Unpaid Interns Making Progress in Pressing Wage-Hour Claims

In February, this Blog reported on a pair of recent Southern District of New York lawsuits by former unpaid interns for The Hearst Corporation and Fox Searchlight Pictures claiming that they should have been paid for work performed for about 20 magazines and on production of the 2010 film “Black Swan,” respectively.  The plaintiffs in both cases have made strides over the past few months toward certification of their claims.  

In the Fox Searchlight case, the plaintiffs requested the names and contact information of all prospective class members during discovery.  Fox delivered the goods -- but redacted the former interns’ last names, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers, and also refused to turn over budgeting information for the production. On June 11, Southern District of New York Judge William H. Pauley, III ordered Foxto provide the unredacted information and the production budgets, concluding that the plaintiffs’ need for the information outweighed the interns’ privacy interests. He also ruled that the budget information could reasonably lead to the discovery of admissible evidence, particularly evidence that financial concerns could have led the company to use unpaid interns in violation of FLSA and state wage laws.    

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