We address issues, cases and matters of statutory and regulatory compliance of employment law that can impact a business' growth and profitability.
On May 19, 2023, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals became the second federal appellate court to address and reject a commonly applied “lenient” standard for plaintiffs to conditionally certify FLSA collective actions.
At the end of 2021, we discussed in our Labor & Employment podcast some of the significant legal developments from that year. One of those developments involved the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals - in a case styled Swales v. KLLM Trans. Servs., LLC - rejecting the prevailing “two-step” approach to FLSA conditional certification of overtime or minimum wage claims. This “two-step” approach has been repeatedly characterized by courts as “lenient” and widely considered to be favorable to plaintiffs.
For the last 40 years, most courts have required court approval of settlements under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for their releases of claims to be valid and enforceable. This requirement stemmed from the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals’ opinion in a case from 1982 styled Lynn’s Food Stores, Inc. v. United States, wherein the court concluded court approval of settlements was necessary under the FLSA to ensure their fairness.
On May 4, 2022, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion affirming the District Court’s award of only $1 in attorneys’ fees in action for unpaid overtime wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”).
March has been a busy month on the legal front for Major League Baseball. Baseball fans can now breathe a large sigh of relief, as a contentious, months-long lock-out finally came to end on March 10, 2022, when the MLB and the MLB Players Association reached agreement on a new CBA for the next 5 years.