Just a quick update on a couple of our recent stories for you wage and hour litigation junkies:

Back on December 5, a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal of a case in which two former University of Pennsylvania student athletes claimed that they and other intercollegiate athletes were employees

Sorry employers, the ride’s not over yet. For those of you keeping track, the U.S. Department of Labor’s new overtime exemption rules were set to go into effect yesterday, December 1, 2016. However, on November 22, 2016, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking the rules

Close up of lights on police carIf a tree falls in the forest but there is no one around to hear, does it make a sound? If a non-exempt worker answers an e-mail message after hours on her Blackberry but fails to put in for overtime, has she performed compensable work? While I’m not aware of any firm legal authority on the first question, a recent ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois offers a detailed and instructive analysis of the second. 

In Allen v. City of Chicago, a group of 51 of current and former officers in the Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Organized Crime (“BOC”)  alleged that the City willfully violated the FLSA by requiring them to use their Blackberry devices for work-related communications while they were off duty without compensation. Continue Reading City Not Liable For Chicago Police Officers’ Blackberry Work Time

As you have read in our blog over the years, the misclassification of employees as exempt is one of the primary claims in wage and hour litigation.  Misclassification claims can arise in many forms, including the classification of a certain job in a particular industry.  Mortgage loan officers anyone?  Today’s post is focused on the