Recent Trends in Wage and Hour Settlements

By Dr. Denise Martin, Dr. Stephanie Plancich, and Janeen McIntosh*

Introduction

Over the past decade, the number of cases alleging wage and hour violations has been increasing. Such cases include an array of allegations, such as off-the-clock work (including donning and doffing suits); unpaid overtime; missed, short, or late meal periods and rest breaks; employee misclassification; unpaid termination wages; failure to pay minimum wage; and time shaving and improper tip pooling. Cases may be filed in either state or federal court, may range in size from a handful of plaintiffs up to many thousands, and may allege class periods that span several years.

Many of these wage and hour cases have settled, some of them for substantial amounts. To quantify and analyze the characteristics of recent settlements, we collected information on 187 settlements of wage and hour cases that were reported from 2007 to 2010.¹ The number of reported settlements increased over this