We
wrote last December about our ongoing efforts to secure a copy
of an undisclosed "policy" that various U.S. Department
of Labor officials have referred to in insisting that an employer
pay at least some amount in liquidated damages as a condition of
resolving alleged federal Fair Labor Standards Act violations at
the investigative level.
After more than a year, USDOL has finally responded by
disclosing at least some documents. It has so far refused to
release others, referring vaguely to a Freedom of Information Act
exemption.
Excerpt From Internal Procedures
The agency provided to us an
undated copy of Section 53c00(a) from a non-published chapter
of its Field Operations Handbook, a manual that contains
many of the U.S. Wage and Hour Division's policy
guidelines. As recently as December 2013, Subsection
53c00(a)(2) referred to liquidated damages simply by saying that
USDOL was authorized to file a lawsuit to recover them.
