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ARTICLE · 20 SEPTEMBER 2011

Salting In Wage Cases

Duane Morris LLP
Duane Morris LLP
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My blood chilled at the audacity of the plaintiff’s attorney. Our client had received a demand letter from him asserting that his client was a representative of a class of employees who were not paid for travel time. The 100 employees in the putative class are employed to perform services at client sites and often travel to three or more such sites in a single workday.

United StatesEmployment and HR
James Redeker
James Redeker
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My blood chilled at the audacity of the plaintiff's attorney.

Our client had received a demand letter from him asserting that his client was a representative of a class of employees who were not paid for travel time. The 100 employees in the putative class are employed to perform services at client sites and often travel to three or more such sites in a single workday.

Upon inquiry, I discovered that the employer, while generous with payments for down time, did not track and, therefore, would have great difficulty proving that the employees were, in fact, paid for the time it took to travel between customer calls in a continuous workday. While the employees were probably paid fairly, it would be a problem to prove they were paid in strict compliance with Pennsylvania's Minimum Wage and Wage Payment Acts, which are similar to the federal wage and hour laws. After calculating that the possible liability to the named plaintiff was only about $500, if any at all, I set

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