Typically, in our court system, we operate under the “American Rule” which means that parties have to pay their own attorneys’ fees in cases, regardless of whether they win or lose. (Contrast that with the English Rule which is a “loser pays” system.)
But there is one big exception to the American Rule — and
In an important 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court this morning held, for the first time, that class or collective action waivers, particularly in wage/hour cases, and contained in arbitration agreements between employers and employees are valid and enforceable.
Because wage and hour class and collective actions are quite costly for employers to defend
A reminder: Employees are entitled to overtime for work over 40 hours a week, unless an exemption applies. For so-called white collar workers, there are three main exemptions: administrative, professional and executive. Each of these categories looks at whether the employee had certain covered “duties” (known as the “duties” test) and a minimum guaranteed weekly salary (known as the “salary” test).
Under federal law (but not state law), there is also an exemption that allows employers to not pay overtime to “highly compensated” employees over $100,000 a year. These rules have been in place for nearly 10 years, but the regulations are far from clear.
A recent case out of the Second Circuit (Anani v. CVS) examined these exemptions and regulations. You can download the case here.
The case comes down to a fairly arcane part of the federal regulations addressing whether a “reasonable relationship” exists between the guaranteed amount an employee is supposed to receive and the amount actually earned. The Second Circuit concludes that this section does not apply when workers make over $100,000 under the FLSA.
It’s a fairly straightforward conclusion because to apply that language to highly compensated workers would render the rest of the regulation pretty meaningless. Thus, a win for the employer.Continue Reading Second Circuit Leaves Some FLSA Issues Up For Grabs
Suppose you have your employees’ sign agreements to arbitrate all of their employment disputes. (I’ve talked about arbitration agreements in many posts before.)
Can you have an arbitration agreement that says that an employee is precluded from bringing a Title VII (race or gender discrimination) class action claim in Court?
Employees have argued that
“How You Doin’? said the character Joey from the TV show “Friends“. I say that here because this post is about the “joint employer” test for the Fair Labor Standards Act and its an otherwise dry post.
“I know!” (You might be saying, if you were Monica from that same show.)
“Could that BE
This afternoon, I’m speaking at Workforce HR’s Techweek Conference on “Going Mobile”. It’s not too late to join us here as it is an online conference.
Oh, and did I mention that it’s FREE. There, got your attention.
One of the topics that I’ll be talking on is the legal risks involved with “going mobile”
In this week’s Connecticut Law Tribune, there’s a story about how the U.S. Department of Labor is hiring 250 more investigators and what this potentially means for wage/hour suits in Connecticut. The gist of the story is that employers should not surprised if there’s an increased focus on such claims.
I happen to be quoted
Two articles that I’ve come across over the last week have sparked my interest in the question of what impact cloud computing has on employment law.
Realizing that there are several of you who may think "cloud computing" is simply using your laptop on your next airline flight, let’s start with a discussion of cloud