When litigating claims under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), litigants are aware of long-standing case law that essentially awards a prevailing plaintiff with their attorneys’ fees absent extraordinary...more
We previously wrote about the procuring-cause doctrine here. As a refresher, the procuring-cause doctrine provides that a salesperson or other agent who contracts for a commission becomes entitled to payment of the commission...more
On March 28, 2024, in Sutton v. Jordan’s Furniture, Inc., the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) upheld a Massachusetts Superior Court decision finding the furniture retailer’s commission-based compensation scheme...more
On January 31, 2024, in Mehra v. Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC, a Massachusetts Superior Court judge held that a percent-of-profit incentive payment under a profit-sharing scheme is not a commission subject to the...more
In Klauber v. VMWare, the First Circuit upheld an employer’s use of a provision in its compensation plan that allowed it to modify commissions on certain large or atypical sales. These “windfall” clauses are common in sales...more
Psychologist Abraham Maslow once observed, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail.” That sums up the state of commission litigation under the Massachusetts Wage Act:...more
In a recent decision in Kennedy v. Weichert Co., the New Jersey Appellate Division concluded that the “ABC Test” under the Unemployment Compensation Law is inapplicable in determining a real estate salesperson status an...more
For many years, an oft-litigated question concerned whether a former employee was owed the commissions on sales made prior to the employee’s discharge from employment. Sometimes employment agreements were clear on the issue,...more
Under California law, an employee is exempt from California’s overtime requirements and other wage and hour laws if the person is employed in an administrative capacity. To meet this exemption, California’s wage orders and...more
A recent Ontario Superior Court decision, Kerner v. Information Builders (Canada) Inc., 2020 ONSC 2975, clarified whether an employee was entitled to commissions that were “booked and billed” after his job termination, but...more
In Massachusetts, a commission is a wage subject to the Wage Act when the amount of the commission “has been definitely determined and has become due and payable.” Accordingly, an employer’s failure to pay a commission which...more
On February 12, 2020, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) issued an opinion with significant implications for Massachusetts employers with commissioned employees. In Parker v. EnerNOC, Inc. (SJC-12703), the SJC...more
On October 29, 2019, the Utah Supreme Court issued a rare decision reversing the Utah Court of Appeals. At issue was whether an at-will salesperson who had completed six contracts for sale of television services, and who was...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Complex class actions often present a scenario in which some or most of the putative class members are subject to arbitration agreements, but the named plaintiff is not. In Gembarski v. PartsSource, Inc.,...more
Vehicle dealerships may have a bit more flexibility in determining which employees are exempt from overtime following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued this week that specifically rejected the decades-old principle that...more
• In Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Hector Navarro, et al., the U.S. Supreme Court decided 5-4 that service advisors at car dealerships are exempt from overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). • The Court held...more
North v Metaswitch Networks Corporation, 2017 ONCA 790 [Metaswitch] is the latest in a series of employee-friendly appellate level decisions where a contractual termination provision is not enforced. The Ontario Court of...more