Blogs

On August 10, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued a unanimous opinion in favor of the plaintiff J. Neil DeMasters in DeMasters v. Carilion Clinic, Inc. , No. 13-2278. DeMasters worked for Carilion, a large healthcare organization, and alleged that “he was terminated for engaging in protected activity, including opposing an unlawful employment practice, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” Judge Cheryl Ann Krause wrote for the court, which held that the district court erred in (1) examining DeMasters’ conduct as a series of discrete incidents rather than as part of a continuous course of oppositional conduct to ...

On July 2, 2015, NELA filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiff-appellees in Monroe v. FTS USA, LLC, No. 14-6063 (6th Cir.). This case asks the court to affirm a jury’s verdict that FTS’s company-wide policy requiring its cable technicians to work overtime hours without compensation violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The brief was written by NELA member Laura L. Ho and William C. Jhaveri-Weeks of Goldstein, Borgen, Dardarian & Ho in Oakland, California. NELA members Rachhana T. Srey and Paul J. Lukas of Nichols Kaster, PLLC in Minneapolis, Minnesota served as counsel at the trial level where they obtained $3.8 million in damages in ...

On April 28, 2015, NELA joined the National Employment Law Project (NELP), the Legal Aid Society of New York, Urban Justice Center, and Make the Road New York (MRNY) to file an amicus brief in support of plaintiffs-appellants Mazhar Saleem and more than 200 opt-in plaintiffs and others similarly situated in the case of Saleem v. Corporate Transp. Group, Ltd. , Case No. 12-CV-8450, pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The issue on appeal is whether the district court erred in granting summary judgment to defendants and holding that the plaintiffs, drivers for defendants’ black car transportation business, were “independent contractors” ...

On October 29, 2014, NELA joined the National Employment Law Project (NELP) and other organizations to request leave to submit an amicus brief in support of plaintiffs-appellants in Marzuq v. Cadete Enterprises (d/b/a Dunkin’ Donuts), No. 14-1744, pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. The issues in this case fall within NELA’s amicus priority of confronting wage theft and compensable time violations. Plaintiffs are represented by NELA member Shannon Liss-Riordan, Lichten & Liss-Riordan, P.C. (Boston, MA). The amicus brief was drafted by NELA member Peter Winebrake, Winebrake & Santillo, L.L.C. (Dresher, PA), and Anthony Mischel ...

On August 11, 2014, NELA filed an amicus brief in support of Respondents in the U.S. Supreme Court in Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, No. 13-433, a Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) case. NELA members Mark R. Thierman and Eric Schnapper represent Respondents Jesse Busk and Laurie Castor and others similarly situated. The question presented is whether the time employees spend in security screenings is compensable under the FLSA, as amended by the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947. The issues raised in this case fall squarely within NELA’s current amicus priorities of challenging wage theft and compensable time violations. Respondents Busk ...

On Monday, April 16, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham ( Case No. 11-204 ) on whether pharmaceutical sales representatives (PSRs) should be classified as non-exempt employees. The petitioner-plaintiffs are two among approximately 90,000 PSRs employed within the American pharmaceutical industry who visit physicians’ offices and encourage physicians to prescribe their employer’s products to their patients. Plaintiffs filed suit under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) seeking overtime pay on behalf of a nationwide class of PSRs employed by respondent-defendant SmithKline Beecham, Corp., d/b/a GlaxoSmithKline. ...

Please join the California Employment Lawyers Association's Wage and Hour Committee for a webinar on: Brinker Restaurants v. Superior Court: Is There Such A Thing As A Free Lunch? Friday, April 20, 2012 Noon-1:15pm The California Supreme Court finally decides when employees really must be paid for missed meal breaks. The long-awaited Supreme Court decision that will impact thousands of pending and future individual and class actions across California will be discussed by L. Tracee Lorens and Michael Rubin, two lawyers intimately involved in the individual and class issues, and the Brinker case itself. They will lay out the terrain for going forward ...