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 ...
By: Greta Ravitsky and Jordan Schwartz
On July 24, 2012, the Fifth Circuit became the first federal appellate court in over thirty years to enforce a private settlement of a wage and hour dispute arising under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) in Martin v. Spring Break ’83 Productions LLC.
For decades, federal courts have consistently held that FLSA wage and hour disputes may not be settled privately without approval from either the Department of Labor (“DOL”) or a federal district court. This apparently “settled” area of law was based exclusively on the Eleventh ...
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Recent Updates
- New York Enacts Amendment to Limit Frequency of Pay Damages for Manual Workers
- DOL Shelves Independent Contractor Rule
- Time Is Money: A Quick Wage and Hour Tip . . . Contractual Indemnification May Not Guard Against FLSA Claims
- California Court of Appeal Holds That Prospective Meal Waivers for Shifts Between Five and Six Hours are Enforceable
- New Jersey Supreme Court Confirms: Commissions Are Wages Under the New Jersey Wage Payment Law