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84 U. Cin. L. Rev. 1455 (2016)
Welcome to the Working Week: The Minimum Pleading Standard for Unpaid Overtime Claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938

handle is hein.journals/ucinlr84 and id is 1479 raw text is: WELCOME TO THE WORKING WEEK: THE MINIMUM PLEADING STANDARD FOR UNPAID OVERTIME CLAIMS UNDER THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT OF 1938 JeradT Whitt* I. INTRODUCTION Since its passage in 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) has been used to enforce and maintain minimum standards for workers in the United States. The FLSA established, among other things, a federal minimum wage, child labor restrictions, workweek restrictions, recordkeeping requirements, and requirements for overtime pay.1 While the FLSA has been amended many times since 1938, its amendments have mostly dealt with minimum wage increases and expansion of coverage to new classifications of employees.2 In contrast, the composition of the American job market has changed dramatically from the dominance of manual labor and manufacturing in the 1930s to the technology driven modem workplace. This shift can make application of the FLSA confusing and difficult for today's employees and employers, leading to an increase in the number of FLSA cases in recent years.3 One particularly confounding issue with modem application of the FLSA involves the minimum pleading standard for allegations of unpaid overtime. Historically, the minimum pleading requirement for an employee seeking compensation for alleged unpaid overtime under the FLSA was relatively lenient; a complaint only needed to contain conclusory allegations of a statutory violation in order to proceed to discovery.4 For example, the requirement would be met if an employee alleged that the employer failed to pay overtime wages to an employee who worked more than forty hours in one week. However, contemporary jurisprudence in this area has changed in the wake of two U.S. Supreme Court cases that established a higher pleading standard for all cases: Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly5 and Ashcroft v. Iqbal.6 * Associate Member, 2015-16 University of Cincinnati Law Review. 1. Wage and Hour Division Historical Summary, DEP'T OF LABOR, http://www.dol.gov/whd/about/history/whdhist.htm (last visited May 2, 2016). 2. Id. 3. See Ben James, FLSA, FMLA Lawsuits Soaring, New Statistics Show, Law360 (March 11, 2015) http://www.1aw360.com/articles/630168/flsa-finla-lawsuits-soaring-new-statistics-show (data released by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts in March 2015 showed a 20 year high in the number of FLSA cases filed over the previous 12 month period). 4. See Takacs v. A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc., 444 F. Supp. 2d 1100, 1106-07 (S.D. Cal. 2006). 5. 550 U.S. 544, 577 (2007). 6. 556 U.S. 662, 670 (2009). 1455

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