By John E. Thompson
The boom in wage-hour complaints and lawsuits continues unabated.
Long-held conventional wisdom that might be questionable or even mistaken under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act or analogous laws now faces unprecedented scrutiny. It is tempting to take comfort in platitudes like, “The whole industry pays employees that way,” “Everybody I know of treats those positions as exempt,” “All of my competitors classify these kinds of workers as independent contractors,” and so on.
Relying upon these commonly-held views instead of looking into what the legal requirements and limitations actually are carries a high degree of legal risk. For example, it sometimes turns out that:
These and other scenarios have set up entire employer categories for a nasty wage-hour surprise. Employers should not take “Everybody Does It” to be reason enough to adopt or continue a policy or practice the legality of which they have not carefully evaluated on their own.
Once a claim is made, courts and enforcement officials are not likely to be impressed with this explanation.
This was originally published on Fisher & Phillips’ Wage and Hour Laws blog.
