Employment Class Action

Mario Batali, the celebrity TV chef and owner of a string of restaurants, is often seen with actress, Gwyneth Paltrow, taste testing the culinary delights of Spain in their public television series “On the Road Again.”  Two years ago, Batali was sued in New York federal court in Manhattan, where he was accused of cheating workers of part of their tips for serving wine.  Recently, he and his associate, Joseph Bastianich, agreed to pay $5.25

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a federal district court ruling in favor of Oracle.  Under California’s wage and hour laws, the appellate court found Oracle could be liable for unpaid wages if it did not compensate out-of-state computer trainers for overtime work performed in the state.

A $35 million class action settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit against Oracle (“Oracle” or “Defendant”) pending in the Superior Court of Alameda County California.  The complaint alleged that Oracle failed to pay overtime and provide off-duty meal periods for certain quality software assurance engineers, customer support engineers and project managers who worked for Oracle in Redwood City and Pleasanton.

A sex discrimination lawsuit brought against Ruth’s Chris Steak House by four current and former employees in the Washington D.C. area can proceed as a class action suit.  The United States District Court for the District of Columbia has granted the plaintiffs the right to add class action claims to the lawsuit, first filed against the restaurant chain in October 2010.  D.C.-based employment law firms Mehri & Skalet PLLC and Tycko & Zavareei LLP represent

Two men who worked on the hit movie “Black Swan” have mounted a challenge to the film industry’s widely accepted practice of unpaid internships by filing a lawsuit on Wednesday asserting that the production company had violated minimum wage and overtime laws by hiring dozens of such interns. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, claims that Fox Searchlight Pictures, the producer of “Black Swan,” had the interns do menial work that should have

On August 13, 2011, a former service technician of Reddy Ice Corporation filed a putative nationwide collective action lawsuit on behalf of himself and other service technicians across the country.  The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon.  The complaint asserts violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, alleging that service technicians were not paid proper overtime pay for their overtime hours worked. The plaintiff is represented by

Cargill Meat Solutions Corp. settled a collective action Tuesday in Nebraska brought by current and former plant workers who accused the company of failing to pay them for time spent performing tasks off the production line. U.S. District Judge Richard G. Kopf granted the parties’ joint motion for approval of the settlement, and dismissed the consolidated Fair Labor Standards Act action pursuant to the terms of the deal.

The National Employment Lawyers’ Association (“NELA”) filed an amicus brief in the Third Circuit related cases of Knepper v. Rite-Aid (Case No. 11-1684) and Fisher v. Rite-Aid (Case No. 11-1685). Plaintiffs in those cases were employed as Assistant Store Managers and allege that defendant missclassified them as exempt and failed to pay overtime in violation of state law and the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). The district court dismissed both cases holding that state class

A class action lawsuit has been filed against Dollar Tree Stores, Inc. in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in Atlanta. The case is entitled Kenneth Smith v. Dollar Tree Stores, Inc. The complaint alleges that current and former non-exempt Dollar Tree Stores Assistant Store Managers are entitled to unpaid overtime wages, unpaid minimum wages and liquidated damages under the Fair Labor Standards Act since they allegedly were required to