Employers Play Whack-A-Mole with Internship Lawsuits

Two court filings this week show that when one internship lawsuit goes down, another one quickly rises to take its place.

In one case, a judge in the Southern District of New York on May 8 denied class certification (See here) for a group of magazine interns, holding that the interns failed to meet the commonality and predominance requirements of Rule 23.  But just two days earlier, a similar case was filed (See here) in the Western District of Pennsylvania, alleging that an Arena Football League team violated the FLSA and state law by treating the plaintiffs as unpaid interns.

In the New York case, former unpaid interns for The Hearst Corporation claimed that they should have been paid for work performed for about 20 magazines.  Judge Harold Baer, Jr. denied class certification (and denied summary judgment) for the interns, relying largely on Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes (See Dukes discussion here) and holding that the interns could not establish the key elements of “commonality” and “predominance.”

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