Employment Class Action

Strippers ruled to be employees

Dancers at Rick’s Cabaret International Inc. were ruled to be employees entitled to receive a minimum wage and should not have been improperly treated as independent contractors in violation of federal and state labor laws by U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer  from the Southern District of New York.

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Enterprise settles FLSA collective action

Regional branches of Enterprise Holdings Inc. will pay $7.8 million to settle claims by a class of former assistant managers that the rental car company breached the Fair Labor Standards Act when it illegally exempted them from being paid overtime, according to a deal signed by a Pennsylvania federal judge Wednesday.

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Ninth Circuit enforces class waiver in wage and hour case

The Ninth Circuit ruled Wednesday that Ernst & Young’s arbitration agreement, which contains a class waiver, should be applied in a wage-and-hour suit against the accounting giant, and refused to follow the National Labor Relations Board’s ‘s controversial D.R. Horton decision.

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Second Circuit to weigh in on future of class actions

The Second Circuit’s recent decision to hear an appeal from workers who claim a trial judge misapplied the U.S. Supreme Court’s Comcast ruling when it rejected their bid for class certification gives the appeals court a chance to raise the bar for wage-and-hour plaintiffs and add to a body of recent rulings that limit workers’ ability to pursue class actions.

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Ralph’s class action waiver ruled unenforceable

A National Labor Relations Board judge on Wednesday ruled that Ralph’s Grocery Co. ran afoul of federal labor law by subjecting its employees to a mandatory arbitration policy that prohibits class proceedings, in keeping with the labor board’s controversial D.R. Horton decision.

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Chipotle overtime collective action certified

A New York federal judge granted collective action certification Thursday in a lawsuit accusing Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. of misclassifying workers as overtime-exempt executives, rejecting Chipotle’s argument that the plaintiffs couldn’t identify an illegal policy or plan with classwide impact.

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Unpaid interns are employees

A Federal District Court judge in Manhattan ruled on Tuesday that Fox Searchlight Pictures had violated federal and New York minimum wage laws by not paying production interns, a case that could upend the long-held practice of the film industry and other businesses that rely heavily on unpaid internships.

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Coyote Ugly overtime class action getting ugly

An overtime class action is grabbing headlines across the nation over claims of unpaid overtime and alleged illegalities involving tip pools, but also with regard to sensational claims appearing in social media, related to the case.  The lawsuit has its roots in Nashville, but encompasses the laws of many states given the national status of the lawsuit, which involves current and former employees of the Coyote Ugly chain nationwide.

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Overtime class certified against Morgan Stanley

A New York federal judge conditionally certified a Fair Labor Standards Act collective action accusing Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC of shorting its client services associates on overtime pay, finding the plaintiffs had adequately claimed they were subject to an unlawful overtime policy.

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Judge allows sex discrimination action against KPMG to proceed

A federal judge in Manhattan has ruled that a proposed gender discrimination class action against accounting firm KPMG can proceed.  The suit was brought by five former employees of KPMG, who claim that because they were women, they were denied pay raises and promotions, especially if they had children.

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Drug maker paid men more than women according to class action lawsuit

Current and former pharmaceutical sales workers at Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd.’s U.S. unit on Monday brought a $100 million sex discrimination class and collective action against the drugmaker, saying they were paid less than male colleagues for doing the same work. The six women say in their suit, filed in California federal court, that they seek to represent a class of several hundred female sales representatives from the Tokyo-based company in order to end a

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Merrill Lynch settles overtime class action

Merrill Lynch has agreed to create a $12 million fund to settle a class action lawsuit alleging it didn’t properly pay overtime to employees who provide support services for brokers.  The court for the Southern District of New York must still approve the settlement, which was announced in a filing Friday. Merrill Lynch is the retail brokerage unit of Bank of America Corp. The lawsuit, which was filed in June 2011, alleged that Merrill Lynch

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