Wage Hour Class & Collective Actions

OVERVIEW

EXPERIENCE

NEWS & INSIGHTS

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Protecting your business from the biggest employment litigation threat for employers.

Federal court filings of wage and hour lawsuits have increased dramatically during the past two decades—far outpacing all other types of employment litigation. Verdicts and settlements are routinely costing companies millions, if not tens of millions, of dollars.

HOW WE HELP

Defending employers in wage and hour litigation is one of the hallmarks of the firm’s nationally-recognized employment team. More than 100 attorneys devote themselves to the defense of these lawsuits. We have represented employers in many hundreds of collective and class actions, raising every conceivable type of federal and state law wage, hour, and pay practices claims. These include allegations of exempt misclassification, independent contractor misclassification, off-the-clock work, improper calculation of the regular rate and overtime pay, tip pooling violations, missed meal and rest breaks, donning and doffing time, pay for pre- and post-shift activities, and a host of other alleged pay practices violations under local, state, and federal law. Our platform includes a deep bench of California lawyers steeped in the intricacies and challenges under that state’s laws, as well as teams of lawyers with substantial experience defending employers’ interests in other states where wage and hour claims proliferate.

We understand the relevant issues—whether procedural or substantive—from our extensive experiences counseling employers on and litigating wage and hour issues in virtually all industries. This enables us to assist our clients in modifying their job-classification and pay practices to limit exposure to financial and operational risk while also reducing the potential of becoming targets for litigation. Industries in which we have wide-ranging experience include construction, financial services, government contracting, health and senior care, high tech, hospitality, insurance, life sciences, logistics, manufacturing, media (print and broadcast), new economy, professional services, private equity, public sector, retail (big box stores, independent stores, and call centers), staffing/recruiting, telecommunications, and transportation.

Our team, which includes a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor, also has extensive experience representing employers before federal and state wage and hour agencies and working with agency officials to resolve wage and hour enforcement actions at both the federal and state levels. We assist clients with understanding the investigative process and setting expectations at the commencement of an investigation. And we identify strategies that will help bring the matter to resolution. From the initial notice to the final conference, our attorneys counsel clients on all phases of the investigative process. Our services also include advising clients in seeking to mitigate litigation risk by securing helpful Opinion Letters from the Wage and Hour Division—a practice that the Department has recently revitalized—on issues important to their businesses.

THE SEYFARTH EXPERIENCE

We shape our defense strategy to the specific goals of each client, the type of claims asserted, and the potential impact and risk of those claims on a client’s business. We work closely with each client to customize a defense that fulfills its business needs efficiently and cost effectively. This approach allows us to defeat or minimize exposure from potentially high-risk cases and to develop appropriate "exit" strategies that combine our defense, mediation, and audit capabilities. When trial becomes necessary, we have experienced wage and hour trial lawyers who know how to present our clients’ defenses in these nuanced and sometimes esoteric matters to a jury or judge.

When it comes to defending employers in wage and hour collective and class actions, we literally wrote the book on the subject. Our treatise, Wage & Hour Collective and Class Litigation, ALM Law Journal Press, is recognized as the definitive resource on the subject and is commonly used by lawyers, judges, and academicians in researching the many complex and evolving procedural and substantive defense issues that may ultimately determine case outcomes. We have published other authoritative resources, as well, such as in-depth guides to wage and hour laws in California, Illinois, and Massachusetts. Together with our blog, management alerts, and webinars, these resources establish us as the most reliable management-side thought leaders in wage and hour law. Most importantly, we collaborate with our clients to ensure that our thought leadership can be used effectively to defend those cases that cannot be avoided.

EXPERIENCE

In one of the most important employment law cases decided by the United States Supreme Court in recent years, Seyfarth attorneys obtained a decision on behalf of a healthcare software company, which established that employers lawfully may require employees to enter into an arbitration agreement containing a waiver of the ability to participate in a class or collective action against an employer.
Defended a public global staffing and human resource consulting firm in two separate precedent-setting victories in the District of New Jersey and Third Circuit involving the issue of whether the court or an arbitrator has the authority to decide if an arbitration agreement calls for class arbitration, resulting in a complete no liability win for our client.
Successfully argued to the Ninth Circuit for affirmance of an order in a wage and hour case that decertified a 30,000-member Rule 23 class alleging unlawful unpaid detentions of warehouse employees between the time they clocked out and the time they were permitted to leave the building after business hours.
Won a five-day jury trial on behalf of a life insurance company in a wage and hour case alleging exempt misclassification, missed meal and rest periods, and unpaid overtime initially brought by current and former employees.
Obtained a published appellate decision on behalf of a nationwide insurance company upholding the denial of class certification based on plaintiffs’ failure to present a viable trial plan in a case filed on behalf of more than 1,100 independent property inspectors who were retained through various third parties.
Defeated class certification on behalf of a nationwide insurance company in a case that presented several issues of first impression as to both the contours of the administrative exemption from overtime laws in California and the law governing how cases are certified as class actions.
Won summary judgment on behalf of a major global retailer in a wage and hour class action involving more than 12,000 employees alleging that all employees were required to work “off the clock” because they had to undergo a security inspection/exit inspection/bag check each time they left one of the retailer’s stores.
Defended a luxury retail chain in a major lawsuit filed as an alleged collective action by former sales associates alleging failure to pay breaks of less than 20 minutes and overtime. Won summary judgment and defeated class certification by prevailing on our inside sales exception argument before the Southern District of Texas.
Defended Fortune 50 multinational financial services company in 10 nationwide and state class and collective actions potentially involving hundreds of thousands of current and former non-exempt employees, filed in California, Colorado, New Jersey, Florida, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania, challenging the company’s pre- and post-shift pay and meal break practices throughout the United States. As a result of our global and case-specific strategies, none of these cases resulted in final collective or class certification, some were reduced to small single plaintiff settlements, and all terminated successfully.
Defended public multinational retail office supply company in a dozen class actions consolidated by the Panel on Multi-District Litigation alleging exempt misclassification of store managers and assistant managers seeking back overtime and gap time wages for tens of thousands of putative collective and class members. Following our effective discovery challenges, favorable global settlement was reached with no collective or class certification.

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Protecting your business from the biggest employment litigation threat for employers.

HOW WE HELP

THE SEYFARTH EXPERIENCE

EXPERIENCE

In one of the most important employment law cases decided by the United States Supreme Court in recent years, Seyfarth attorneys obtained a decision on behalf of a healthcare software company, which established that employers lawfully may require employees to enter into an arbitration agreement containing a waiver of the ability to participate in a class or collective action against an employer.
Defended a public global staffing and human resource consulting firm in two separate precedent-setting victories in the District of New Jersey and Third Circuit involving the issue of whether the court or an arbitrator has the authority to decide if an arbitration agreement calls for class arbitration, resulting in a complete no liability win for our client.
Successfully argued to the Ninth Circuit for affirmance of an order in a wage and hour case that decertified a 30,000-member Rule 23 class alleging unlawful unpaid detentions of warehouse employees between the time they clocked out and the time they were permitted to leave the building after business hours.
Won a five-day jury trial on behalf of a life insurance company in a wage and hour case alleging exempt misclassification, missed meal and rest periods, and unpaid overtime initially brought by current and former employees.
Obtained a published appellate decision on behalf of a nationwide insurance company upholding the denial of class certification based on plaintiffs’ failure to present a viable trial plan in a case filed on behalf of more than 1,100 independent property inspectors who were retained through various third parties.
Defeated class certification on behalf of a nationwide insurance company in a case that presented several issues of first impression as to both the contours of the administrative exemption from overtime laws in California and the law governing how cases are certified as class actions.
Won summary judgment on behalf of a major global retailer in a wage and hour class action involving more than 12,000 employees alleging that all employees were required to work “off the clock” because they had to undergo a security inspection/exit inspection/bag check each time they left one of the retailer’s stores.
Defended a luxury retail chain in a major lawsuit filed as an alleged collective action by former sales associates alleging failure to pay breaks of less than 20 minutes and overtime. Won summary judgment and defeated class certification by prevailing on our inside sales exception argument before the Southern District of Texas.
Defended Fortune 50 multinational financial services company in 10 nationwide and state class and collective actions potentially involving hundreds of thousands of current and former non-exempt employees, filed in California, Colorado, New Jersey, Florida, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania, challenging the company’s pre- and post-shift pay and meal break practices throughout the United States. As a result of our global and case-specific strategies, none of these cases resulted in final collective or class certification, some were reduced to small single plaintiff settlements, and all terminated successfully.
Defended public multinational retail office supply company in a dozen class actions consolidated by the Panel on Multi-District Litigation alleging exempt misclassification of store managers and assistant managers seeking back overtime and gap time wages for tens of thousands of putative collective and class members. Following our effective discovery challenges, favorable global settlement was reached with no collective or class certification.

Related Trends

Remote Work