Fair Labor Standards Act

THIS CASEBOOK contains a selection of U. S. Court of Appeals decisions that analyze, interpret and apply provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Volume 2 of the casebook covers the Sixth through the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. * * * The FLSA states that "no employer shall employ any of his employees . . . for a workweek longer than forty hours" without paying one-and-one-half times the regular rate for any excess hours. 29 U. S. C. § 207. The critical issue is whether Karlson was an employee, as opposed to an independent contractor, when working as an APS process server. Like many federal statutes, the FLSA defines "employee," in circular fashion, as "any individual employed by an employer." § 203(e)(1). But the FLSA also defines "employ" as meaning "to suffer or permit to work," § 203(g), a broad definition derived from child labor statutes. See Rutherford Food Corp. v. McComb, 331 U. S. 722, 728, 67 S. Ct. 1473, 91 L. Ed. 1772 (1947). While FLSA wage and hour requirements do not apply to true independent contractors, see id. at 729, 67 S. Ct. 1473, this broad definition of employ "stretches the meaning of 'employee' to cover some parties who might not qualify as such under a strict application of traditional agency law principles." Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v. Darden, 503 U. S. 318, 326, 112 S. Ct. 1344, 117 L. Ed.2d 581 (1992). Karlson v. Action Process Serv. & Private Invest., 860 F. 3d 1089 (8th Cir. 2017)