On November 22, a federal district court judge in Texas issued a nationwide injunction prohibiting the Department of Labor from enacting its new overtime exemption salary increase on December 1 as scheduled. The judge...more
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, overtime pay is calculated based on the employee’s “regular rate.” The regular rate includes not just base compensation, but bonuses, incentive pay, commissions and other forms of cash and...more
With the December 1 effective date approaching for the Department of Labor’s increase in the minimum salary for claiming most overtime exemptions, many employers are considering moving employees to the fluctuating workweek...more
Many employers are currently reviewing their options for reacting to the December 1 increase in the minimum salary for claiming exemption from overtime requirements using the executive, administrative and professional...more
Neither the federal Fair Labor Standards Act nor wage payment laws in place in most states require that employers provide non-exempt employees with paid meal and other breaks. However, employers commonly offer employees paid...more
The December 1 effective date is rapidly approaching for the Department of Labor’s new white-collar overtime exemption salary levels. Employers struggling with their ability to pay the more than doubled salary minimums are...more
On September 29, the Department of Labor issued final regulations implementing President Obama’s Executive Order requiring federal contractors to provide paid sick leave for their employees. DOL estimates that the rule will...more
Employers faced with more than doubling the minimum salary paid to employees to maintain their overtime exempt status basically have two choices. First, they can increase the employees’ salaries to the new minimum. Second,...more
Managed care companies help insurers and government programs coordinate healthcare plans by making coverage determinations for participants. In many situations, case managers conduct utilization reviews to determine the...more
Earlier this month, Massachusetts’ Republican governor signed into law a bipartisan bill requiring employers to pay men and women equally for similar work. The law’s basic requirement is one in place in many states and under...more
Last week, a federal district court judge in California declined to certify a collective action claim by minor league baseball players who alleged they had not been paid overtime as required under the Fair Labor Standards Act...more
The hospitality industry continues to face an increasing number of collective action lawsuits filed by tipped employees who claim that their employers failed to comply with minimum wage requirements for servers and related...more
On July 14, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced changes to its proposed employer pay data collection proposal. The proposal would require employers to submit on an annual basis summary pay information for...more
Here is a common human resource scenario: An employee goes out of work on medical leave. While she is away from work, the managers or co-workers who cover her duties discover that the work can be readily accomplished without...more
7/19/2016
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Dismissals ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Legitimate Business Interest ,
Medical Leave ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Reduction in Hours ,
Reinstatement ,
Summary Judgment ,
Wage and Hour
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2002 Ragsdale decision rejected Department of Labor regulations stating that failure to provide employees with notice of leave rights was a per se violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act....more
Overtime paid to non-exempt employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act must be at time and one-half of the employee’s “regular rate.” The regular rate includes most compensation paid to the employee, such as bonuses and...more
Restaurants and some other businesses that use employees partially compensated by tips can claim a tip credit toward the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage requirements. However, the FLSA strictly regulates the servers’...more
The North Carolina Wage and Hour Act imposes liability on employers for failure to pay promised wages. The law is modeled after the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, and like the FLSA, individual managers and officers of a...more
In order to claim most exemptions from overtime and minimum wage requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers must pay a guaranteed salary. Employers can only deduct from such salaries in very limited...more
Under the “hired to invent” doctrine, employees who develop intellectual property during the course of their employment generally have no ownership rights to such innovations. Earlier this month, the North Carolina Supreme...more
6/28/2016
/ Assignment of Inventions ,
Bonuses ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Failure To Pay ,
Hired To Invent Doctrine ,
IP Assignment Agreements ,
NC Supreme Court ,
Patent Ownership ,
Patents ,
Rescission ,
Reversal ,
Wage and Hour
On June 20, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to provide a definitive opinion on a pay issue that has concerned automobile dealerships for years. The question involves whether dealership service advisors fall under the...more
6/28/2016
/ Arbitrary and Capricious ,
Car Dealerships ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Navarro v Encino Motorcars ,
Over-Time ,
Sales Commissions ,
SCOTUS ,
Service Advisors ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
Earlier this month in McFeeley v. Jackson Street Entertainment, LLC, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (which includes North Carolina and South Carolina) concluded that exotic dancers were employees entitled to minimum...more
For more than a half-century, Department of Labor regulations issued under the Fair Labor Standards Act have allowed employers to adopt an administrative rounding policy to prevent situations where the employer would be...more
The Department of Labor’s new salary level of $47,476 for white collar employees exempt from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act takes effect December 1. While the new rules more than double the current...more
On May 18, 2016, the federal Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division issued final regulations that dramatically increase the minimum salary required to claim exemption from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor...more