Weinberg Law Firm - Dallas Employment Law
National News
Overtime claims and compliance
Wage and hour matters usually manifest when disgruntled employees feel they have not been compensated properly for their work. Often, wage and hour matters are brought forth by employees who have been terminated, anticipate being terminated, or have just received a bad performance review. This is especially true when it comes to overtime claims.
Companies should safeguard against possible problems by seeking counsel to properly classify employees as exempt from overtime pay. Employers often mistakenly characterize workers as independent contractors to avoid payroll taxes, keeping track of hours worked or paying overtime. Weinberg Law Firm can help properly assess how to classify workers to minimize liability exposure under the federal wage and hour laws.
If workers are not properly classified, they may have claims for unpaid overtime against the company and individual owners/supervisors. The employees may also be awarded double (liquidated) damages. Further, if employees are successful on their claims, federal law mandates the company to pay the employees the cost of their legal fees in bringing a lawsuit. If the employer’s conduct was willful, employees may seek unpaid overtime for the past three years.
This is a predicament in which companies do not want to find themselves. Weinberg
focuses on overtime pay issues, but can handle any wage and hour claim, including those that involve working off the clock, during breaks or lunch, and other violations covered under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
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Workers’ Compensation Subrogation of Administrative Fees and Costs
When a worker covered by workers’ compensation makes a claim against a third party, the workers’ compensation insurance retains the right to subrogate against any recovery from that third party for all benefits paid to or on behalf of a claimant injured at work. When subrogating for more than basic medical and indemnity benefits, the Texas workers’ compensation subrogation statute provides that “the net amount recovered by a claimant in a third‑party action shall be used to reimburse the carrier for benefits, including medical benefits that have been paid for the compensable injury.” TX Labor Code § 417.002.
In fact, all 50 states provide for similar subrogation. However, none of them precisely outlines which payments or costs paid by a compensation carrier constitute “compensation” and can be recovered. The result is industry-wide confusion and an ongoing debate and argument with claimants’ attorneys over what can and can’t be included in a carrier’s lien for recovery purposes.
In addition to medical expenses, death benefits, funeral costs and/or indemnity benefits for lost wages and loss of earning capacity resulting from a compensable injury, workers’ compensation insurance carriers also expend considerable dollars for case management costs, medical bill audit fees, rehabilitation benefits, nurse case worker fees, and other similar fees. They also incur other expenses in conjunction with the handling and adjusting of workers’ compensation claims. Workers’ compensation carriers typically assert, of course, that, they are entitled to reimbursement for such expenditures when it recovers its workers’ compensation lien. Injured workers and their attorneys disagree.