The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued a significant decision last week addressing the compensation of tipped employees who perform non-tipped work. In Schaefer v. Walker Bros. Enterprises, 2016 WL 3874171 (7th Cir. July 15, 2016), a restaurant server in Illinois pursued a class and collective action alleging, among other things, that his employer violated state and federal wage and hour laws by failing to pay servers minimum wage for the time they spent on non-tipped duties. The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment dismissal of the lawsuit. The Court held that an employer may compensate a tipped employee at the reduced “tip credit rate” of pay for: (1) limited non-tipped work incidental or related to tipped work; and (2) other negligible non-tipped work. The decision provides helpful guidance to restaurant employers regarding the types of duties that tipped employees may perform at a reduced rate of pay.
EEOC Issues Revised EEO-1 Proposal
The EEOC published its revised proposal for the new EEO-1 report today. The revised proposal came after extensive, and polarized, comments on the EEOC’s prior proposal this Spring. The prior proposal revised the existing EEO-1 report to require disclosure of data on pay ranges and hours worked in addition to the already required reporting on workforce profiles by race, ethnicity and gender. The revised proposal released today still requires reporting of this data. The EEOC has not changed course on its plan to use the data to identify discriminatory pay practices and target companies for investigations and class action equal pay lawsuits – without having to identify an injured party plaintiff. The primary change in the revised proposal is that the first date by which employers will have to submit the new EEO-1 report has been moved from September 2017 to March 31, 2018. In addition to allowing more time for employers to prepare for the new report, the EEOC made this change to simplify reporting by allowing employers to use existing W-2 data from the 2017 calendar year for the 2018 report. The EEOC also provided options for calculating “hours worked” for exempt employees, and will not require employers to collect hours worked for exempt workers if they do not already track those hours.
Federal Court Orders Stop to DOL’s Persuader Rule
On June 27, 2016, a Texas federal court granted a preliminary injunction preventing the Department of Labor (DOL) from moving forward on a nationwide basis with the July 1st enforcement of its Final Rule Interpretation of the “Advice” Exemption to Section 203(c) of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) (also known as the DOL’s “Persuader Rule”). The court order was based on findings that plaintiffs in the case of National Federation of Independent Business, et al. v. Perez, 5:16-cv-00066-C, were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims in establishing that the DOL’s Persuader Rule is inconsistent with federal law and exceeds the DOL’s statutory authority.
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EEOC More Than Doubles the Fine for Failure to Comply with Notice-Posting Requirements
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has published a new rule in the Federal Register that will more than double the monetary penalty for employers that violate the notice-posting requirements of Title VII and other nondiscrimination statutes. Click here to view the rule on the Federal Register’s website.
Effective July 5, 2016, the maximum penalty for violating the notice posting requirements will be $525 per violation, a substantial increase from the previous penalty of $210 per violation.
Split Circuit Court Decisions Create Uncertainty on Class Action Waivers and likely Supreme Court Review
Last week the 7th Circuit U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Lewis v. Epic-Systems Corp., held that a company’s arbitration agreement, which prohibits employees from participating in “any class, collective or representative proceeding,” violated an employees’ right to engage in concerted activity under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The ruling creates a circuit split on the enforceability of class action waivers because the 2nd, 5th, and 8th Circuits each have held that class action waivers do not violate an employee’s rights under the NLRA. Because of this circuit split, it is likely that the Supreme Court will visit this issue in the near future.
Background on Enforceability of Class Action Waivers
In recent years, federal courts have largely upheld arbitration pacts with class or collective action waiver language that provides that not only must an employee bring his or her claim exclusively in arbitration, but also that he or she must do so on an individual, and not on a class-wide basis. Specifically, in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion (2011), the Supreme Court ordered the enforcement of arbitration agreements in a dispute involving an arbitration provision in cellphone contracts. In the process, Concepcion generally held that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) preempts state bans on class action arbitration waivers. The case however, did not directly address the viability of class action waivers in the employment context.
Shortly thereafter, in January 2012, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that an employer could not force its employees to sign arbitration agreements with class waiver provisions because such agreements were unlawful under the NLRA. See D.R. Horton, Inc., 357 NLRB 184 (2012). On appeal, the 5th Circuit rejected the NLRB’s holding that class waivers in mandatory arbitration agreements are unlawful, joining the 2nd and 8th Circuits, which had issued similar rejections.
Seventh Circuit Opinion
In Lewis v. Epic-Systems Corp., the plaintiff had entered into an arbitration agreement with his employer in which he had waived his “right to participate in or receive money or any other relief from any class, collective, or representative proceeding.” Lewis later filed a suit in federal court on behalf of himself and other employees alleging that the company had violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by misclassifying the employees and depriving them of overtime.
The employer moved to dismiss plaintiff’s claims and compel arbitration on an individual claim basis. The plaintiff argued that the agreement’s class and collective action waiver was unenforceable because it interfered with his right to engage in concerted activity under Section 7 of the NLRA. The district court agreed with plaintiff and denied employer’s motion to dismiss, relying primarily on a prior decision the district court had issued adhering to the D.R. Horton’s decision. The district court believed the 5th Circuit’s majority opinion “never persuasively rebutted the board’s conclusion that a collective litigation waiver violates the NLRA and never explained why, if there is tension between the NLRA and the FAA, it is the FAA that should trump the NLRA, rather than the reverse.” The employer subsequently appealed the district court’s decision to the 7th Circuit.
In its analysis, the 7th Circuit adopted the NLRB’s reasoning (as stated in D.R. Horton) that engaging in class, collective or representative proceedings is “concerted activity” and a protected right under Section 7 of the NLRA. Therefore, the court concluded, it would be an unfair labor practice under Section 8 of the NLRA for an employer “to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise” of this right.
Surprisingly, the 7th Circuit rejected the argument that the arbitration agreement must be enforced under the FAA—an argument adopted by all the other circuits that have ruled on this matter. In its ruling, the court focused on the FAA’s savings clause, which provides that arbitration agreements are enforceable except if the agreements themselves are unlawful. Thus, the court found that Epic’s arbitration agreement is illegal under the NLRA, and because an illegal agreement is not enforceable under the FAA’s savings clause, there is no conflict between the FAA and the NLRA.
General Takeaways for Employers
The Lewis decision leaves employers with several takeaways: First, employer need to know that class and collective action waivers will not be enforced in federal courts sitting in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, which are the states within the Seventh Circuit’s jurisdiction.
Second, these same agreements will likely continue to be enforced in federal courts sitting in the circuits that have rejected the NLRB’s reasoning in D.R. Horton (for now, 2nd, 5th, and 8th Circuits).
Third, this circuit split will likely involve the input of the Supreme Court in the future but perhaps not between the Presidential election, and the appointment of a ninth Justice, given the desire to avoid a 4-4 split. If the case is brought before the Supreme Court before a new Justice is confirmed by the Senate, and the Supreme Court decision is split 4-4, each of the Circuit’s decisions will remain in effect.
The Defend Trade Secrets Act’s Seizure Provisions and What They Mean for Employers
It’s an employer’s worst nightmare: you discover that a former employee has stolen a company trade secret. You know you must act immediately to keep this extremely important and sensitive information from being disseminated or risk losing important intellectual property protection. However, protecting a misappropriated trade secret is very difficult, particularly in situations where the suspected misappropriator is unlikely to follow a court order. Thankfully, the recently passed Defend Trade Secrets Act (“DTSA”) includes helpful seizure provisions an employer may use to recover and prevent dissemination of trade secrets from suspected misappropriators.
What Is The Defend Trade Secrets Act?
President Obama signed the DTSA into law on May 11, 2016. This new law is effective immediately and provides a nation-wide civil cause of action for misappropriation of trade secrets. Although companies may still pursue trade secret litigation under state causes of action, the DTSA permits companies to prosecute their claims in federal court, thus allowing them to avoid the complexity and cost of pursuing trade secret claims in multiple jurisdictions simultaneously.
What Are The DTSA’s Seizure Provisions?
Significantly, the DTSA includes an ex parte seizure provision allowing “the seizure of property necessary to prevent the propagation or dissemination” of trade secrets, meaning the employer may seize property through court order without providing notice to the other party. See DTSA § 2(b)(2). To receive a court order allowing such seizure, the employer must:
• Allege specific facts showing that the suspected misappropriator would “evade, avoid, or otherwise not comply with” other extraordinary relief, such as a temporary restraining order, and would “destroy, move, hide, or otherwise make [the property to be seized] inaccessible to court” if notified of the seizure proceedings;
• Be able to show that the employer would suffer “immediate and irreparable injury” if the requested seizure were not occur, and that such injury would be greater than any to be suffered by the suspected misappropriator or any third parties if the seizure request is granted;
• Be able to show that the suspected misappropriator has actual possession of the trade secret and either misappropriated or conspired to use improper means to misappropriate that trade secret;
• Describe, with reasonable particularity and to the extent reasonable, what is to be seized and where it is located; and
• Not have publicized the requested seizure.
See id. § 2(b)(2)(A)(ii). Orders of seizure are executed by a Federal law enforcement officer. The employer may not participate in the seizure, although the law enforcement officer may request to be accompanied by an unaffiliated technical expert. Any materials seized will be held in court custody until a hearing can be held, although a motion to encrypt seized material may be made at any time. See id. § 2(b)(B), (D), and (H).
What Does This Mean For Employers?
The good news is that now if a trade secret is misappropriated, employers may be able seize it and halt its dissemination before irreparable harm has occurred. In our modern world where information can be copied and transported across state lines (or international boarders) in mere moments, this is very important. However, there are a number of cautions employers should be aware of:
• Seizure under the DTSA is extraordinary relief only. The DTSA’s drafters contemplated it would be used in instances such as when “a defendant is seeking to flee the country or planning to disclose the trade secret to a third party immediately or not otherwise amendable to…the court’s orders.” Rep. No. 114-220 at 9 (2016). Accordingly, seizure will be permitted only in the most extreme situations.
• The DTSA requires an employer seeking seizure to provide security “determined adequate by the court for the payment of the damages that any person may be entitled to recover as a result of a wrongful or excessive seizure.” DTSA 2(b)(B)(vi). This security will not act as a cap on damages if it is later determined that property was wrongfully seized.
• The DTSA’s drafters struggled with handling misappropriated trade secrets contained in electronic files. If, for example, an employee downloaded files containing trade secrets from her company computer onto a flash drive, the court could seize that flash drive. The situation becomes more murky, however, when an employee transmits files containing trade secrets to himself via his personal email (thus leaving a copy on the server of the email provider), or uploads company files to a third party cloud service. In order to protect these unintended recipients, the DTSA’s drafters included carve outs prohibiting seizure from innocent third parties (although injunctions prohibiting disclosure are permitted). Accordingly, until the employer can obtain other relief, the trade secret will remain on the third party’s server, potentially vulnerable to misappropriation from bad actors engaged in cyberespionage.
On balance, the DTSA is a helpful piece of legislation that will greatly assist employers in protecting trade secrets under certain circumstances. However, as with any new piece of legislation, it is unclear how these provisions, particularly those concerning electronic information, will be applied in practice.
If you would like to discuss best practices for keeping trade secrets secure or need help dealing with potentially misappropriated trade secrets, please contact the author or any member of our Labor and Employment Practice Group.