New Jersey overtime lawyers Tag Archives

Published on: January 19, 2025

U.S. Supreme Court Clarifies Employer’s Burden for Proving that Employee is Exempt From Overtime

In lawsuits where employees claim their employer wrongfully withheld overtime or minimum wage, if the employer claims that the employees were “exempt” it bears the burden of proving that they actually met the requirements of the exemption under the Federal Fair Labor dc-court-appeals-district-columbia-building-abraham-lincoln-statue-74985350 Standards Act. There was a split among the Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals regarding what that burden of proof was. The United States Supreme Court has now resolved that conflict in the case of E.M.D. Sales Inc. v. Carrera.

Wage and Hour Protections for New Jersey Employees

New Jersey employment law provides that employers must pay minimum wage and overtime to most employees unless they are exempt. The Federal Fair Labor Standards Act provides similar protections. The main exemptions under both Federal and New Jersey employment law are similar. Administrative, executive, professional and “outside sales” employees are exempt from minimum wage and overtime provided they make a minimum salary.

Published on: January 12, 2025

New Jersey Employment Law Strengthened to Prevent Employers Using Immigration Status to Evade Paying Wages

by Maurice W. McLaughlin

New Jersey employment law offers strong protections to employees. Among these are the New Jersey Wage Payment Law and the New Jersey Wage and Hour Law, both of which were amended in 2019 to increase the statute of limitations from two years to six, and increase 3-225x300 penalties for violations. In August 2024, the New Jersey Legislature further strengthened these laws to prevent employers from taking advantage of complaining employees because of their immigration status.

New Jersey Wage Protections

New Jersey’s Wage and Hour Law and Wage Payment Law provides the basic protections regarding the payment of wages to New Jersey employees. (The Federal Fair Labor Standards Act provides similar penalties at the Federal level, but with a shorter limitation period and lesser penalties.) Failure to pay overtime or minimum wage, or failure to pay wages to employees when due, allows the employee to recover her unpaid wages for the last six years plus liquidated damages, making the entire recover 300 percent of the wrongfully unpaid wages. Additionally, the employer will be required to pay the employee’s attorneys fees. (An employer will have a good faith defense available for liquidated damages for a first violation, but not for the unpaid wages themselves or the employee’s attorneys fees.)

Published on: July 1, 2024

New Protections of New Jersey Wage and Hour Law and New Jersey Wage Payment Law Apply Prospectively, Supreme Court Rules

by Maurice W. McLaughlin

New Jersey employment law affords significant wage and hour protections to employees through the New Jersey Wage and Hour Law and the New Jersey Wage Payment Law. Both laws were significantly strengthened by amendments in 2019, adding additional penalties, 6-300x225 recovery of attorneys fees, enhanced damages, and a longer, six-year statute of limitations. One question left open by the Legislature was whether the statute of limitations would be applied retroactively to cover conduct prior to the amendments, or prospectively to cover only conduct from 2019 onward. The New Jersey Supreme Court has now unambiguously answered that question.

The New Jersey Wage Payment Law

The New Jersey Wage Payment Law was enacted in 1965 and governs the timing and payment of wages. It prohibits withholdings of wages unless the law expressly allows or requires. Wages must be paid at least twice per month, and no later than 10 days after the pay period covered. The employee must be told in advance what she will be earning, and before any changes to her pay are made. She must be paid all wages due when she leaves employment on the next regular payday.

Published on: April 26, 2024

New Employment Law Regulation Makes Many More Employees Eligible for Overtime

by Maurice W. McLaughlin

The Wage and Hour Division of the United States Department of Labor has issued a new regulation vastly increasing the number of employees who are entitled to overtime.

Background

Both Federal and New Jersey employment law both require that employees must be paid one and a half times their regular hourly rate (“time courthouse-1223280__340-300x200 and a half”) for work beyond forty hours in any week. However, there are exceptions. The major exemptions are for executive, administrative, professional, and highly compensated employees. In addition to the requirements particular to each exemption, the employees cannot be paid less than the threshold for the exemption.

Published on: March 24, 2023

Federal Appeals Court Holds that Withholding Paid Time Off Will Not Defeat Professional Exemption to Minimum Wage and Overtime Requirements

by Maurice W. McLaughlin

The Federal Fair Labor Standards Act, like New Jersey’s Wage and Hour Law, requires that employees as a general rule must be paid a specified minimum wage, and overtime when they work more than 40 hours per week. However, certain classes of employees are exempt from these requirements. Thus, nonexempt employees need to be paid minimum wage and overtime, while exempt employees do not. In us-supreme-court-300x200 order to be considered an exempt employee under the exemption for “professional” employees, an employee must be paid on a “salary basis,” make at least $684 per week, and her work must require advanced knowledge in a field which is normally acquired “by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction; or… requires invention, imagination, originality or talent in a recognized field of artistic or creative endeavor.”

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which hears appeals from the Federal trial courts in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and the United States Virgin Islands, recently examined the professional employee exemption in the case of Stephanie Higgins v. Bayada Home Health Care Inc.

Background

Published on: March 5, 2023

New Jersey Employment Law Case Examines the Effect of Amendments Concerning Time to File a Lawsuit for Wage and Hour Violations

by Maurice W. McLaughlin

The New Jersey Wage and Hour Law and Wage Payment Law

Like the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act, New Jersey’s Wage and Hour Law requires that employers pay non-exempt employees minimum wage for all hours that they work, and overtime (time and a half) when employees work more than forty hours per week. New Jersey’s Wage Payment Law requires that employers pay employees pay all employment_law_damages wages that they are due, and sets forth the timing and procedures for payments and permitted deductions. This is a much-litigated area of New Jersey employment law.

Suits under the New Jersey Wage and Hour Law and Wage Payment Law have long been required to be brought within two years of the violations or they would be time barred. However, in 2019 the New Jersey Legislature amended both laws to extend the time for filing a civil lawsuit for violation of the laws from two to six years. The amendments were silent about whether they would apply retroactively or only going forward. Generally, unless the Legislature provides for retroactive application of new statutes of limitations they apply only prospectively – in other words they normally apply only going forward to acts which occurred after the amendment, not looking backward to what happened before. These amendments were to take effect immediately upon enactment, which occurred on August 6, 2019.