In 2004, Florida’s voters and the First Circuit Court of Appeal made it easier for workers to sue their employers for not paying them enough money. The court ruled that a group of workers could sue Wal-Mart together, even though each worker had different damages. Around the same time, Florida also changed its constitution to make sure all workers get paid at least $6.15 per hour. This means that workers can now join together to sue their employers if they didn’t get paid enough. Workers at Wal-Mart in Florida sued the company because they say they were made to work without getting paid and were not given promised breaks. The court said the group of workers was too big, but also said that individual claims for damages can still be addressed in a class action lawsuit. The case was sent back to the lower court for the workers to try to redefine their group. The plaintiffs in the Ouellette case sued Wal-Mart for not paying them fairly. They wanted to make it a class action lawsuit, but Wal-Mart said the class was too big and not everyone had a valid claim. The law that could have helped them didn’t work because they were paid more than the minimum wage for the hours Wal-Mart actually paid them. In 2004, Florida passed a law that set a minimum wage of $6.15 per hour, higher than the federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour. The law states that employers must pay their employees at least the minimum wage for every hour worked in Florida. This means that employees can’t be paid less than $6.15 per hour for any hour they work. The law also gives employees a longer time to file a complaint if they believe they were paid less than the minimum wage. Additionally, the law allows employees to bring a lawsuit together as a group if they all experienced the same violation. The FLSA doesn’t cancel out state laws that give more benefits to workers. So, Florida’s new minimum wage rules should still be valid even though they are more generous than the FLSA. Employees in Florida can sue their employer as a group if they believe they haven’t been paid properly. This is allowed under Florida’s minimum wage law. They have to prove that there are enough people in the group, that they have similar claims, and that it’s better to handle the case as a group instead of individually. This is different from the federal law, which requires employees to “opt-in” to a lawsuit, meaning they have to actively choose to be part of the group suing the employer. This makes it harder to get a large group of employees involved in the lawsuit. But in Florida, the law allows for a larger statute of limitations, meaning employees have more time to file a lawsuit. In Florida, employees can now sue their employers for unpaid time spent getting ready for work, traveling for work, or working at home. A recent court case in Washington state made a company pay its employees for missed breaks and meal periods, and Florida employees can now do the same. This means Florida employees have more opportunities to take legal action against their employers for wage violations. This text discusses a case where employees sued a big company for not paying them for missed breaks. The court decided that the case could be a class action, where many employees can sue together. This is because each employee doesn’t have to prove their case individually. Instead, they can all join together to make their case against the company. This is allowed by the law, and similar cases have been decided this way in different states.
Source: https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-journal/ouellette-v-wal-mart-stores-inc-and-floridas-minimum-wage-law-are-class-actions-for-minimum-wage-on-floridas-horizon/
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