Labor and Employment

Wage and Hour Litigation: FLSA and State Law Claims

Experts in NERA's Labor and Employment Practice frequently provide economic and statistical analysis for wage and hour litigations. We have substantial experience investigating the key issues at the class certification, liability, and damages phases of cases, involving allegations related to:

• Meals and breaks
• Minimum wage
• Misclassification/exempt status
• Off-the-clock work
• Overtime pay
• Processing errors
• Donning and doffing

Our projects often require us to merge and analyze business records for as many as several hundred thousand employees. Our experts’ analytical and statistical expertise can handle computational requirements under the most demanding and rigorous of circumstances. We have extensive experience in a variety of types of wage and hour litigation, enabling us to apply analytical rigor in distinguishing between specious or valid claims, and to place an accurate value on valid claims. Often, our work may include assessing whether the available data would allow such a determination, as well as understanding the drivers of observed variability in patterns of alleged violations. Such variability may indicate that apparent violations are, in fact, innocuous and result from the mechanical application of a damages formula to data that may be available from business records but cannot reliably answer the questions raised in litigation. 

In cases where the data for a required analysis exist only in paper form, we have designed sampling protocols and overseen data entry processes to create electronic databases from paper records. We have critiqued surveys used to attempt to augment the available data in situations where the design of the survey instrument was flawed or there was reason to expect biased responses (such as a low-response rate or awareness by survey participants of the intended use of the survey). NERA's experts have also designed rigorous surveys tailored to the specifics of the case and successfully augmented the payroll and time clock data. NERA takes pride in its adaptability, reliability, accuracy, clarity, and timeliness.

We have successfully presented the results of such statistical assessments in testimony to both judges and juries at both the class certification and damages phases of litigation. We also provide consulting services to help firms understand their exposure and reliable defenses, as well as to assess current wage and hour practices to avoid litigation. Our clients value NERA’s reputation for independent, rigorous economic and statistical analysis, as well as our ability to tailor and present our complex work product in a clear and understandable way.