Atlanta Employment Attorneys Blog
As this blog discussed last week, most employers will vigorously litigate a lawsuit where an employee alleges a Fair Labor Standards Act violation. In the rare situations where the employer does not, something called a “default judgment” may be available to the worker. Even though you are not litigating against an actively participating defense, that does not mean success is automatic. You must clear challenging hurdles, which is why retaining a highly skilled Atlanta wage-and-hour lawyer is vital to getting the compensation you deserve.
Last week, we covered jurisdiction and venue issues in the case of a convenience store manager seeking payment for unpaid overtime. Establishing those, which the manager did, is not the only thing you must demonstrate for a judge to grant you a default judgment. You must also demonstrate several more elements specific to FLSA law. Specifically, you must show that you and the employer had an employee-employer relationship and are “covered” by the FLSA.
The woman’s allegation laid out employment as a non-exempt hourly employee at the convenience store from March 2021 to August 2022. Those assertions satisfied the court that the manager had pled an employee-employer relationship.
The Two Types of FLSA ‘Coverage’
Demonstrating FLSA coverage is more complicated. The law recognizes two ways of showing FLSA coverage. One is called “enterprise coverage.” This type of coverage exists when the employer “has employees engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, or… has employees handling, selling, or otherwise working on goods or materials that have been moved in or produced for commerce” and “has an annual gross volume of sales made or business done… not less than $500,000.”
The other form of coverage is “individual coverage.” For this coverage to exist, you “must directly participate in the actual movement of persons or things in interstate commerce by (1) working for an instrumentality of interstate commerce, e.g., transportation or communication industry employees, or (2) by regularly using the instrumentalities of interstate commerce.”
Here is the key thing to know about pleading FLSA coverage: your assertions must be specific to the facts of your exact situation, not just a general recitation of the law’s standard and a blanket statement that your case meets that standard.
Regarding enterprise coverage, the manager’s court papers stated only that the store had “annual gross revenue that totaled $500,000 or more and was engaged in the production of goods for commerce within the meaning of the FLSA, since Defendant has two or more employees ‘handling, selling, or otherwise working on goods or materials that had been moved in or produced for commerce, such as snacks, food items, automotive necessities, and personal hygiene items.'” The court said that this statement was mere stock language and required “more to substantiate it,” which the manager’s complaint did not have.
Her assertion of individual coverage failed for similar reasons. The manager’s complaint stated that the employee was “engaged in commerce and that [she] engaged in the production of goods for commerce within the meaning of the FLSA.” The complaint did not say the manager “either worked for an instrumentality of interstate commerce or regularly used the instrumentalities of interstate commerce in [her] work,” which is a required allegation in courts within the 11th Circuit. The manager’s complaint also failed to demonstrate that she “produced goods that subsequently traveled through interstate commerce.”
The manager will have an additional opportunity to correct these shortcomings, as the court gave her three weeks to amend her complaint. Nevertheless, the missing elements can only slow down the process of obtaining compensation for her overtime hours.
Any unpaid overtime (or other FLSA) matter — even one where the other side is not actively contesting your claims — is a challenging matter subject to failure if you are not meeting all the procedural rules and all pleading requirements the law establishes. You need skilled legal counsel to ensure that does not happen to you. The knowledgeable Atlanta wage-and-hour attorneys at the law firm of Parks, Chesin & Walbert are here to help, working diligently to ensure our employee clients get the full compensation they deserve. Contact us through this website or at 404-873-8048 to schedule a consultation today.