Pay attention to personal liability for FLSA violations

Business owners, officers, and managers, this is why you need to pay attention to wage and hour issues. 

Tow truck driver Marquis Mariscal sued JLS Towing, alleging the company misclassified him and other drivers as independent contractors and paid them a flat rate per vehicle towed, no matter how many hours they worked. No overtime, ever, even past 40 hours a week. 

He not only sued the company, but also its president, Summer Settle, personally, claiming she directed the company's operations, set schedules, made hiring and firing calls, and controlled how drivers got paid.

The 4th Circuit just made wage-and-hour class actions a lot harder to certify

Not every wage-and-hour lawsuit belongs as a class action.

That's the lesson from the 4th Circuit's recent decision in Overby v. Anheuser-Busch, where the court vacated certification of a Virginia wage-and-hour class alleging employees weren't paid for mandatory pre- and post-shift work.

The case involved hourly employees at Anheuser-Busch's Williamsburg brewery. Employees claimed they performed a variety of unpaid activities outside their scheduled shifts, including donning and doffing personal protective equipment, complying with COVID-era screening protocols, attending shift-handoff meetings, and putting away tools. The district court certified a class of essentially all hourly brewery employees, concluding that the central question was whether Anheuser-Busch had a policy of paying only scheduled shift time despite requiring additional work.

The DOL's World Cup warning is really an overtime compliance warning

The Department of Labor has a message for employers in cities hosting the 2026 World Cup: We're here to help you comply with federal wage and hour laws.

Translation: We're watching.

The DOL's Wage and Hour Division recently announced compliance-assistance resources for employers in the 11 U.S. host cities preparing for the flood of soccer fans, tourists, hotel guests, restaurant patrons, bar tabs, rideshare trips, security needs, cleaning shifts, temporary staffing, and event work that will come with the tournament. The agency specifically pointed employers to resources for industries expecting World Cup-driven spikes, including restaurants, hotels, and other businesses serving fans.

That sounds friendly enough.

It's also a warning.

A helpful tip on the FLSA's tip credit

For many craft breweries, the taproom is where the magic happens. It's where customers connect with your brand, your beer, and your people. 

It's also where wage-and-hour lawsuits often begin. 

Artisanal Brewing Ventures, the company behind Southern Tier, Victory, and other craft beer brands, is facing a nationwide collective action over its pay practices at 15 taprooms across five states. At the heart of the lawsuit is an issue that too many hospitality employers overlook: compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act's tip-credit rules. 

The one mistake I keep seeing employers make, over and over again

One of the biggest mistakes I see employers make, over and over again, is treating employee wage information as "confidential."

Policies that ban employees from discussing pay.

Confidentiality rules that include "wages," "salary," "compensation," or "payroll information."

Managers who tell employees they are not allowed to ask coworkers what they earn.

HR departments that discipline employees for talking about their pay.
Employers that fire employees for creating or sharing salary spreadsheets.

Stop it.

6th Circuit will answer when the workday begins for remote employees

When does the workday begin for a remote employee?

Not when they walk through the office door. There is no office door.

So is it when they log in? When they boot up their computer? When they launch the software that actually lets them take calls?

For remote non-exempt employees, those questions aren’t academic. They’re the difference between paid time and unpaid time.

And the 6th Circuit just signaled it’s ready to answer them.

5 steps for an employer to win an off-the-clock overtime claim

Jerry Merritt, an agency manager for the Texas Farm Bureau, claimed 816 hours of unpaid overtime. Even assuming he had been misclassified as an independent contractor, he still lost.

Here's why.

A dollar saved, a tip credit destroyed

Sometimes a case turns on complex legal questions or convoluted fact patterns. Other times it turns on something far simpler—like a single dollar.

 
In Dugan v. Reservoir Restaurant Inc., a $1 deduction just cost a restaurant its entire tip credit. A federal court handed the plaintiffs (a class of servers) a summary judgment win because their employer deducted $1 per shift from their tips to cover items like silverware, pens, and similar supplies.

Here's the setup. The restaurant paid its servers the tipped minimum wage of $2.13 per hour, relying on the FLSA's tip credit to bridge the gap to the $7.25 federal minimum wage. But every shift, the restaurant also took $1 directly from the servers' tips to reimburse the business for operating supplies.

That's where things went sideways.

There are no “quick favors” in wage-and-hour law

"Can you just help with this for a minute?"

That's how off-the-clock cases start.

Not with an intent to steal wages, but with an innocent call for help.

In Arnold v. Marriott, a hotel employee alleges that during busy holiday seasons he and others were directed to help with conference and event setups while not clocked in — including during lunch. Supervisors allegedly observed pre-shift work and didn't ensure it was recorded. On one occasion, when he asked whether he'd be paid for responding to work texts during lunch, he was told yes — but claims he wasn't. He also alleges he raised concerns with management and nothing changed.

Understanding the 'duties test' of the FLSA's administrative exemption

Your employees probably aren't as important as they think they are.

That's not mean. It's just the Fair Labor Standards Act talking.

One of the more misunderstood parts of the FLSA's administrative exemption — the one that supposedly covers "office" workers — is which officer workers it actually covers. The test sounds deceptively simple: to be exempt, an employee must exercise discretion and independent judgment in matters of significance to the business. Most people with a desk, a computer, and a job title ending in "coordinator," "specialist," or "administrator" think they qualify.

Spoiler: they don't.

Salaried doesn't always equal exempt

Just because an employee is paid a salary does not mean they are exempt from overtime.

I came across this question on Reddit:

"I work at a small logistics company—about 10 of us total. I'm the person handling invoices, shipments, and customer calls. My title sounds fancy ('operations associate'), but I don't manage anyone. Lately, I've been doing 55–60 hour weeks because we're short-staffed, but when I asked about overtime, my boss said, 'you're salaried, so that doesn’t apply.' Am I actually exempt just because I'm salaried? Or is my company taking advantage of that label?"

One of the biggest myths in wage and hour law is that being paid a salary automatically makes you exempt from overtime

11 best practices to prevent off-the-clock wage claims

Target recently agreed to pay $4.6 million to settle a class action by warehouse employees claiming they weren't paid for all their work time.

The hourly employees said they had to:
➛ Badge into the building
➛ Walk long distances to their workstations to clock in, and
➛ Go through mandatory security screenings after clocking out.

Target didn't pay those hourly employees for any of that time. Those few minutes each workday added up to millions of dollars.

A reminder from the DOL that not all “front-of-house” jobs are created equal

The Department of Labor just released a new Wage & Hour opinion letter on one of those topics that always makes restaurant and hospitality employers nervous — tip pooling under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The question is whether "front-of-house" oyster shuckers can be included in a tip pool with servers when the employer takes a tip credit toward minimum wage?

The DOL says yes — if those shuckers actually interact with customers.

When does the workday begin and end for a remote worker?

With the rise of remote work, wage and hour laws have forced employers to grapple with what should be a straightforward question: When does a remote employee's workday actually begin and end?

In Lott v. Recker Consulting, the Southern District of Ohio offered a clear answer.

Kiara Lott and 130 of her fellow Patient Care Associates worked from home as call-center reps. Their day started with the familiar remote routine: coffee, logging in, Duo security, VPN, ADP timekeeping, Microsoft Teams, and then opening the phone system and workflow tools to handle patient calls.

They sued under the FLSA, claiming they weren't paid for the minutes spent booting up, logging in, authenticating, and later shutting down. The employer countered that all of that was non-compensable "preliminary" or "postliminary" time.

The 6 hard truths of litigation

I pay my mortgage and my kids' school tuition thanks to how long lawsuits take and how expensive they are.

Still, we need to have a frank conversation about exactly that: how long lawsuits take, and how much they cost.

Xerox just ended a 13-year legal saga with a $9.1 million settlement to a class of 5,700 call center employees. The lawsuit challenged the company's Achievement-Based Compensation plan, which paid employees by task and offered bonuses to meet minimum wage thresholds—but didn't cover time spent logging in, waiting between calls, or doing other required non-task work.

Think about that. Years of disruption. Thousands of work hours lost to discovery, motions, depositions, hearings, and appeals. Millions in legal fees. All to land on a settlement that isn't remotely material to a $7 billion company.

Brewing up a tipped wages nightmare

Brewery owners: Let's talk why class-action lawyers are just as interested in your payroll practices as your flagship IPA.

A new lawsuit against a Georgia craft brewery is making the rounds, and it's the same old recipe—alleged FLSA violations in how tipped employees are paid. Don't brew the same legal trouble for yourself. 

Here's what every taproom, brewpub, and brewery owner needs to know to stay out of court in wage and hour lawsuits:

Teen employment is about education, not filling low-wage labor gaps

I'm a firm believer in the value of teenagers holding part-time jobs.

My first was as a mobile DJ, spinning records at Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, weddings, and sweet 16 parties. I also bussed tables in a nursing home dining room and unloaded giant rolls of fabric from trucks at a warehouse. Each job taught me about hard work, punctuality, taking direction, and dealing with people. They also taught me the value of money and the importance of earning my own spending cash.

That kind of experience is invaluable. It builds character, work ethic, and confidence. It's why both of my kids work, even though most of their friends do not. Just because I can provide walking-around money doesn't mean I should. If my daughter wants to drive a car, she'd better have the money to put gas in it and help cover the insurance. That's part of my responsibility as a parent—getting them ready for adulthood.

But what we're seeing now in some states (including Ohio) is something very different.

Missing time sheets doom employee's overtime claim

One of the most challenging tasks is proving a negative. Yet, this is precisely the problem employers face when defending wage-and-hour cases in which employees allege off-the-clock work. The employer argues that time records define the boundaries of the paid workday, while the employee contends they should be compensated for work performed outside of those clock-ins and clock-outs.

For example, consider Osborne v. JAB Management Services, a case recently decided by the 7th Circuit. Tara Osborne worked remotely as a technical support specialist for JAB, providing on-call support to its customers. As a salaried remote worker, she had the flexibility to design her own schedule. While she did not track any time worked over 40 hours per week, Osborne claimed she worked an average of 10 hours per day and 15 hours of overtime per week, including weekends.

The 7th Circuit affirmed the trial court's dismissal of Osborne's lawsuit for unpaid overtime. 

Taking from your employees' tip pool? It's illegal

It’s Dry January, and brewery owners are feeling the pinch. You might be tempted to supplement your income by dipping into your employees’ tip pool. That would be a huge mistake. It isn’t just bad form to take your employees’ hard-earned tips. It’s also illegal.

Under the FLSA, owners, managers, and supervisors are strictly forbidden from taking any part of pooled tips. There are no excuses.

SCOTUS eases burden of proof for employers in FLSA exemptions cases

Big news for employers: The Supreme Court just made it easier to defend against Fair Labor Standards Act exemption claims by employees.

In E.M.D. Sales v. Carrera, the Court unanimously ruled that employers only need to meet the preponderance of the evidence standard—not the heightened clear-and-convincing standard—when proving that an employee is exempt from the FLSA's overtime requirements.