In the most recent development in the wave of wage and hour
class and collective actions by unpaid interns, two different
federal judges in the New York District Court for the Southern
District of New York recently decided whether to conditionally
certify putative collective actions filed by unpaid interns who
claimed they did work customarily performed by paid employees but
were not classified as employees and were not paid minimum wage and
overtime as required by the FLSA. The judges each reached a
different conclusion.
In Fraticelli v. MSG Holdings,
the unpaid interns brought suit against the parent of the Madison
Square Garden Company claiming the company had misclassified them
as "student associates" instead of employees. The
company opposed conditional certification, arguing that the interns
failed to establish that they were (1) victims of a common and
unlawful policy, and (2) similarly situated. U.S. District
Judge Jesse Furman agreed with the company
