Texas employers should beware. If they haven’t been subject to a Department of Labor audit and/or a lawsuit alleging that employees were denied or improperly paid overtime, then it is only a matter of time. Wage and hour lawsuits (claims asserting violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act) are ever increasing. Why is that?
Since “tort reform” in Texas, lawyers who previously prosecuted tort claims have found solace in the FLSA, and there has been an uptick in lawsuits alleging violations of the FLSA in Texas. Tort claims are ever more difficult to establish based on continual revisions to legal standards. FLSA claims, however, place the burden on employers to establish that they paid in compliance with its provisions. Moreover, the FLSA became law in 1938 and has undergone very limited changes. Therefore, this statute treats today’s workers much like the workforce has remained unchanged since that time. In reality, workers are performing jobs that did not exist—and were not even on the horizon—in 1938. With that background, despite a law that has remained relatively unchanged for 80 years, employers appear as mystified as ever.
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