A federal judge has ordered Chipotle Mexican Grill to turn over attorney-client communications because the Company failed to meet a “good-faith” compliance requirement under federal law. This is a FLSA collective action case where the theory was that the chain misclassified a group of workers as exempt from overtime under the executive exemption of 29
Executive Exemption
Assistant Manager Exemption Case Goes For The Employer: A New Day Dawns!
By Mark Tabakman on
After a three-week jury trial, Southern New England Telephone Company has won a verdict finding that employees who were titled as field managers and classified as exempt, were in fact exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act and state law. This case is significant because, as a rule, first-level managers are often in reality “working…
Security Officers Found To Be Exempt Employees: An Interesting Twist
By Mark Tabakman on
It is often difficult to claim that security officers are exempt from overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act. However, in a recent federal lawsuit, four officers who were employed by a private, so-called, paramilitary force that provided security services at the atomic research laboratory at Los Alamos were ruled to be executive employees and…
Store Managers Always Pose Thorny Issue on Exemption Question
By Mark Tabakman on
In a recent posting in the Connecticut Employment Law blog, Steve Lavelle wrote about a recent case in involving the exemption status of Store Managers for Family Dollar Stores. The evidence showed that the employees rarely, if ever, discharged managerial duties and spent the vast amount of their time in performing duties identical to subordinates…
Law Firm Sued by Legal Secretary on Exemption Misclassification Theory
By Mark Tabakman on
Law firms are usually defending clients in wage-hour suits where the allegation is that the employee claims he/she has been misclassified as exempt when they are really not and are due overtime. But, law firms themselves must be diligent about properly classifying their own employees, especially when they categorize employees exempt under the administrative exemption.…
Another FLSA Class Action on Exempt Status of Dispatchers: The Threat Grows
By Mark Tabakman on
A federal judge has ruled that a dispatcher, who was suing as the named plaintiff in a FLSA collective action seeking overtime, was not able to prove that he was “similarly situated” to other employees and this the judge refused to grant even the conditional certification necessary to keep the case going. The case is…
Another FLSA Class Action on Exempt Status of Dispatchers: The Threat Grows
By Mark Tabakman on
A federal judge has ruled that a dispatcher, who was suing as the named plaintiff in a FLSA collective action seeking overtime, was not able to prove that he was “similarly situated” to other employees and this the judge refused to grant even the conditional certification necessary to keep the case going. The case is…
The Department of Redundancy Department: Class Action Style
By Mark Tabakman on
In an unusual move, Rite Aid Corp. is seeking dismissal of an overtime class action filed by a former drugstore employee, asserting it is identical to another class action that had been previously filed and is still working its way through the courts. The case is docketed as Georgianna Gordon v. Rite Aid Corp.
The…