Category: Wage & Hour

In a unanimous decision, the United States Supreme Court held Tuesday that time employees spend going through an employer’s theft-prevention security screening process is not compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) because the screening is not “integral and indispensable” to the worker’s principal activities. Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, No. 13-1433 (Dec. 9, 2014). The Integrity employees involved in this case...

A former NCAA Division I soccer player at the University of Houston has filed a Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) collective action on behalf of herself and other Division I student-athletes. Samantha Sackos sued the NCAA and all of the NCAA Division I member schools, and claims that she should have been classified as a temporary employee of the schools as opposed to an uncompensated student-athlete. The lawsuit, filed this past Monday, can be found...

Maryland’s federal court recently permitted a collective action brought pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to proceed to trial. In Butler, et al. v. Directsat USA, LLC, et. al. Jeffrey Butler filed suit on behalf of himself and other similarly situated satellite installation technicians pursuant to the FLSA, as well as Maryland’s Wage and Hour Law, Maryland’s Wage Payment and Collection Law and the District of Columbia’s Minimum...

A different set of rules applies to settling wage and hours disputes under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).   Regular contract law does not apply, because the FLSA’s provisions are mandatory and generally are not subject to bargaining, waiver, modification by contract, or even settlement. Stated simply, an employee cannot waive his right to minimum wage or overtime. Therefore, for more than 30 years, since the Eleventh Circuit’s decision in...

It wasn’t that long ago when, in October 2013, Congress failed to pass a budget and the federal government shut down. As evidenced by a recent opinion from the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the impact of the shutdown is not quite over. Martin v. United States, No. 13-834C (Fed. Cl. July 31, 2014). A week after the shutdown ended, a group of federal government employees filed suit alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29...