The prohibition against private settlements of FLSA claims was scrutinized again last week, when U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York held that parties could voluntarily dismiss an FLSA lawsuit without obtaining approval of the settlement agreement from the court. Picerni v. Bilingual SEIT & Preschool Inc.
Courts in FLSA cases have historically expressed the concern that individual waivers of FLSA rights would enable employers to use their superior bargaining power to extract individual waivers from their employees and “thwart ...
On December 17, 2012, in Crocker v Townsend Oil, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court invalidated a settlement agreement, waiver and release to the extent it purported to release claims under the Massachusetts Wage and Hour Laws, but did not expressly include that statute by name among the claims being released. Specifically, the Court held:
We...conclude that a settlement or contract termination agreement by an employee that includes a general release, purporting to release all possible existing claims will be enforceable as to the statutorily ...
By Douglas Weiner and Meg Thering
In one of the many “wrinkles” in Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) litigation, settlements of wage and hour disputes between an employer and its employees are only enforceable if supervised by the U.S. Department of Labor or approved by a court. Courts will approve settlements if they are “fair”; however, as demonstrated in a recent decision arising out of New Jersey - Brumley v. Camin Cargo Control - courts may need to be reminded that employers also have rights and legitimate interests. The Brumley Court took what was a bargained-for ...
by Dean L. Silverberg, Jeffrey M. Landes, Susan Gross Sholinsky, and Jennifer A. Goldman
On September 21, 2011, the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") announced a new program that will give businesses the opportunity to resolve prior worker classification issues by voluntarily reclassifying their non-employee workers (such as consultants, freelancers, and independent contractors) as employees for federal employment tax purposes. Officially called the "Voluntary Classification Settlement Program" ("VCSP"), this program is part of a larger "Fresh Start" initiative at the ...
By Amy Traub and Christina Fletcher
Once a settlement has been reached in an FLSA collective action, the defendant-employer typically wants that settlement to go into effect and end the case as soon as possible, so that the company can get past the myriad of distractions brought by the suit. However, as litigants increasingly are finding, the parties’ agreement to settle an FLSA collective action is nowhere near the end of the road, or the end of the case. There is a “judicial prohibition” against the unsupervised waiver or settlement of claims brought under the ...
Last month I reported that United States District Judge Kenneth L. Ryskamp had sanctioned the Shavitz Law Group, one of the leading plaintiff-side wage-hour firms in Florida, for soliciting plaintiffs in violation of Florida Bar Rules. The case was Hamm v. TBC Corp. and Tire Kingdom, Inc., Case No. 07-80829-CIV-RYSKAMP/VITUNAC.
The Shavitz firm recently struck back, filing a motion to disqualify or recuse Judge Ryskamp from presiding over a different case, a Fair Labor Standards Act collective action against Abercrombie & Fitch. The motion quoted Judge Ryskamp's ...
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Recent Updates
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