While we generally look at overtime as a “wage and hour” issue, I am once again reminded of how overtime is connected to other employment statutes. Recently, on an issue of first impression, the First Circuit found that the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) allows a prevailing plaintiff to recover lost overtime as part
Overtime
Do Hours Worked On A Second Job Count Toward Overtime?
Q. An employee works for the company full-time, 7.5 hours per day, 5 days per week, at $20 per hour. To make ends meet, the employee also voluntarily works a different part-time job for the company on Saturdays, usually working an additional 7.5 hours at $15 per hour. The two jobs are completely separate and…
Court Rejects Challenge to DOL’s Interpretation That Mortgage Loan Officers are Non-exempt
I wanted to give our readers a quick update on the status of mortgage loan officers. In Mortgage Bankers Ass’n v. Solis, a federal district court in Washington D.C. recently rejected a challenge to the March 2010 DOL administrator’s interpretation that mortgage loan officers do not generally meet the administrative exemption under the FLSA. As…
Recent Settlements Agreeing to Pay Overtime for Misclassification of Employees
Misclassification of employees continues to bring a lot of headaches to employers. I have worked with a wide variety of businesses on this issue – from Fortune 500 to “mom and pop” companies. Each has its own way of doing things in this area and monitoring classification compliance is pretty low on the to-do list. …
Mario Batali Restaurants Settle Tip Pool Lawsuit For $5.25 Million
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…
Ten Things Small Business Needs To Know About Minimum Wage and Overtime
I read the stories every day: some small business, often a local restaurant or a similar “mom and pop” operation, gets sued or tagged by the Department of Labor for failing to pay minimum wages and overtime to employees. Here’s just one example.
I have worked with a fair number of small and midsize…
Seventh Circuit Weighs In On Commonality Requirement in Class Actions
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…
Does Lady Gaga Owe Assistant OT?
Imagine you are the personal assistant for the world’s most famous artist, Lady Gaga. You have the opportunity to travel the world, meet famous people and watch your boss hit the button to drop the “ball” in Times Square on New Years Eve. What could be better? Well, apparently, being paid overtime.
Recently, Lady Gaga’s…
Pharmaceutical Sales Representative Case Goes to Supreme Court
In a previous post in August, I questioned whether the pharmaceutical companies were losing the exemption battle as it related to pharmaceutical sales representatives and the outside sales exemption. The Supreme Court had declined to review the Second Circuit’s Novartis holding that pharmaceutical sales representatives do not qualify for the outside sales exemption because they…
Starting Computers and Reading E-Mail May Be Compensable Work
Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a settlement with Hilton Reservations Worldwide, LLC, in which the company agreed to pay $715,507 in minimum wages and overtime pay to 2,645 current and former customer service employees in Texas, Florida, Illinois and Pennsylvania. The DOL determined after an audit that the company failed to pay…