One of the biggest threats facing employers is employees performing pre-shift/post-shift work without being paid and then suing, as a class, for that compensation. This trend is especially prevalent in
Continue Reading Will Employers Ever Learn? Boot-Up Cases in Customer Service Call Centers Are A Real Problem!
My colleagues, Colin Dougherty and Lindsey Cook, wrote about the coming of a new USDOL independent contractor rule that would likely further hamper an employer’s ability to use individuals (e.g.
Continue Reading USDOL Issues Final Independent Contractor Rule: The Box Closes In (A Little More)
As you may know, I am a big student of working time cases and often blog about them. One of my favorite categories of such cases are the so-called “dog
Continue Reading Bow-Wow–Security Officers Want Pay For Canine Care: Yet Another “Dog” Of A Case!
I love working time cases. And we got a real winner lately. The Third Circuit has recently ruled that clothes-changing time for oil rig workers was compensable. In so doing
Continue Reading Third Circuit Clarifies The Meaning Of “Integral and Indispensable” Test In Preliminary/Postliminary Working Time Cases: Employers Beware!
I see yet another class action lawsuit involving preliminary and postliminary activities, such as, in this case, donning-and-duffing clothing. A group of workers has sued their employer, a steel fabricating
Continue Reading Yet Another Preliminary/Postliminary Class Action: More Of The Same
The issue of working time, especially the issue of preliminary and postliminary activities and what activities are compensable, haunts me as a practitioner and is confusing for employers. Many of
Continue Reading Another Call Center Case Finding Boot Up Time Is Compensable: What Else Is New?
When a company issues franchises, and the workers (in this case janitors) claim they are not independent contractors and sue the franchise company, can that “relationship” be posited as a
Continue Reading A Franchisee-Franchisor Relationship Cannot Be A Defense In An Independent Contractor ActionMany employers believe that if an employee (or many employees) perform a tiny amount of work, or work-like activity, before their shifts, that brief off-the-clock, activity cannot be “working time”
Continue Reading These Pre-Shift Working Time Cases Keep Popping Up–Employers Beware!
There are so many independent contractor cases that go against the employers that when one goes the other way, it is a big deal. That is what has just happened
Continue Reading Costco Wins Independent Contractor Case: Is The Tide (Hopefully) Changing?
In an off-beat case that revolved around the IRS twenty-factor test for independent contractor, an appellate court in Missouri has affirmed the state Labor Commission ruling that caretakers working for
Continue Reading Bow-Wow: Court Finds Pet Sitters Are Employees, Not Independent Contractors