Here at the Law Office of Vincent Miletti, Esq. and the home of the #UnusuallyMotivated movement, we take pride as a resilient and dependable legal services firm, providing such services in both a traditional and online, web-based environment. With mastered specialization in areas such as Employment and Labor Law, Intellectual Property (IP) (trademark, copyright, patent), Entertainment Law, and e-Commerce (Supply Chain, Distribution, Fulfillment, Standard Legal & Regulatory), we provide a range of legal services including, but not limited to traditional legal representation (litigation, mediation, arbitration, opinion letters, and advisory), non-litigated business legal representation and legal counsel, and unique, online legal services such as smart forms, mobile training, legal marketing, and development.

Still, here at Miletti Law®, we feel obligated to enlighten, educate, and create awareness, free of charge, about how these issues and many others affect our unusually motivated® readers and/or their businesses. Accordingly, to achieve this goal, we have committed ourselves to creating authoritative, trustworthy, & distinctive content. Usually, this content is featured as videos posted on our YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtvUryqkkMAJLwrLu2BBt6w and blogs that are published on our website WWW.MILETTILAW.COM. With that, the ball is in your court and you have an effortless obligation to subscribe to the channel and sign up for the Newsletter on the website, which encompasses the best way to ensure that you stay in the loop and feel the positive impact of the knowledge bombs that we drop here!

As the authoritative force in Employment Law, it only seemed right to introduce one of the many upcoming series in which we introduce a variety of topics that looks to educate and deliver in a manner that only Miletti Law® can. To that end, this blog is Part VIII of our ongoing series on “Life Sciences Industry Guide for Labor and Employment,” in which we review the basics and have an overview of what is encompassed as part of the life sciences industry. In Part VII of the series and our blog titled “How to Properly Classify Exempt Employees in the Life Sciences,” we mentioned that the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) provides applicable exemptions that employers must satisfy when classifying employees in the life sciences as exempt. This implies that an employer is required to show that the responsibilities of an employee’s job satisfy, in addition to a minimum salary threshold, the provisions with regard to executive, administrative, or professional exemptions. We also added that an employer must make sure that the primary responsibilities of a job meet specific criteria when it comes to executive, administrative, or professional exemptions. Please, read our blog for detailed information about each of these three categories of exemptions.

As a continuation of our discussion, this blog is titled “Damages Available to Plaintiffs in FLSA Misclassification Claims” and is an overview of the damages available to plaintiffs who prevail in misclassification claims brought under the FLSA and within the life sciences industry.

Damages Available to Plaintiffs in FLSA Misclassification Claims

Employers within the life sciences industry must understand that misclassifying employees as exempt could lead to significant financial risks. Pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 216(b), some of the monetary damages available to prevailing plaintiffs include attorney’s fees and costs, liquidated damages that should amount to unpaid overtime, and unpaid overtime wages. Additionally, pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 255(a) of the FLSA, some of the damages recoverable for at least twenty-four months since the date the claim was brought and available to prevailing plaintiffs include liquidated damages and unpaid overtime.

However, if it is found, through the evidence, that the employer reflected “reckless disregard” or acted “willfully in the misclassification, the recovery of the liquidated damages and unpaid overtime should be extended to at least thirty-six months. Furthermore, in addition to the financial risk, (1) the damages could be exponentially multiplied if relatively small damages are aggregated through the claims of many misclassified employees in a class action, and (2) the count of overtime hours worked could be adversely affected following the employer’s failure to keep track and maintain misclassified employees’ hourly records.

In this regard, the plaintiff’s counsel may have a number of defenses to the damages discussed above. Under the FLSA, a court may rule misclassification as “willful” if the available evidence establishes the employer’s show of reckless disregard that classification was wrong or had knowledge or possibility of knowing that employees had not been properly classified. Pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 255(a), the duration of the recovery of the liquidated damages and lost overtime wages could be extended from twenty-four up to thirty-six months.

On the same note, the defendant (employer alleged to have misclassified employees as exempt) may have had “reasonable grounds” for its conduct and acted in good faith. If that is the case, such an employer could use a statutory “safe harbor” provided pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 260 of the FLSA, under which a court is required to proceed with discretion and, accordingly, not impose liquidated damages of the said employer.

In Part IX of this series and our blog titled “Independent Contractor Concerns within the Life Sciences Industry,” we shall move the discussion forward by hammering on the concerns employers have towards independent contractors engaged in the life sciences industry under contracts.

In the meantime, stay tuned for more legal guidance, training, and education. In the interim, if there are any questions or comments, please let us know at the Contact Us page!

Always rising above the bar,

Isaac T.,

Legal Writer & Author.