BLOG

The New York State Legislature has significantly revised the state’s work place harassment laws this week. These provisions, pledged to be signed into law soon, focus on anti-harassment and anti-discrimination measures to be taken by all employers with any employees in New York State.

The first significant change is that employers of all sizes, big and small, will be liable under this law, whereas prior to this, only employers ...

Managers at Steak ‘N Shake recently won a $7.7 million judgement awarded by a jury for unpaid wages, liquidated damages and attorney’s fees. The case focused on the lengthy weekly hours the managers were completing without receiving any overtime compensation.

Often times managers are classified by a company as exempt from receiving overtime pay. This usually means they are paid a set salary regardless of the hours they ...

Two brokers and former employees of Credit Suisse had a big win last week when a three-person panel of FINRA arbitrators awarded them at least $6.7 million for owed deferred wages and liquidated damages. Specifically, the amount ordered to be paid by Credit Suisse represents unvested deferred stock the brokers claimed they lost out on when Credit Suisse closed down its U.S doors in late 2015. The original individual amount of $2.8 million requested by each broker was more ...

Tipped workers employed by Restaurant Forgione, located at 134 Reade Street, New York, NY 10013, have sued the company as a class action for unpaid wages. The filed complaint notes that the lawsuit is looking to recover minimum wages, misappropriated tips, call-in pay, and other damages owed to tipped workers. Affected job titles at Forgione may include servers, bussers, food runners, bartenders, and other tipped employees who work or have worked at Forgione in the last couple of years.

The potential ...

On April 30, 2019, in the case of Melito v. American Eagle Outfitters, Inc et al. Circuit Judges Hall and Lynch as well as District Judge Englemayer of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dismissed Experian Marketing Solutions, Inc.’s (“Experian”) appeal and otherwise affirmed the judgment of the district court to settle the American Eagle Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) lawsuit for $14.5 million.

This TCPA lawsuit affected individuals who received text messages with ...

A New York City woman alleges she was physically accosted at an Upper West Side yoga class she attended at Pure Yoga. Melissa Hurley, a longtime member of Pure Yoga, claims she was groped and inappropriately touched several times by Pure Yoga’s instructor, Isaac Peña, during a yoga class. What’s worse is that other women had already complained about Isaac Peña to Pure Yoga prior to this incident.

Pure ...

MBI Energy Services, Inc., a leading provider for completion, well intervention, water management and logistics in the United States, has recently been sued for failing to pay its employees the appropriate wages. A significant number of potentially affected employees work or have worked for MBI Energy in the Williston Basin in North Dakota and the Rocky Mountain region, as well as the Eagle Ford play in Texas, the Marcellus play in Pennsylvania, and the Niobrara play in Wyoming. Affected workers ...

Back in May of 2018 Fitapelli & Schaffer, LLP along with Terrell Marshall Law Group PLLC filed a class action lawsuit against New York Sports Club (“NYSC”) for allegedly violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) by sending text messages to recipients’ cellular phones without their prior written consent. NYSC owns and operates health and fitness facilities in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia and claim to have “the largest gym network in the Northeast.” The TCPA makes it ...

After an almost decade long legal battle, Swift Transportation, a truckload motor shipping carrier, has reached a monumental class action settlement agreement. Swift has agreed to pay up to $100 million to more than 19,000 of its drivers. According to the 2009 class action filed by its drivers, Swift misclassified them as independent contractors instead of employees of the company. By doing so, Swift denied its drivers from significant pay ...

After holding numerous listening sessions for public feedback, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) has issued a revised increase to the minimum salary threshold for white-collar exemptions. The DOL’s proposal included raising the minimum salary requirement for being considered an exempt employee from an annual salary of $23,660 to $35,308. This could cause over a million workers to become eligible to receive overtime pay when working over 40 hours in a work week.

This proposal comes in response to the backlash ...