Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘wage and hour suits’

Bastianich: I’m through with NYC due to wage/hour suits

Entrepreneurial lawyers have filed numerous suits against New York City restaurants over alleged violations of tip-splitting and overtime rules, a trend helped along by wage rulings from the state Labor Department. Now one of the town’s best-known restaurateurs says he’s had enough, per the New York Post:

“Money-hungry lawyers, through frivolous lawsuits, are shaking down the very foundation of Manhattan’s restaurant industry,” fumed Joe Bastianich, co-owner of Eataly, Del Posto and Babbo.

Bastianich said the litigation — he has been sued twice — has left such a bitter taste that he’s done with setting up new ventures in New York.

“We opened Eataly and put 700 jobs in the New York economy. Since then we haven’t opened another restaurant in New York, nor will we,” Bastianich told The Post. “We opened three other restaurants, in California and Connecticut, worth 1,000 jobs that could have been here in New York. Someone in Albany needs to understand the agenda, what this is really costing the greatest restaurant city in the world.”

Earlier here, etc.

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Labor and employment law roundup

  • “EEOC showing late summer spike in discrimination suits” [NLJ]
  • In new Lamons Gasket case, NLRB generously protects unions from many secret-ballot decertification elections [Hyman] Some employers rename quickie-elections proposal “ambush elections” [ShopFloor; see also Hannah Bowen, CRC, PDF] “NLRB’s Pro-Big Labor Ruling Trifecta is Bad News for the Economy” [Ivan Osorio, CEI] Did NLRB have legal authority to issue rule requiring employers to post union-rights posters on pain of criminal penalties? [Schaumber/NRO via Ted/PoL]
  • Wage and hour law roundup: Law clerks fail in bid for overtime pay [Above the Law] “U.S. Open Umpires Sue for Overtime” [Fox Rothschild] Lawsuit challenges unpaid Hollywood internships [NYT]
  • Public sector labor reform: Let the lawsuits begin! [Daniel DiSalvo, Public Sector Inc.]
  • “Verizon Settles EEOC Disability Suit Based on No-Fault Attendance Policy” [Workplace Prof]
  • Just can’t win dept.: after white firefighters extract large settlement from city of New Haven over reverse discrimination, Second Circuit rules that black firefighters can sue the city over the same “validated” test [WSJ, Schwartz]
  • Screening job applicants through personality tests: when is it legal? [Hyman]
  • Way to discourage employers from offering sabbaticals: have courts construe them as deferred vacation benefits [Cal Labor] Way to discourage volunteers [Cain, FindLaw]
  • No, rules Judge Preska, the law doesn’t obligate employers to provide work/life balance [Hyman, Greenfield, PoL]
  • Another purportedly disabled firefighter fit enough to run an Ironman event [WITI] “Can you pay me under the table? I would lose my disability” [Coyote]

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Calif. bill proposes work rules, meal breaks for babysitters

The bill would also require employers of babysitters, i.e. parents, to prepare extensive paperwork and keep it on file for at least three years after a wage payment. Some critics say the obligation to provide periodic breaks would require families to hire a second sitter to relieve the first. Homeowners would be required to permit all-day domestic workers to prepare their own food in the family kitchen and would be forbidden to object to the workers’ choice of food. AB 889, sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-S.F.) and grandly labeled the “Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights,” has passed the lower house in Sacramento and will now be considered by the Senate. [NBC Los Angeles, Matt Welch, Sen. Doug LaMalfa, earlier] Last year New York made itself the first state to extend general workplace regulation to domestic employment.

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“If I could press a button and instantly vaporize one sector of employment law…”

In a new Reason symposium on how to revitalize the American job market, I explain my answer to that question.

More: This set off a round of discussion on employment blogs including Jon Hyman (nominating FLSA for vaporization), Suzanne Boy (concur), Daniel Schwartz (leave laws), Suzanne Lucas (citing “the fabulous Overlawyered.com”), the ABA Journal, Tim Eavenson, Jon Hyman again, HR Daily Report, and Russell Cawyer. Also relevant on age discrimination laws: a June symposium in the NYT’s “Room for Debate” feature; ComputerWorld on age bias and IT.

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August 12 roundup

  • More reviews of Schools for Misrule: Counterpoint (U. of Chicago), Wilson Trivino at PurePolitics.com;
  • “Cops Collar 12 Year Old for “Walking Alone” in Downtown Toronto” [Free-Range Kids] Cop tells mom kids under ten “by law are not allowed outside unsupervised except in their parents’ yard.” [western Maryland, same]
  • As lawmakers seek budget cuts, school finance litigators are on the march to counter their plans [WSJ Law Blog]
  • Wouldn’t waive regs: “U.S. blocks $1 million Italian supercar” [CNN Money]
  • You see, entrepreneurial suit-filing does create jobs: “Hike in Wage-and-Hour Litigation Spurs Demand for Calif. Employment Law Associates” [ABA Journal] How U.S. Congress devastated American Samoa through minimum wage hikes [Mark Perry]
  • CCAF objects in Sirius class action settlement [PoL, earlier]
  • “The Phantom Menace of Sleep Deprived Doctors” [Darshak Sanghavi, NY Times Magazine]

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May 9 roundup

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A tale of California labor law

“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]

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“FindLaw Legal Bloggers Sue for Overtime Pay”

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”).

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