President Obama Proposes to Expand Overtime to over five Million Salaried Workers

On June 29, 2015, President Obama unveiled a dramatic change to the country's overtime pay law in an opinion piece published by the Huffington Post. The president's proposal seeks to extend overtime protection to nearly 5 million employees by raising the minimum threshold for guaranteed overtime pay from an annual salary of $23,660 to $50,440. Employees falling within the expansion would be guaranteed time-and-a-half for all hours worked over 40 hours in a week; in other words, if the rule takes effect as intended, the President will in one fell swoop have reverted a massive subsection of middle-income workers from exempt to non-exempt status, thereby entitling them to overtime pay. Further, going forward, the rule would link the minimum exemption salary to inflation levels, with the goal of avoiding another severe adjustment such as this in the future. More ›

Employment Status of Cosmetology Students is not so cut and Dry

The issue of whether "interns" are employees entitled to wages has been at the forefront of employment litigation over the past couple of years. Similar to interns, cosmetology students are now filing suits against their schools, claiming entitlement to wages for hours spent performing cosmetology services as a part of their curriculum and in order to obtain their state licenses. Not surprisingly, courts across the country have reached different results in this dispute.  More ›

California Restaurant Managers get Second Chance at Class Action

In Martinez v. Joe’s Crab Shack Holdings, the California Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate District reversed an order denying class certification to a group of managerial restaurant employees allegedly misclassified as exempt.

The case was brought by lower-level managers at Joe’s Crab Shack restaurants throughout California who complained that they performed many of the same tasks as hourly employees but did not qualify for overtime pay due to their managerial status. More ›

Courts may Certify Class Claims Where Damages Differ

In Benton v. Telecom Network Specialists, Inc., the California Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate District affirmed that employee wage and hour and meal break cases may be suitable for class certification even where employees experience diverse damages.

The case supports the proposition that courts considering whether common issues predominate for class certification purposes must focus on plaintiffs’ theory of liability and not on whether class members will have to prove their damages individually. More ›

Class Certification Rules Clarified: Harder for Plaintiffs to Certify Classes

On September 3, 2013, in Wang v. Chinese Daily News, Inc., the Ninth Circuit clarified the restrictions on class certification imposed by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes. The net effect of this ruling is to make it harder for plaintiffs to certify classes.

In Wang, named plaintiffs were employees of Chinese Daily News (“CDN”) who alleged that they had been made to work more than eight hours per day and more than forty hours per week. They also alleged that they were wrongfully denied overtime compensation, meal and rest breaks, and accurate and itemized wage statements. More ›

It just got Easier to Remove Class Actions

In Rodriguez v. AT&T Mobility Services LLC the Ninth Circuit cited recent United States Supreme Court precedent to make it more difficult for class action plaintiffs to pursue their claims in state court. More ›

Employers’ Ability to Collect Attorney’s fees in wage Cases Restricted by new Bill

On August 26, 2013, California Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 462 into law, making it harder for employers to obtain attorney’s fees in certain employment wage claim cases.

Prior to the passage of SB 462, section 218.5 of the California Labor Code required a court in any action brought for the nonpayment of wages, fringe benefits, or health and welfare pension fund contributions, to award reasonable attorney’s fees and costs to the prevailing party who requests such fees and costs at the outset of the case, regardless of whether the prevailing party was the employer or the employee. More ›

Ninth Circuit Allows Parties to Arbitrate Dispute Which had been Litigated for Years

In this recent arbitration decision out of the Ninth Circuit, the employee brought an action against her employer, alleging violations of California’s overtime laws and sought to assert claims on behalf of a class. After several years of litigation, the employee moved to certify a class. The District Court granted the motion in part, narrowing the class which the employee represented. In the same order, the court denied the employer's motion to compel arbitration, which was after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 131 S.Ct. 1740 (2011). The District Court found that the employer had waived its right to arbitration by litigating the action for years without raising the binding arbitration clause contained in the employee's employment agreement. More ›

Employer’s Right to Compel Arbitration, even Where Demand Is Delayed, Affirmed By Ninth Circuit

In Richards v. Ernst & Young, The Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court’s denial of defendant’s motion to compel arbitration of state wage and hour claims asserted by a former employee.

The District Court had determined that defendant had waived its right to arbitration by failing to assert that right as a defense. The Ninth Circuit reversed the judgment on the following grounds.

As the Court noted preliminarily, waiver of the contractual right to arbitration is not favored and, therefore, any party arguing waiver of a contractual right to arbitration bears a heavy burden. More ›

NY Court: Unpaid Interns Entitled to Protections of Labor Laws

Production interns on the set of a blockbuster movie claimed that they should have been classified as employees, not unpaid interns, and filed suit against the production company. The interns did basic tasks such as answering phones, arranged travel, took lunch orders, and general office work. They claimed that the production company violated federal and New York state minimum wage laws by not paying them for their work. The interns ultimately moved for summary judgment on the issue of whether they were employees covered under the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York Labor Law, and also sought class certification. The company also filed a motion for summary judgment and opposed the request for class certification. More ›