On December 14, 2011, Jennifer O’Neill filed an unpaid overtime lawsuit against Lady Gaga, one of the most successful recording artists of all-time, for failing to pay her time and one half when she worked over 40 hours per week.\u00a0 The Plaintiff, Ms. O’Neill was employed as Lady Gaga’s personal assistant from 2009 until March 2011.\u00a0 Rather than being paid an hourly rate plus overtime, Plaintiff was paid a salary regardless of the number of hours actually worked.\u00a0 The complaint alleges entitlement to over $350,000 in unpaid overtime.\u00a0 In order to defeat the case, Lady Gaga will have to show Plaintiff was exempt and therefore not entitled to premium overtime pay.\u00a0 Exemptions are affirmative defenses and carry a high burden. Generally speaking, a personal assistant would not be exempt under the administrative exemption, this entitling them to overtime pay.<\/p>\n
The facts of the case illustrate a common misconception in the business community, namely that if employees are paid on salary, they are not entitled to overtime pay.\u00a0 This is simply not true.\u00a0 If a person works over 40 hours a week, they should call an employment lawyer to determine if they are owed overtime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On December 14, 2011, Jennifer O’Neill filed an unpaid overtime lawsuit against Lady Gaga, one of the most successful recording artists of all-time, for failing to pay her time and one half when she worked over 40 hours per week.\u00a0 The Plaintiff, Ms. O’Neill was employed as Lady Gaga’s personal assistant from 2009 until March 2011.\u00a0 Rather than being paid an hourly rate plus overtime, Plaintiff was paid a salary regardless of the number of hours actually worked.\u00a0 The complaint …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,22,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-employment-law","category-flsa-2","category-overtime-2"],"yoast_head":"\n