Wage & Hour Lawsuits Skyrocket in New York Federal Courts

There has been an increase in wage-and-hour lawsuits in New York federal courts, surpassing national trends.

The wage-and-hour lawsuits have been brought by plaintiffs who claim that their employer violated rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Most of these FLSA lawsuits say the employees were not paid proper wages or overtime, arguing that they were misclassified as workers exempt from overtime payments.

The Southern and Eastern district courts have seen the largest increases in wage-and-hour lawsuits. There were 682 new cases in the Southern District concerning FLSA violations filed between October 2, 2011 and September 30, 2012. This was a 626% increase from 2003 when only 94 FLSA lawsuits were filed.

According to the Federal Judicial Center, the Southern District of New York came in third behind the Southern District of Florida with 1,304 wage-and-hour lawsuits, followed by the Northern District of Alabama with 1,029.

Nationwide, wage-and-hour lawsuits have risen about 200% over the last decade, in comparison.

As for the cause of the increase in New York, employment attorneys cite the ability for claimants to recover attorney fees, the six-year statute of limitations, more awareness of the law, and courts that are more sympathetic to wage-and-hour cases.

Possible motivations are the amount of wages that can be recovered and fees.

The statute of limitations can increase from two to three years when a worker is able to show that his or her employer willfully broke the law under the FLSA. The ability to recover double the amount of unpaid wages also increases, in this case.

Determining willful denial of earned wages can be as simple as an employer not keeping accurate time records.

If an employee wins his or her wage-and-hour lawsuit, the employer has to pay all attorney fees and costs thanks to a new fee measure in the FLSA.

According to employment attorneys that try FLSA lawsuits, the cost of the fees and damages an employer could potentially pay, is a huge motivating factor for employers to settle.

Nearly 1 in 10 civil lawsuits filed in the Eastern District court last year were wage-and-hour lawsuits, and 6.5 percent of Southern District lawsuits were wage-and-hour cases, over the same period.

Among all 94 federal district courts, wage-and-hour lawsuits were 3 percent of civil lawsuits filed during the last fiscal year.

If you did not receive all the money you earned because your employer violated the FLSA, legal options are available to you. Learn more and get a free consultation regarding a claim’s eligibility at the Wage & Hour Unpaid Overtime Class Action Lawsuit Investigation. Experienced legal professionals are able to determine if you have a case. You could receive back pay as well as penalties, so act now.