rejecting the DOL’s interpretation of FLSA regulations on use of the tip credit to pay regularly tipped employees, finding that the interpretation is both...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: By resurrecting reliance on the administrative/production dichotomy in FLSA administrative exemption cases, the Ninth Circuit is at odds with the California Supreme Court’s application of the state’s...more
As our readers saw earlier this week, the Ninth Circuit recently issued a decision in McKeen-Chaplin v. Provident Bank, turning the traditional administrative vs. production dichotomy of the administrative exemption on its...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit chose to side with the Second Circuit, and not the Sixth Circuit, to opine that mortgage underwriters fail to meet the FLSA’s administrative exemption from overtime...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: An unpopular DOL regulation that prohibits employers from retaining customer tips received another blow this summer. The Tenth Circuit joined the Fourth Circuit and several district courts in holding that...more
7/11/2017
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Minimum Wage ,
Popular ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Tip Credit ,
Tipped Employees ,
Tips ,
Wage and Hour
Employers have faced questions about the enforceability of arbitration agreements with class and collective action waivers since the NLRB’s highly controversial D.R. Horton decision in 2012, which held that the waivers...more
Pending before the United States Supreme Court is a petition for writ of certiorari asking the Court to determine whether an employer may use payments for bona fide meal periods as an offset/credit against compensable work...more
6/7/2017
/ Collective Actions ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Doffing ,
Donning ,
DuPont ,
Employment Litigation ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Petition for Writ of Certiorari ,
Rest and Meal Break ,
Safety Equipment ,
SCOTUS ,
Unpaid Wages ,
Wage and Hour
Seyfarth Synopsis: Federal court denies motion for conditional certification for a proposed class of employees working at separate Subway franchises.
Earlier this year, the DOL’s Wage-Hour Division issued a...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: New decision from Northern District of Georgia rejects the DOL’s interpretation of the FLSA tip credit law. Holds that the FLSA does not regulate tips received by employees who are paid at least minimum...more
8/9/2016
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Hospitality Industry ,
Minimum Wage ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Tip Credit ,
Tip-Pooling ,
Tipped Employees ,
Tips ,
Wage and Hour
The Department of Labor’s release of the new exemption regulations appears imminent. As we have reported in a number of posts, these new rules are expected to nearly double the minimum annual salary level required for...more
The demise of bank loan underwriters’ exempt status has been greatly exaggerated—at least according to a recent Sixth Circuit decision upholding the dismissal of a putative collective action against Huntington Bank. The court...more
Last week, a federal judge in the Northern District of Illinois lifted the weight of collective action certification off Life Time Fitness, Inc. and refused to certify a proposed collective of more than 6,000 personal...more
The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to resolve the question of whether “service advisors” at car dealerships—workers whose primary job responsibilities involve identifying service needs and selling service solutions to the...more
On January 20, 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage & Hour Division (WHD) issued another Administrator’s Interpretation (the AI or “Guidance”) that it hopes will have a far-ranging impact on how employers do business...more
As noted by this blog on several occasions, the U.S. Supreme Court and several appellate courts have grappled with the question of whether and to what extent a defendant facing a class or collective action can moot a case by...more
BlackBerry devices may be a thing of the past; but smartphones–and their ability to allow employees to be constantly connected–certainly aren’t going away any time soon.
On Thursday, a judge in the Northern District of...more
It is not every day that multi-million wage and hour class action judgments get reversed. But that is exactly what happened twice late last week in the Eighth Circuit in two cases against the same employer involving similar...more
9/1/2015
/ Appeals ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Damages ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
FRCP 23 ,
Non-Work Hours ,
Opt-Outs ,
Reversal ,
State Law Claims ,
Summary Judgment ,
Wage and Hour
Last week, the Second Circuit affirmed a lower court decision in Chen v. Major League Baseball Properties, Inc., et al., holding that FanFest—a five-day interactive baseball theme park organized in conjunction with Major...more
The Third Circuit put a screeching halt to the contention that drivers must actually cross state lines to be exempt from overtime under the Motor Carrier Act (“MCA”). In Resch v. Krapf’s Coaches, Inc., the court ruled that...more