Wal-Mart Settles Another Massive Wage & Hour Claim

Walmart_1 We don’t do much wage and hour stuff on this blog because these cases tend to come down to whether nurses on standard-size ambulances are exempt from overtime pay.  But Wal-Mart sure got another lesson on why it should not ignore the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) (we previously wrote about this case here).

According to the BNA Daily Labor Report:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. . . . announced that it has agreed to pay up to $54.25 million to settle a class action lawsuit that had alleged that it had violated Minnesota’s labor laws by requiring employees to work off the clock during training (Braun v. Wal-Mart Inc., Minn. Dist. Ct., No. 19-CO-01-9790, settlement announced 12/9/08).

In addition to a multimillion dollar payout to workers, the settlement . . .  includes terms providing that the retailer will pay the state a civil penalty, an amount that is expected to be the largest wage and hour civil penalty in state history . . . .

I’m sure this settlement does not sit well with the cheap-skates over at Wal-Mart, but they got more where this one comes from, with an estimate of 80 such suits pending in 2007.

Mmm, maybe they could be even more profitable by not ripping off their employees on wages and benefits and avoiding all of this endless labor and employment litigation.

Just a thought.

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On Being a Married, Commuting, Home-Owning, Child-Rearing, Second-Career Law Student

Item the first – A heartfelt “thank you” to Professor O’Hear for inviting me to be December’s student blogger.

Item the second – Can I pick my own headshot? I have this great one of me in my Halloween costume as Sweeney Todd.

Item the third – On to business! When I was asked to blog, the first thought in my mind could not have been more clichéd: “What can I write about?” In response, my mind supplied an almost equally clichéd answer: “Write what you know.” So I thought about what makes me unique as a law student, and very quickly had an answer.

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Appreciating Our Professors: Robert F. Boden

When I applied for admission to Marquette Law School in the fall of 1971, my application was denied because over half of my undergraduate coursework was ungraded, a consequence of the policy at the Residential College of the University of Michigan from which I graduated.  Upon being admitted to the Law School when my application was reconsidered, the lowest grade I received was in Professional Responsibility.

That I am a Professor of Law at Marquette University with particular expertise in legal ethics is due in large part to Dean Robert F. Boden, who caused my application for admission to be reconsidered, who hired me during my third year of law school, and who assigned me as a junior faculty member to teach Professional Responsibility even though he gave me my lowest grade in law school when I took that course from him. 

Marquette had some great law teachers in my era as a student (1972-1975). 

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