revenue, advertising payments, and profits from selling distribution rights. The plaintiffs and the DOL filed motions to dismiss the defendant’s counterclaim on the grounds it was preempted by the FLSA. The court found that the counterclaim, seeking repayment based on fault, was analogous to a claim for indemnification. The court opined that the FLSA's remedial scheme and regulations indicated a congressional intent to preempt common law remedies for the same violations. The court also found that common law unjust enrichment claims for unpaid overtime were not valid under the FLSA and the defendant’s counterclaim was “independently disallowed under state law because it runs contrary to the remedial scheme of the Vermont wage law." Id . at *37. Further, the court reasoned that allowing such counterclaims could impede FLSA enforcement, and rejected the defendant’s argument that the counterclaim's validity should be assessed after determining the plaintiffs’ employment status. For these reasons, the court granted the motion to dismiss the defendant’s counterclaim. In one of the more successful preemptive motions to dismiss a class and collective action in 2023, the court in Johnson, et al. v. Amazon.Com Services, LLC, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 217499 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 7, 2023), dismissed the entire lawsuit. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendant violated the FLSA, the Illinois Minimum Wage Law (IMWL), and the Illinois Wage Payment Collection Act (IWPCA) by failing to pay for the time spent undergoing COVID-19 screenings at the defendant’s warehouse in Chicago. The plaintiffs claimed that these screenings were necessary for workplace safety and were therefore compensable. The defendant moved to dismiss the claims pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. The court granted the defendant’s motion. The court applied the "integral and indispensable" standard from the FLSA to determine whether the time spent on COVID-19 screenings was compensable. Id . at *3. The court concluded that the screenings were not integral or indispensable to the plaintiffs' principal activities of moving and loading boxes, and therefore, the FLSA did not require compensation for this time. The court also dismissed the plaintiffs’ IMWL claim, stating that Illinois law followed the FLSA standard. Additionally, the court found that the plaintiffs failed to allege that the defendant agreed to pay the workers for time spent on COVID-19 screenings, and therefore it dismissed the IWPCA claim as well. Finally, the court rejected the plaintiffs’ claim for quantum meruit, stating that the alleged benefit of the COVID-19 screenings was not solely for the defendant but also benefited the plaintiffs, their co-workers, and society as a whole. For these reasons, the court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss. Finally, the availability of appellate review is no panacea for a jury verdict of willful liability for FLSA violations, as was the case in Perry, et al. v. City Of New York, 7 8 F.4th 502 (2d. Cir. 2023). The plaintiffs, a group of EMTs and paramedics, filed a collective action alleging that the defendant, the City of New York, failed to provide overtime compensation in violation of the FLSA. Specifically, the plaintiffs asserted that they were required to perform work prior to the start of their shifts and after their shifts concluded, and were not paid for this work. Following a trial, the jury found that the defendant ’ s failure to pay for work it required was a willful violation of the FLSA. On appeal, the Second Circuit upheld the jury ’ s verdict. The defendant argued on appeal that it was not liable for unpaid overtime because it maintained a policy and procedure pursuant to which employees are able to report pre-shift and post-shift work completed, and the plaintiffs failed to do so. The Second Circuit rejected this argument. It explained that the defendant was aware that the work was being completed and the plaintiffs were not compensated for the work. The Second Circuit reasoned that whether an employee reports overtime work will often be relevant to an employer ’ s knowledge of the work, but allowing, or even requiring, an employee to report overtime work does not absolve an employer of the obligation to compensate for work they suffer or permit. Id. at 509. The Second Circuit stated that “if the employer suffers or permits the work – either by requiring it, knowing about it, or failing to exercise reasonable diligence to discover it – then it must compensate the employee, even if the employee failed to report the work and even if the employer did not know that the employee was working unpaid . ” Id. The Second Circuit found that the record supported the jury ’ s finding that the defendant had a policy or
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Wage & Hour Class And Collective Action Review – 2024
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