Working from home and keeping time
It’s becoming more and more common for employees to work from home. Of course when they work they are to be paid for that work. But what if the employee works but doesn’t follow the employer’s policy in keeping track of that time. Are they still entitled to be paid for the work they did? A recent appeals court said “No” not if the employee failed to follow the employer’s time keeping policy.
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The Court Turns the Tide of the Epidemic
For several years now there has been a veritable epidemic of class and collective actions filed against employers claiming that employees were not paid for working through their meal periods. These cases arose frequently where employees were subject to automatic meal period deductions of 30 minutes or more even when they worked or were interrupted – unless the employee reported that they actually did work. If anything, this rash of litigation sent a message to employers across the country that they need to be very careful in how they accounted for work being done during lunch periods so that employees could be properly paid for their time.
The tide is turning as courts faced with class action litigation involving hundreds if not thousands of potential plaintiffs began to look closely to see if the class members truly share a common employer-wide complaint or whether individual employees have individual complaints based on their own department’s approach to compensating for missed meal periods. One of the most recent court decisions favoring employers and denying class status was handed down by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of White v. Baptist Memorial Health Care. This case involved a hospital and its automatic deduction policy supplemented by its “Exception Log” practice of accounting for meal period interruptions. (more…)
Automatic meal period deductions – A common practice
Some good news for employers. In an important victory for employers, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Frye v. Baptist Memorial Hospital, recently affirmed the decision of the Western District of Tennessee to decertify a collective action brought under the FLSA challenging an employer’s automatic deduction policy for meal periods. (more…)
Suppose one of your supervisory employees – for over eight years – clocked in 15 to 45 minutes before the start of her shift 5 AM early morning shift and spent most of that time doing tasks related to her normal duties. Then, your employee sues you and claims that she has been underpaid for all that time and is due overtime, double damages and attorneys fees. If you’re her employer do you win or lose this case?
