Employer Law Blog

Plaintiffs were unpaid interns on the Fox Searchlight distributed film Black Swan. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York found the Black Swan interns were employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York Labor Law. The court applied a version of the U.S. Labor Department’s six factor test, which was derived from the 68 year-old Supreme Court decision Walling v. Portland Terminal Co., 330 U.S. 148 (1947), to determine whether the interns fell within an exception for unpaid trainees.

As we have previously reported, the EEOC has taken an adversarial stance towards employers that impose negative consequences on employees who do not take advantage of wellness program initiatives. While the Affordable Care Act specifically authorized employers to utilize and implement wellness program initiatives in order to encourage healthy lifestyle choices by its employees, the EEOC has reacted by suing employers contending that such initiatives violate the ADA prohibitions on medical inquiries or discrimination against individuals because of their disabilities.