Employer Solutions Staffing Group, LLC, et al. v. Eugene Scalia, Secretary of Labor

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) provides a 2-year period for recovery of back wages, which may be increased to 3 years if the employer’s failure to pay wages was willful. The FLSA also requires that before an employer is liable for failure to pay overtime wages, the employer must know or have reason to know that an employee is working overtime hours. And, finally, there is no provision in the FLSA that prohibits an employer from seeking contribution for a wage award from other jointly and severally-liable employers. The questions presented are:

1. Whether this Court’s willfulness standard, which requires a showing that “the employer either knew or showed reckless disregard for the matter of whether its conduct was prohibited by the statute,” McLaughlin v. Richland Shoe Co., 486 U.S. 128, 133 (1988), may be satisfied merely by a showing that a non-compliant employer was on notice of its general FLSA requirements but had no actual knowledge of or reason to believe that it was not complying with any requirement of the FLSA?

2. Whether Petitioners were liable for overtime wages when there was no evidence that they knew or should have known that overtime wages were not properly being paid by a low-level employee?

3. Whether Petitioners may seek contribution under the FLSA from other joint-employers for joint and several liability for an overtime wage award?