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On February 9, 2024, a “Fleet Deckhand” working for Archer-Daniels-Midland Company, a food processing company, filed suit against his employer in the Northern District of Illinois, seeking unpaid overtime, liquidated damages, and attorneys’ fees.

MSE Partner Sara Faulman, Union/Employee Co-Chair of the ABA’s Fair Labor Standards Act Subcommittee, discusses FLSA Hot Topics, including MSE’s recent victory on behalf of 2500 NYC EMTs and Paramedics before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in upholding an $18 million unpaid overtime trial verdict.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that whistleblowers bringing claims for retaliation under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act do not need to prove that they were victims of intentional retaliation. The Court also reinstated a $900,000 jury verdict awarded to a research strategist fired by UBS Group AG.

On February 1, 2024, a worker at a Georgia Wendy’s sued the owner of the franchise where she worked, as well as the Wendy’s parent company, alleging that she and breastfeeding workers nationwide had been given insufficient time and inadequate locations to pump breastmilk, in violation of federal law.

On January 30, 2024, the New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed a jury decision finding that the State of New Jersey was liable for $10 million in punitive damages due to its discrimination against and failure to accommodate a female corrections officer (CO) working for the state’s Juvenile Justice Center (JJC).

Amazon will pay $950,000 to settle a case involving California remote workers and their home internet expenses. A remote worker sued Amazon in the federal District for the Northern District of California. The worker alleged that Amazon failed to reimburse its California employees for home internet expenses when they worked remotely between March 2020 and July 2022, allegedly violating various California labor codes.

On January 10, 2024, a panel of the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) upheld an administrative law judge’s opinion putting two fired employees back to work, ruling that the employer’s asserted basis for their termination violated Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”), which protects employees’ right to join, form, and assist Union, engage in collective bargaining, and engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.

On January 2, 2024, the Court of Appeals in California upheld the finding and a $23.9 million dollar damages award that Andrew Rudnicki, an in-house attorney for Farmers Insurance Exchange and Farmers Group, Inc. (Farmers), was illegally terminated in retaliation for opposing gender discrimination.

On January 3, 2024, the United States Court of Federal Claims ruled in favor of Customs Officers seeking overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and the Customs Officer Pay Reform Act (“COPRA”) for their time spent traveling across the country while working as part of the CBP’s “Special Response Team.”

As a new year began on January 1, 2024, the federal minimum wage remained $7.25 per hour. However, new state minimum wage laws took effect around the country, including in the following states (the increases are effective on January 1, 2024 except where noted otherwise):