I read an interesting article in the Morrison & Foerster blog the other day about a case where a class was de-certified because it appeared there was a problem with the lawyers for the class. As the blog post notes, defense counsel must always be looking for a way to terminate (i.e. dismiss) the case,
Need For Too Much Individual Scrutiny Defense Fails: A Real Bummer!
The employer who is fighting a collective or class action must make the argument that there is too much of a need for individual scrutiny to allow a class to proceed. There are times that argument works, and times it does not. An Illinois federal Judge has recently conditionally certified a class of logistics workers
Fifth Circuit Issues New Test For Determining Conditional Certification in FLSA Collective Actions: I Am Giddy!
I have often lamented how easy it seems for plaintiffs to secure conditional certification in a FLSA collective action. A few Affidavits, often identical in content, are produced and then, voila, the plaintiff gets conditional certification which then inordinately complicates matters for the employer and makes litigating the case and, of equal import, settling
Bah, Humbug! Hospital Hit With Another Of The FLSA Collective Actions On Missed Lunches
The health care industry seems to be ground zero for a particular kind of class action lawsuit. Many of these health care institutions have policies where a thirty-minute lunch period is automatically deducted from the daily scroll of hours. This is quite understandable, from an operational perspective, as it usually is difficult for employees to
Another Construction Industry Wage-Hour Lawsuit: The Trend Continues
The construction industry has had a long history of wage violations, whether of prevailing wage laws or just “ordinary” wage hour laws. Another example of this trend has emerged in New Jersey where an entity (and its subcontractors) have been sued in federal court in a collective action for alleged failure to pay overtime. The
Flimsy Affidavit From Named Plaintiff Insufficient to Secure Conditional Certification in FLSA Collective Action: A Case for Sanity!
It seems that plaintiffs (and their lawyers) think that all they have to do to get conditional certification is throw up a flimsy Affidavit from the named plaintiff and the Court will hand them conditional certification, like it is giving out candy. Fortunately, in the District of New Jersey that is not the case, as
Another FLSA Misclassification Case in the Energy Industry: A Continuing (and Troubling) Phenomenon
There have been a host of wage hour cases in the energy industry and I have often commented upon these. Many concern misclassification issues and another example of this phenomenon has arisen where a class of pipeline inspectors has requested that a federal court approve a settlement amounting to more than $2,000,000 where the theory
Another Assistant Manager FLSA Class Action Goes Down—When Will They Ever Learn?
I love Assistant Manager class actions because it gives a defense lawyer a “golden” opportunity to defeat class certification by asserting that too much individual scrutiny is required to allow a class action to proceed. A beautiful example of this is a recent Walmart case where a group of Assistant Managers dropped their misclassification lawsuits,
Joint Employer Angle Gives Interesting Twist to FLSA Truck Driver Collective Action
The whole trick for a plaintiff (and his lawyers) in a FLSA collective action case is to try to get conditional certification. Once that happens, the stakes automatically escalate for the defendant-employer, often leaving settlement as the most viable and cheapest manner of resolving the case. This process becomes more complicated when there is, as
Employee Status Will Not Be Determined by Judge in Conditional Certification Stage in FLSA Collective Action
There is no industry that is immune to wage hour or FLSA actions, including amateur sports leagues. In an interesting case, a federal Judge has granted conditional class certification to a class of members of an amateur football league who worked as referees and who were, they claim, compelled to perform the work of refereeing