Alaska Employment Law

1)  Employer’s good faith: An employer’s good faith belief that an employee had filed a discrimination complaint in bad faith provides no defense to the subsequent claim.  See this good discussion of a recent District Court decision in Wait a Second!, the blog on 2nd Circuit civil rights opinions.

2)  WARN Act coverage for construction workers: Construction workers at remote sites have WARN Act rights to 60 days’ notice of layoff only if 50 or more of them work at the same remote site (or collection of adjacent sites).  Working “out of” the same administrative site is insufficient to trigger their WARN Act rights, according to the 9th Circuit in Bader v. Northern Line Layers, Inc., 2007 WL 2581110 (9th Cir. Sept. 10, 2007).

3)  US DOL supervision of OT settlements:  If the WH-58 release form specifies a period from which the overtime pay comes, the employer is likely released from liability for only that period, despite general releae language found elsewhere in the form.  The employee retains the right to sue for earlier or later periods of overtime, according to the 9th Circuit in Dent v. Cox Communications Las Vegas, Inc., 2007 WL 2580754 (9th Cir. Sept. 10, 2007).

On a related note: At the recent ELS meeting, we discussed whether the US DOL would review a private settlement of an FLSA OT claim.  According to this article, the DOL has done just that.