Court: Airline’s workers can’t sue as class in pay dispute
U.S. Court Watch
American Airlines workers at Newark’s airport who claim in a lawsuit they’ve been shorted on overtime pay can’t sue as a class, a federal appeals court ruled this week.
The three-judge panel’s decision published Tuesday reversed a New Jersey judge’s ruling that would have allowed the lawsuit to go forward and include all non-exempt hourly workers employed at Newark Liberty International Airport since April 2014.
Several employees, including mechanics and workers responsible for tasks such as cargo handling, filed the suit in 2016 and said American’s timekeeping system automatically paid employees based on their schedules rather than on the hours they actually worked.
They also alleged managers regularly refused to authorize overtime pay for work performed before and after scheduled shifts and during scheduled 30-minute lunch breaks. The lawsuit sought back pay as well as punitive damages. American denied the allegations.
The appeals court sided with the airline, which argued that while the timekeeping system applied to all employees, it would be wrong to group all employees into a class because it would have to be determined on a case-by-case basis which employees worked overtime.
Related listings
-
Activists cheer victory in landmark Dutch climate case
U.S. Court Watch 12/23/2019In a ruling hailed as an “immense victory for climate justice,” the Netherlands’ top court ruled Friday in favor of activists who have for years been seeking legal orders to force the Dutch government into cutting greenhouse gas emi...
-
Trump asks Supreme Court to void financial records subpoena
U.S. Court Watch 12/06/2019President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to void a subpoena from the House of Representatives that seeks the president’s financial records from his accounting firm. The justices already have shielded the documents from being t...
-
Supreme Court to begin new term: About the top cases
U.S. Court Watch 10/07/2019The biggest cases before the Supreme Court are often the last ones to be decided, and the focus on the court will be especially intense in June, just a few months before the 2020 election.President Donald Trump first announced his intention in 2017 t...