Tag Archives: wage and hour

Statistics in Wage and Hour Class Actions: Has Anything Really Changed?

By Greg Mersol on April 25, 2016 Posted in FLSA, Wage and Hour

The probability is “not really” Statistics are kind of a holy grail of class action litigation. Everyone seems to know that they exist, but their understanding is shadowy and the quest to find valid statistical models often proves elusive. Last month’s Supreme Court decision in Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo, Case No. 14-1146 (Mar. 22, … Continue Reading

Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo: The Supreme Court Produces a Narrow Holding Involving FLSA Precedent and Rule 23 Principles

By John Lewis and Dustin Dow on March 25, 2016 Posted in FLSA, Rule 23

Employees have been bringing wage-and-hour collective actions since long before class procedures were officially integrated into the Federal Rules of Civil Procedures in 1966. Section 16(b) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) permitted collective actions when it was passed in 1938. In 1946, the Supreme Court in Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 … Continue Reading

Court Grants Summary Judgment for Employer in Apple Class Action Seeking Pay for Time Spent in Security Checks

By Greg Mersol on November 12, 2015 Posted in FLSA

Free Choice Tanks Plaintiffs’ Claims Just last year, the Supreme Court held in Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, 135 S. Ct. 513 (2014) that employees working at an Amazon.com warehouse were not entitled to overtime pay for time they spent in exit security checks designed to ensure that they were not taking company product … Continue Reading

Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case Addressing Scope of Wage and Hour Class and Collective Actions

By Greg Mersol on June 10, 2015 Posted in Collective Action, FLSA, Retail, Wage and Hour

It’s hard enough to predict what the Supreme Court will do on a given case even after it has been briefed and oral argument has been heard. It’s even harder when all we have is the decision accepting certiorari, but this one is important enough to note. The Supreme Court has now accepted certiorari in a … Continue Reading

Court Approves Overtime Class Settlement After Initially Rejecting It

By Greg Mersol on January 16, 2015 Posted in Meal and Rest Periods

We wrote last May about the court’s rejection of a $1.75 million settlement in Cruz v. Sky Chefs, Inc., Case No. C-12-02705 DMR (N.D. Cal. 2014) [May 27, 2014]. The court’s decision related to the settlement of run-of-the-mill California wage and hour claims purportedly brought on behalf of approximately 3,000 employees involved in the preparation … Continue Reading

Nevada Supreme Court Finds Class of Strippers Were Employees

By Greg Mersol on December 3, 2014 Posted in FLSA, Independent Contractors, Wage and Hour

Given the extensive use of euphemisms in the exotic dancing trade, we’ll apologize in advance for any unintended puns. We’ve written on the issue of the classification of exotic dancers or strippers in the past [April 8, 2011, October 19, 2011, November 21, 2012], but the question continues to ripple through the courts. While the … Continue Reading

California District Court Rejects Yet Another Class Settlement

By Greg Mersol on November 17, 2014 Posted in Wage and Hour

“Another one bites the dust…” In yet another decision rejecting a settlement of an employment class action, the Northern District of California refused to approve a settlement of a wage and hour suit due to numerous problems with the resolution reached between the parties. In Myles v. AlliedBarton Security Services, LLC, Case No. 12-cv-05661-JD (N.D. … Continue Reading

California District Court Finds Bankrupt Named Plaintiffs Not Adequate Representatives

By Greg Mersol on October 15, 2014 Posted in Rule 23, Wage and Hour

Anyone questioning whether the Supreme Court’s decision in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2541 (2011), has had an impact need look no further than the decision in Alakozai v. Chase Investment Services Corp., Case No. CV 11-09178 SJO (JCx) (C.D. Cal. Oct. 6, 2014). The Alakozai matter was a wage and hour … Continue Reading

Ninth Circuit Reverses District Court, Rules FedEx Drivers in California and Oregon are Employees

By Todd Lebowitz on September 2, 2014 Posted in Independent Contractors

The brain teaser game, What am I? can keep kids and adults occupied for hours: The more you take of me, the more I leave behind. What am I? I have a face but no eyes, hands but no arms. What am I? I disappear every time you say my name. What am I? (Don’t … Continue Reading

West Virginia District Court Refuses To Certify Fail Safe Class

By Greg Mersol on May 16, 2014 Posted in Rule 23, Wage and Hour

It’s not uncommon to see putative classes pleaded in terms of the violation of a specific statute, such as “all managers misclassified as exempt by defendant” or “all persons harmed by defendant’s discriminatory policies.” In all likelihood, classes may be pleaded this way due to the attorney’s bravado that, of course, all of the defendant’s … Continue Reading

Russell v. Citigroup Inc. – Language in Revised Arbitration Agreement Torpedoes its Application to Pending Class Action

By John Lewis on April 15, 2014 Posted in Arbitration, Off-the-clock, Wage and Hour

A Sixth Circuit panel found the text of an updated arbitration agreement indicated it did not apply to a wage and hour class action already pending when the agreement was signed. Russell v. Citigroup, Inc., Case No. 13-5994 (6th Cir. April 4, 2014). Keith Russell had worked at a Citicorp call center in Florence, Kentucky … Continue Reading

Employees Seek To Take Bite From Apple (and Urban Outfitters)

By Jeffrey Vlasek on February 25, 2014 Posted in Overtime Claims, Retail, Wage and Hour

Chances are that if you ask someone what they remember from the cult-classic Paul Verhoeven film Total Recall, they’ll recall (among other things) the sequence where Arnold Schwarzenegger attempts to sneak through security. In the sequence, guards watch all of the citizens passing through on a large x-ray screen which depicts their skeletons (in glorious … Continue Reading

California Courts Deny Certification In Wage and Hour Cases Based On Claim That Employer “Should Have Known” Of Unpaid Time

By Greg Mersol on January 10, 2014 Posted in Class Certification, Wage and Hour

Back in October, we reviewed a number of California cases that, for the most part, denied certification in cases in which certification would have largely been a foregone conclusion only a few years ago. The first few days of 2014 have been quiet on the class action front so far, so let’s review a few … Continue Reading