Wage and Hour Defense Blog

By William J. Milani, Dean L. Silverberg, Jeffrey M. Landes, Susan Gross Sholinsky, Anna A. Cohen, and Jennifer A. Goldman

The New York State Department of Labor (“DOL”) has adopted wage deduction regulations (“Final Regulations”) pertaining to the expanded categories of permissible wage deductions in the New York Labor Law, effective October 9, 2013. 

As we previously reported (see the Act Now Advisory entitled “New York State Releases Proposed Wage Deduction Regulations”), among other things, the Final Regulations (i) set forth information concerning the subset ...

By: Kara Maciel and Jordan Schwartz

On September 16, 2013, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced that Harris Health System (“Harris”), a Houston health care provider of emergency, outpatient and inpatient medical services, has agreed to pay more than $4 million in back wages and damages to approximately 4,500 current and former employees for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime and recordkeeping provisions. The DOL made this announcement after its Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) completed a more than two-year investigation into the ...

by Jeffrey H. Ruzal

On September 17, 2013, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued a final rule extending the federal minimum wage and overtime pay protection under the Fair Labor Standards Act (the “FLSA”) to many direct care or domestic service workers, including home health aides, personal care aides and nursing assistants. The rule will take effect on January 1, 2015.

For almost 40 years, an exemption from the minimum wage and overtime requirements of the FLSA has applied to domestic service workers employed to provide “companionship services” for an ...

By Michael Kun

A California plaintiff who prevails in a wage-hour lawsuit generally may recover his or her attorney’s fees.  The same is so for employers -- but only for the next few months.

A new statute will take effect in January 2014 that will change whether and how an employer who prevails in such a case may recover its fees.  In a state already overrun with wage-hour lawsuits with questionable merit, that new statute seems to ensure that even more meritless wage-hour lawsuits will be filed by plaintiffs’ counsel who count on the in terrorem effect of those lawsuits to force ...

by John F. Fullerton III

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently took a significant step toward bringing uniformity to the law of class and collective action waivers under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). 

In Sutherland v. Ernst & Young LLP, the court held that employees can be contractually compelled to arbitrate their claims on an individual basis, and thereby waive their right to participate in a FLSA collective action. The decision is another in a series of cases that have required employees to arbitrate employment-related claims on an individual basis ...

Michael Kun, chair of EBG’s wage-hour practice group, was recently quoted by California Lawyer magazine regarding the impact of the California Supreme Court’s decision in Brinker v. Superior Court on California wage-hour class actions.

by Elizabeth B. Bradley

On July 2, 2013, in Mortgage Bankers Ass’n v. DOL, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia vacated a DOL Administrative Interpretation issued in 2010 which declared that Mortgage Loan Officers are not exempt from the FLSA overtime requirements. 

Does this mean that employers can now covert their Mortgage Loan Officers to exempt, salaried, compensation plan? Not likely.

The Court of Appeals ruling vacated the DOL Administrative Interpretation on a technicality – the Court found that the DOL failed to provide the required public notice and ...

By: Dean Silverberg, Bill Milani, Jeffrey Landes, Susan Gross Sholinsky, Anna Cohen, and Jennifer Goldman

The New York State Department of Labor ("DOL") recently published its long-awaited proposed regulations ("Proposed Regulations") pertaining to the newly expanded categories of permissible wage deductions pursuant to the New York State Labor Law ("Labor Law"). As we previously reported (see the Act Now Advisory entitled "New York Labor Law Significantly Expands the Scope of Permissible Wage Deductions"), the amendments to Section 193 of the Labor Law ("Section 193 ...

By: Kara Maciel and Jordan Schwartz

As discussed in prior blogs, due to confusion surrounding FLSA tip pool requirements, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) Wage and Hour Division enacted a strict rule in 2011 related to proper tip pooling and service charge practices. This rule was met with swift legal challenges, and earlier this week the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon concluded that the DOL had exceeded its authority when implementing its final rule. See Oregon Rest. and Lodging Assn. v. Solis, No. 3:12-cv-01261 (D. Or. June 7, 2013).

Inconsistent ...