Workforce Bulletin

On May 15, 2024, the New Jersey Supreme Court held in Maia v. IEW Construction Group that both the six-year look-back period and liquidated damages provided by the state Wage Theft Act (WTA) do not apply retroactively. Notably, the WTA’s extended statute of limitations will only apply to conduct that occurred after the WTA’s effective date—August 6, 2019. As such, employees filing suit before August 6, 2025 to recover unpaid wages may only recover for conduct occurring after the WTA’s effective date even though the relevant time period would not include the full six-year look-back period. Although the look-back period is now six years, if an employee files a lawsuit today, that employee would only be able to recover for conduct dating back to August 6, 2019 (which is a limitations period of less than 5 years). Similarly, employees may only recover liquidated damages—which were not previously available under the state wage and hour laws—for conduct occurring after the WTA’s effective date.

For background, the New Jersey Wage and Hour Law (WHL) and the New Jersey Wage Payment Law (WPL) require employers timely pay their employees for all wages earned, including any overtime. In August 2019, New Jersey enacted the WTA, amending the WHL and WPL by adding liquidated damages and extending the statute of limitations from two years to six years. This means that, pursuant to the WTA amendments, employees who file suit seeking to recover unpaid wages may recover any unpaid wages within six years prior to the commencement of such lawsuit (often referred to as the “six-year look-back period”) plus liquidated damages up to 200% of the wages owed, together with costs and reasonable attorney’s fees.

In 2019, in response to the “#MeToo” movement, the New Jersey Legislature enacted a law that made any “non-disclosure provision” in an employment contract or settlement agreement unenforceable against the employee, if the provision had “the purpose or effect of concealing the details relating to a claim of discrimination, retaliation, or harassment.”  N.J.S.A. § 10:5-12.8(a) (the “Law”).  The Law left unanswered whether it applied to “non-disparagement” provisions that are common in agreements settling employment disputes. 

On May 7, 2024, the New Jersey ...

Our colleagues Maxine Neuhauser, Nathaniel M. Glasser, Denise Dadika, & Anastasia A. Regne, at Epstein Becker Green have recently published a post on the Health Employment and Labor blog that will be of interest to our readers in the technology industry: “New Jersey’s Highest Court to Decide Whether Employers Are Required to Accommodate Medical Marijuana Use.”

Following is an excerpt:

In Wild, which we discussed in a recent client alert, plaintiff Justin Wild (“Wild”) alleged that his employer, Carriage Funeral Holdings (“Carriage ...