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Lawyers in demand for wage-and-hour lawsuits.

Article Excerpt
"The law in its majesty applies equally to highly paid executives and minimum-wage clerks," wrote Judge Mark Bernstein of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas in an October order requiring Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., to pay $62 million in statutory liquidated damages to employees in a class-action wage-and-hour lawsuit.

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The order increased Wal-Mart's liability in the case, brought by employees forced to work off the clock and denied rest breaks, by adding to the $78.5 million a jury had awarded earlier. (Braun v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., No. 3127 March Term 2002 (Pa., Philadelphia Co. Ct. Com. Pl. Oct. 3, 2007); decision below: Braun v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 2005 WL 3623389 (Pa., Philadelphia Co. Ct. Com. P1. Dec. 27, 2005).)

Wage-and-hour cases--brought under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) or analogous state laws (the Wal-Mart case involved the Pennsylvania Wage Payment and Collection Law)--involve claims that hourly employees were not paid for the work they did. Typical allegations include that employees were forced to work without recording (and being paid for) their time or were misclassified as exempt from the law's coverage and denied time-and-a-half pay for overtime hours.

The wage-and-hour litigation field started to heat up around 2001--and now is practically on fire. The number of FLSA cases filed in federal district courts more than tripled in the past few years, from 1,920 cases in 2000 to 6,754 cases in 2006, with the biggest jump from 2004 to 2006, according to statistics compiled by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts....

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