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Flowers Foods agrees to $55 million settlement in independent contractor misclassification case.

Flowers Foods, a producer and marketer of baked goods, has a reached a settlement agreement in a class action with approximately 475 plaintiffs. Daniel Ludlow brought the lawsuit against Flowers Foods, alleging that he and other drivers were misclassified as independent contractors.

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NLRB Reverses Burden of Requesting Election, Reaffirms that Cards Alone can Establish Majority Designation

On August 25, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) issued a decision in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC, that establishes a new, employee-friendly standard for determining when an employer has unlawfully refused to recognize and bargain with a majority representative.

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Jury Awards Over $36 Million to Deaf Truck Driver

After less than two hours of deliberations, a federal jury in Omaha, Nebraska, awarded $75,000 in actual damages and $36 million in punitive damages to a Deaf truck driver. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which brought the lawsuit, alleged that Werner Enterprises, Inc., and its wholly owned subsidiary, Driver’s Management, LLC, discriminated against the driver and violated the Americans with Disabilities Act when it failed to hire him for a truck-driving job.

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At least 95,000 M&T Bank Customers’ Personal Information Compromised in Data Breach, Lawsuit Alleges

An M&T Bank customer filed a lawsuit on August 25th, alleging that M&T Bank negligently handled the personal and financial information of over 95,000 of its customers. The lawsuit, filed in federal Court in Buffalo, New York, on behalf of a class of affected M&T customers, alleges the data was misappropriated in a data breach that occurred some time between May and June of this year.

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Restaurant Sued by DC Attorney General for Stealing Wages from Hundreds of Employees

On August 22, 2023, the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, Brian L. Schwalb, sued Swahili Village, which serves East African cuisine on M Street, NW, in D.C. Superior Court for an array of wage and hour and other violations, including systematically violating the District’s minimum wage and overtime provisions.

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Fifth Circuit Discards Decades Old “Ultimate Employment Decision” Standard for Title VII Discrimination

Earlier this month, in Hamilton v. Dallas County, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which has appellate jurisdiction in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, reversed three decades of its precedent and significantly expanded the conduct that is actionable discrimination pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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Second Circuit Upholds Jury Verdict in Favor of 2500 NYC EMT and Paramedics

A federal appellate court upheld a jury finding that the City of New York recklessly failed to pay FDNY EMTs and paramedics pre-shift and post-shift overtime. NEW YORK, NY– On August 25, 2023, the Second Circuit upheld the 2019 findings of a unanimous jury verdict in favor of the plaintiffs, 2,519 EMTs and Paramedics employed by the FDNY and the City of New York, in an action brought pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

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Court of Appeals Rules that Employer Must Pay for Pre- and Post-Shift Work for Oil Rig Workers

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (covering New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware) ruled that time employees spend changing clothes and putting on protective gear may be compensable even if the employees have the option of doing so at home.

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Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals Rejects Rounding Policy that Pays Workers Less in the Aggregate

On August 11, 2023, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit overturned a lower court’s decision that St. Luke’s Health System, Inc.’s time rounding policy followed the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). The Eighth Circuit ruled that a health care system, like a hospital, cannot prevail on claims that a compensable time- rounding system was following the Fair Labor Standards Act when the workers are underpaid overall.

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Parties Announce Tentative Settlement of Class Action Claims in Horizon Actuarial Services, LLC Data Breach

Earlier this month, a federal judge in Georgia agreed to pause (or “stay”) proceedings alleging that consulting firm Horizon Actuarial Services, LLC failed to protect retirement plan participants’ personal information from a data breach in November 2021, so that the parties could finalize a settlement of those claims.