Wage and Hour Defense Blog

On January 9, 2024, the United States Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division (WHD) announced a final rule regarding how to determine whether a worker qualifies as an employee or may be considered an independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).  Designed to combat misclassification, the final rule rescinds DOL’s Trump-era Independent Contractor Rule issued in January 2021 and restores the non-exhaustive six-factor test courts have long used to evaluate whether or not independent contractors were properly classified.  The test considers:

Here’s a question you likely have never considered: Are hackers overseas infiltrating employers’ computer systems just to sign arbitration agreements with class action waivers for random employees?

While there is no evidence that this has ever happened anywhere, and no logical reason why it would, plaintiffs’ lawyers and even some courts seem to believe this could happen. And that is at the heart of the latest battleground over arbitration agreements with class actions waivers.

Since the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Epic Systems v. Lewis, more and more ...

On January 17, 2024, the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court for the Second Department held in Grant v. Global Aircraft Dispatch, Inc. that no private right of action exists for a violation of New York Labor Law (“NYLL”) Section 191, the frequency of payment provision that dictates how often New York employers must pay certain types of employees. The decision in Grant creates a departmental split with a previous decision issued by the First Appellate Department over whether a private right of action exists under the NYLL and arrives on the heels of Governor Hochul’s ...

On January 18, 2024, the California Supreme Court issued its much-anticipated decision in Estrada v. Royalty Carpet Mills, resolving a dispute among the appellate courts and concluding that Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) claims may not be stricken as unmanageable. 

While some have read the decision as a resounding victory for the plaintiffs’ bar that will force every PAGA case to settle for large amounts, the decision does no such thing.

It may challenge employers and their lawyers to be more creative, but it does not mean that every PAGA action now warrants an outsized ...

With the new year comes raises in minimum wages, yet again.  As reflected in the charts below, in 2024, minimum wage and, in applicable jurisdictions, tipped minimum wage will increase in 23 states and in a number of counties and cities.

Accordingly, employers with minimum wage workers (or tipped minimum wage workers) should consult with counsel to ensure that their compensation practices are compliant with the laws in all of the jurisdictions in which they operate.

On December 27, 2023, and just in time for the 2024 ball to drop, the New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL) finalized the salary thresholds for exempt employees that were proposed as a part of Minimum Wage Order Updates in October 2023. Similarly, New York passed Senate Bill S5572 in September 2023, increasing the salary thresholds for exempt employees under Article 6 of the New York Labor Law.

As a reminder, the classification of exempt or non-exempt is particularly important for determining which employees are (1) exempt from the overtime laws, meaning that such employees are ...