class

Subscribe to class via RSS

In a recent decision, a class of correctional officers at a county correctional facility filed a class action lawsuit alleging that they were not compensated for time spent working before and after their scheduled shifts. The plaintiffs sought damages under both the Fair Labor Standards Act and Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act. The Court issued a decision that (1) dismissed the plaintiffs’ PMWA claims, but (2) granted the plaintiffs’ motion to conditionally certify a collective action based on their claims under the FLSA. The Court concluded that government entities were not covered by the PMWA and dismissed the plaintiffs’ state law claims. However, the Court also held that plaintiffs met their initial burden of showing that the proposed class members were similarly situated and conditionally certified the class for purposes of an FLSA collective action.
Continue Reading The FLSA Applies to Public Sector Employers, Too

The Supreme Court of the United States continued its hot streak in the arbitration and class action waiver arena with two recent decisions. These decisions are important for employers because they may offer employers a way control expenses related to dispute resolution with employees. Because those expenses can be so high, many employers are considering implementing employment arbitration agreements, consistent with the direction provided by the Court.
Continue Reading Be Clear: Include Class Arbitration Waivers in Arbitration Clauses

As in most types of class-based litigation, plaintiffs in FLSA collective actions typically seek certification of as broad a class as possible. As the number of potential class members grows, so does the size of the employer’s potential liability and the plaintiffs’ leverage to obtain a large and lucrative settlement. One way to broaden the class size is to include employees of the employer’s sister companies in the class, under the theory that the sister companies’ parent company qualifies as the plaintiffs’ “joint employer.”

In the context of an FLSA collective action, the Third Circuit recently considered and established the test to be used to determine whether a parent company qualifies as the “joint employer” of its subsidiaries’ employees under the FLSA.
Continue Reading Third Circuit Clarifies “Joint Employer” Test Under FLSA

This post was contributed by Brett E. Younkin, Esq., an Associate and a member of McNees Wallace & Nurick LLC’s Labor and Employment Practice Group in Columbus, Ohio. On May 17, 2011, Brett reported that the United States Supreme Court was considering an important decision regarding class action suits.

UPDATE:

You may have heard the cheers emanating from Bentonville, Arkansas (the location of Wal-Mart’s corporate headquarters), and the corporate headquarters of other large employers following the United States Supreme Court’s announcement of its decision in Wal-Mart, Inc. v. Dukes, __U.S. ___ (2011) (PDF). On June 20, 2011, the Court decertified the class-action status of the 1.6 million current and former female employees in their decade-old suit against the world’s largest private employer. Betty Dukes and her two co-plaintiffs had alleged a nationwide pattern of discriminatory pay and promotion practices by the company, despite its published policy of non-discrimination. However, the Court unanimously disagreed and overruled the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which had allowed the case to proceed as a class action. The decision created what may be viewed as a higher burden of proof for establishing class action status.

While the Court was unanimous in deciding that this particular class should be decertified, only five of the justices joined in the entire ruling. In the majority opinion authored by Justice Scalia, the Court found that commonality was the key to certifying a class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 – “claims must depend on a common contention . . . which means that determination of its truth or falsity will resolve an issue that is central to the validity of each one of the claims in one stroke.” To attempt to resolve “literally millions of employment decisions at once” would not result in a unified answer for why a particular employee was disfavored. “Without some glue holding together the alleged reason for those [discriminatory] decisions, it will be impossible to say that examination of all the class members’ claims will produce a common answer to the crucial discrimination question.” The Court noted that the dissent from the lower court was correct in that the plaintiffs had “little in common but their sex and this lawsuit.”

Additionally, the opinion strongly rejected the plaintiffs’ expert witness testimony because, among other things, a litany of the expert’s peers had denounced his approach, analysis, and conclusions. The Court also concluded that while anecdotal evidence may be relevant, a hundred stories out of millions of employment decisions throughout 3,400 stores did not prove a pattern of discrimination.

What does this decision mean for employers? It certainly will have an impact in the litigation context if an employer finds itself in the unfortunate position of facing a class action lawsuit. In addition, the Court’s decision affirmed the use of anecdotes as evidence of discrimination and, therefore, inappropriate comments made by corporate leaders may be used as evidence of a corporate-wide discriminatory practice. As a result, employers are well advised to include corporate executives in refresher training regarding discrimination and harassment.Continue Reading UPDATE: Supreme Court Decertifies Class In Dukes v. Wal-Mart

This post was contributed by Brett E. Younkin, Esq., an Associate and a member of McNees Wallace & Nurick LLC’s Labor and Employment Practice Group in Columbus, Ohio.

The receipt of a federal lawsuit is generally viewed as a bad day for any employer; seeing that a plaintiff is seeking class action status on…

Human Resource Professionals face a demanding legal compliance year in 2009. The following five items should be added to your “To Do” list for the first quarter of ’09:

ADA Amendments Act Compliance (effective 1/1/2009):  The amendments greatly expand the definition of disability refocusing compliance on determining whether the employee is “qualified” and evaluating reasonable…