Wage & Hour
The firm's Wage and Hour practice group represents working men and women, either individually or as part of a collective action, alleging violations of the wage and hour provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which is the backbone of federal wage and hour law, as well as other state and federal statutes. The FLSA regulates minimum wage, overtime pay, equal pay, and child labor. Its overtime requirements are the most significant contributor to wage and hour violations and litigation. Under the FLSA, plaintiffs can recover double the amount of actual damages and attorneys' fees. Wage and hour violations that commonly result in litigation include:
- Misclassifying employees as "exempt" and failing to pay them overtime.
- Failing to pay non-exempt employees for overtime, including overtime not approved in advance.
- Allowing time worked "off the clock," such as requiring employees to arrive early to perform necessary preparations for work or stay late to perform duties such as "closing up" after punching out, and not paying employees for donning and doffing (putting on or taking off specialized work clothes and equipment).
- Granting compensatory time off to non-exempt employees in lieu of overtime pay.
- Making automatic wage deductions, such as from exempt employees' salaries for part-day absences, or from non-exempt employees' pay for meal breaks when they do not clock in or out for those breaks.
- Failing to pay overtime to independent contractors when they qualify for "employee" status under the law.
- Overlooking and violating exemption requirements under Tennessee law, which may be more stringent than the FLSA.
The Wage and Hour practice group has litigated cases on behalf of employees in virtually every business sector, including most recently employees of environmental clean-up company BNFL, Inc. in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, school bus drivers for the City of Clarksville, Tennessee, and workers at the Nashville facility for communications provider Sprint, Inc.