Wage & Hour Claims

Wage & Hour Litigation

The Federal Fair Labor Standards Act – the FLSA – is a Federal law applicable to how all “non-exempt” employees are paid. The FLSA requires all employers to pay its employees a minimum wage for every hour worked, overtime pay for every hour worked over 40 hours each week, and to keep records proving they comply with the law. An employer that fails to follow the FLSA may be cheating its employees out of their fair wages. Such claims against employers are called "wage and hour" claims. We accept wage and hour cases on a contingent fee basis – advancing all expenses and accepting no fee until a recovery has been obtained. We are experienced in wage and hour cases and the ways employers violate the FLSA.

FLSA: The Federal "Fair Labor Standards Act."

Some employers attempt to avoid the Federal wage requirements by misclassifying their employees as exempt managers, supervisors or forepersons and pay them a salary rather than an hourly wage with overtime. Managers or supervisors who do the same work as other employees and do not have any real “management” responsibilities are misclassified – in violation of the FLSA. Other employers attempt to avoid paying their workers for every hour worked by requiring their employees to do daily job duties either before or after they are on the time clock. Employees who are required to change into job specific clothing or spend other time doing job specific tasks before they are on the time clock are being unpaid for hourly work – a violation of the FLSA. Still other employers require workers to attend meetings or respond to calls during lunch breaks without being paid. Attending monthly or weekly sales meetings or attending special work events without being paid is improper – and is a violation of the FLSA.  

North Carolina Wage and Hour Act.

In addition to the FLSA, North Carolina has state wage laws that hold North Carolina employers to similar minimum standards of fair pay for fair work. North Carolina state law also requires that workers must be correctly classified and that they be paid for every hour worked. 

Most wage and hour cases are handled on a class-wide basis. In other words, a few workers file a lawsuit on behalf of all similarly situated employees. Class claims allow wage and hour claims to proceed against an employer when the allegations apply to all employees, or large groups of employees. Federal law prevents an employer from firing any employee in retaliation for filing an FLSA lawsuit.  

Unpaid overtime, off-the-clock work, misclassified workers and hourly workers paid as salaried employees.

The attorneys of Lewis & Roberts have experience litigating wage and hour cases under both the federal and state laws. Our lawyers have also successfully handled cases for classes of workers in Federal and State Courts. As examples, we have represented classes of employees working in a bank call center for being required to do off-the-clock work before being on the time clock. We have also represented nurses against a large hospital system for constantly being interrupted with patient care during their unpaid lunch and dinner breaks. In both of those cases the employees were not complaining about the work that they did – especially the nurses who were gladly performing patient care – rather, they complained that they were not being paid a fair wage for a fair day’s work. We agreed with our clients and were able to negotiate settlements for these groups of workers. We welcome the opportunity to speak with you about any wage and hour claim you have for unpaid work or for being misclassified and losing overtime wages.