By Guest Author: Michael A. Warner, Jr.
In recent years, one tactic for attempting to defeat wage and hour class and collective action lawsuits class action lawsuits has been to offer the named plaintiffs full relief for their individual claims in the case. Even if the offer is declined, the theory goes, the offer renders
Last week, the Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari to Tyson Foods in an appeal of a class and collective action filed under the FLSA and a similar Iowa state law. Hourly workers at Tyson’s Storm Lake, Iowa pork processing plant filed a lawsuit claiming unpaid overtime for time spent donning and doffing personal
Guest Author: Lindsey Marcus
Some good news for employers. In a recent 5-4 opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court held that collective-action claims brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) are moot when the named plaintiff has no continuing personal interest in the outcome of the lawsuit and no motion for conditional certification has been
Shortly after my co-author, Bill Pokorny, wrote about celebrity and Iron Chef Mario Batali’s multi-million dollar settlement of a class action tip pooling lawsuit, another celebrity chef here in Chicago was sued for violating tip pooling laws. In March 2012, a lawsuit was filed against Master Chef Graham Elliot by 14 former employees over tip
On September 12, 2012, Family Dollar announced that it will pay up to $14 million to settle a class action in the Southern District of New York. Similar to other class actions filed against Family Dollar over the years, New York store managers claimed that the Company failed to pay them overtime. Although the agreement
The latest news in celebrity chef wage and hour litigation is that eight New York restaurants owned by Mario Batali have agreed to settle $5.25 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that they illegally withheld tips from hourly service workers. The proposed settlement, which must still be approved by the court following a
The Seventh Circuit recently applied the Supreme Court’s Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes decision to class certification in a wage and hour action, and affirmed the certification of two classes. Ross v. RBS Citizens N.A. d/b/a Charter One. The Seventh Circuit held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in certifying two
By now most of you who follow developments in employment law have likely heard about and possibly read the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, overturning certification of a class action sex discrimination case brought on behalf of 1.5 million current and former female Wal-Mart employees. (If not, our recent FR Alert on this case will get you up to speed.) While Dukes is a sex discrimination case, it is likely to have a major impact upon class actions in other areas of the law, including wage and hour lawsuits.
Continue Reading What Wal-Mart v. Dukes Means for Wage & Hour Law, Employers