Keen to sic the feds on your boss? There’s an app for that, courtesy of the Department of Labor. [Michael Fox]
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Posts tagged as:
wage and hour suits
- New DoL classification mandate could tee up wage/hour class actions [Peter Kirsanow, NRO Corner] “Survey of wage and hour settlement highlights risk to employers” [Hyman]
- Why 24/7/365 campaigns? Because politics “has taken over so much of life” [Roger Pilon, Cato at Liberty]
- Nigerian auto tariffs have ripple effects for the worse in Prince George’s County, Md. [Tyler Cowen]
- Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli’s dubious case against climatologist [Barton Hinkle, Richmond Times-Dispatch]
- Employers and jobs moving from California to… Michigan? [Perry]
- “Huffington Post Law Suit: Should You Work For Free?” [Suzanne Lucas, BNET, earlier here, here, etc.]
- With apparent aim of protecting music rights holders, lawmakers heap burdens on sellers of used CDs [four years ago on Overlawyered]
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“Bookworm,” the Bay Area-based blogger, tells the story of what happened in a case on which she worked, which arose after an employer encountered the interaction of two California laws, one requiring that final wages be paid within three days, another tilting attorneys’ fee awards toward employees in disputes with employers. A highlight: when the California Supreme Court attempted to correct some of the most extreme unfairness arising from the fee rules, it got overridden by the state legislature. [Bookworm Room]
It’s not getting one-ten-thousandth the coverage of Mr. Tasini’s suit against the Huffington Post, perhaps because it’s not based on quite such an exotic set of legal theories. FindLaw pays staffers to write legal blogs and the suit charges that they were encouraged/allowed to work unpaid overtime. [ABA Journal] Eric B. Meyer has more (“Working through lunch may create overtime issues for employers”).
Amid the general hail of dead cats that commentators have aimed at the class action suit claiming to speak for unpaid Huffington Post bloggers, Jack Shafer’s contribution stands out (action “proves that we’re becoming a nation of Winklevosses who file legal motion after legal motion every time a pot of money is spotted….the proper time to negotiate payment for an article is before publication”).
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The site generally promised to pay nothing to its bloggers, and has lived up to that promise. [Romenesko/Washington Post, Radley Balko, Atlantic Wire, Coyote (FLSA is a more unreasonable law than you may assume), Max Kennerly ("unjust enrichment" theories not going anywhere), Volokh (next: suits on behalf of unpaid commenters), Lawrence Cunningham ("close to zero" chance of suit prevailing); & followup (with Jack Shafer's views)]
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- New Yorker suing boss for $2M because working in New Jersey caused him “anguish” [Biz Insider]
- British lawyer’s libel threats impede UK publication of Paul Offit vaccine book [Respectful Insolence]
- Lawsuit settlement leads to Florida push to curb tobacco discounter [WSJ; background, Jeremy Bulow]
- Allegation: attorneys made personal use of cy pres fund in Armenian genocide settlement [PoL]
- “Telecommuting employees raise special wage and hour issues” [Hyman]
- UK bias cops wonder whether to ban gay-preferred along with gay-not-preferred guesthouses [Ed West, U.K. Telegraph]
- Copyright mills: “Local law firm wants to defend people sued by local law firm” [TBD] Related: [Citizen Media Law, Coleman]
- “Top 10 Reasons to Not Open a Bar or Restaurant in NYC” [NY Enterprise Report]
- “Lawyer held in contempt for advising clients to retake foreclosed home” [Ventura County Star, earlier]
- Some perspective on Wisconsin Gov. Walker’s plans: about half the states curtail some or all public-sector unionism [Barro]
- Guy who sued over Jimmy Carter book offers his side of story [Turley, earlier]
- “Disbarment recommended for litigator Chesley over fen-phen fees” [NLJ, PoL, previously on scandal] Kenneth Feinberg affidavit in case draws scrutiny [Steele/LEF, Frank/PoL]
- Mississippi: “Minor, 2 ex-judges disbarred by state Supreme Court” [Sun-Herald, related on scheduled resentencing, earlier]
- “AIG Ended Up Having To Pay Millions For the Duke Lacrosse Stripper Lawsuit” [Business Insider, earlier]
- Labor Department hotline to put workers in touch with private lawyers [Fox Biz, Wood/PoL]
- Underage man on hook for child support to older woman [seven years ago on Overlawyered]
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Such is the theme of a legal audio conference. The wave-after-next of employment litigation, presumably, consists of suits by workers infuriated because their employers have curtailed permission for telecommuting on advice of HR lawyers trying to avoid the wage-and-hour suits.
“The calendar [on a U.S. Department of Labor "We Can Help" website] encourages employees to track their arrival and leave times, start and stop times, meal breaks, and other breaks on a daily basis. The distinctions drawn between arrival versus start times and stop versus leave times suggests that the DOL is trolling for potential off-the-clock claims against employers.” [Jon Hyman, Ohio Employer's Law]
An update on lawsuits claiming employees should be on the books for pay and overtime purposes if the employer asks them to carry a BlackBerry [Workplace Prof, NPR, earlier]
New obligations and liabilities for employers, as catalogued by the law firm of Ogletree Deakins.
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The test case in the city of Muenster has German municipal officials worried about busted budgets. [Guardian, Telegraph] So-called “don/doff” lawsuits have been a pretty big deal in our own employment law in recent years, although, as our 2008 report from Arkansas indicates, they don’t always have the support of the putative victims.
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Lenders have taken over control at a newspaper that for decades served as a libertarian voice whose influence extended far beyond Southern California; lawsuits between members of the founding family played a key role in the paper’s downfall, and an employee classification suit filed on behalf of carriers didn’t help either.
- Tossed: “Zulu coconut lawsuit thrown out on appeal” [NOLA.com; earlier on this Mardi Gras tradition and the law Louisiana passed to protect it]
- Maryland: “Felony Charges for Recording a Plainclothes Officer” [Rittgers, Cato at Liberty]
- More on decline of local slaughterhouses under federal regulation [Zachary Adam Cohen, NYT "Room for Debate"; earlier]
- “Now Brussels has declared that tourism is a human right” [Times Online via Coyote]
- Three taxes that are a more immediate danger than a VAT [David Frum; my take, at National Journal blogger poll]
- “WorldNetDaily Sues White House Correspondents Association Over Dinner Tables” [MediaBistro, more]
- Department of Labor vs. internship programs: one target’s view [Terry Michael, Reason; earlier]
- Allegedly easy way bloggers can comply with FTC endorsement regs [Chris Pirillo]
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Coyote on the internship crackdown. More: Hyman.
- Woman “discreetly” leaning over to use cellphone during movie says armrest smacked her on head, sues theater [Chicago Breaking News, Sun-Times] Plus: more links at ChicagoNow;
- For a really cogent analysis of the effects of lawsuits over independent contractor classification, ask someone whose livelihood is at stake, like this Massachusetts stripper [Daily Caller]
- Menaced by lawsuit, WordPress.com yanks a blog attacking a cancer therapist, then restores it [MWW]
- Baby slings, cont’d: a CPSC recall, and already Sokolove and Lieff Cabraser are advertising [Stoll, more, earlier]
- Law student’s suit demanding pass/fail grading in legal writing class results in “fail” [ABA Journal]
- More details on new federal mandate for restaurant and vending machine calorie counts [update to earlier post]
- “As suits pile up, plaintiff labeled ‘vexatious litigant’” [Virginian-Pilot]
- Tweet a summary of your favorite Supreme Court case (& cc in comments below if you like) [Daniel Schwartz, hashtag #cbftech, what others have done]
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