On September 11, 2012, Swiss banker Bradley Birkenfeld announced that the IRS will pay him $104 million as a whistleblower reward for the information he provided to the U.S. government. Under the IRS whistleblower program, informants are entitled to a percentage of the dollar amount recovered by the U.S. government when fraud is exposed. The information supplied by Birkenfeld uncovered a secretive private wealth management division of the Swiss Bank UBS. This division of UBS would help U.S. clients evade ...
Continue Reading →10 SEP
Hasan v. GPM Investments, LLC, No. 3:07 cv 1779 (SRU) (D. Conn. Aug. 27, 2012).
The Court’s decision in this case benefits employees by helping them recover more money for their unpaid overtime wages. The dispute dealt with how to calculate damages when an employer misclassified workers as exempt from overtime compensation. The employer argued the damages should be calculated using the fluctuating work week method. If an employee worked 52 hours per week and was paid a ...
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On August 10, 2012, Fitapelli & Schaffer filed a class and collective action lawsuit against The Dinex Group and Daniel Boulud, the world-renowned celebrity chef. The lawsuit alleges that Boloud’s restaurants, including Bar Boloud fail to pay proper minimum wage, overtime and spread of hours to tipped restaurant workers. Many of these violations stem from non-tip eligible employees participating in the tip pool, including polishers, expediters and the Maitre’ D. Under New York law, ...
Continue Reading →25 JUL
In the recent decision of Wang v. Hearst Corporation, 2012 WL 2864524, the Court denied the defendant-employer’s motion to strike the class and collective action allegations made by the plaintiff-employees and granted the plaintiff’s cross-motion for conditional certification and court-authorized notice to potential class members pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), 29 U.S.C. §216(b).
Plaintiff’s proposed class consisted of interns who worked at 19 magazines, owned and operated by defendant, performing tasks necessary to the employer’s operations such as ...
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In a recent decision, Morano v. Intercontinental Capital Group, 2012 WL 2952893, the Court dismissed the employees’ nationwide collective action against their employer because all the plaintiffs were not “similarly situated.” The Court recommended that the employees propose workable classes and resubmit their collective action or that each individual employee bring their own lawsuit.
Plaintiffs in the case were loan officers at Intercontinental Capital Group, Inc. (defendants). The employees brought their claims as a nationwide collective action claiming that their Intercontinental ...
Continue Reading →17 JUL
In Robert Bagley v. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., (10 Civ. 1592, SDNY):
Plaintiff, an assistant vice president at J.P. Morgan Chase (“Chase”) sued his employer, Chase, for retaliation against him for opposing unlawful discrimination in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”), the New York State Human Rights Law (“NYSHRL”) and the New York City Human Rights Law (“NYCHRL”). The employer’s motion for summary judgment on the retaliation claim was denied. Plaintiff claimed that his supervisors directed him ...
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A Federal Court in New York recently agreed with an Arbitrator’s award permitting the employees to seek their New York Labor Law (“NYLL”) and Fair Labor Standard Act (“FLSA”) claims on a class-wide or collective action basis, despite the arbitration agreement not expressly giving the employees this option. The employees worked as tipped, hourly food service workers at their employers’ restaurants. During their employment, the employees received a handbook with a dispute resolution policy (“DRP”) and they also received a ...
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In the first class-wide settlement of its kind, employees of a home care agency reached an agreement with their employer to settle their overtime compensation claims. The New York State Court approved a settlement that awarded the employees $1.1 million. The employees worked as home health aides for McMillan’s Home Care Agency. The employees alleged that their employer failed to pay them overtime at one and one half times their regularly hourly rate, despite frequently working up to 60 hours ...
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In a recent case, the employees of a class action lawsuit were awarded $12.3 million to settle their overtime claims. The employees worked as health care and staffing recruiters for Maxim Healthcare Services Inc., a national health care staffing company. The employees alleged that they worked in excess of 40 hours per workweek and were not paid any overtime wages as required under various State Labor Laws and the Federal Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). The employees’ job duties consisted of ...
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Last week, Allis-Chalmers Energy agreed to pay $1.9 million to their employees to resolve an unpaid overtime class action lawsuit. Back on November 30, 2010, employees of Allis-Chalmers Energy, an oil and gas servicing company, filed a lawsuit alleging that their employer failed to pay them overtime. The employees were employed as field operators who were primarily engaged in manual labor duties such as transporting, installing and maintaining oil and gas drilling equipment such as fluid lines and air compressors. ...
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