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Jeremy Wright

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Jeremy Wright is a graduate of the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, where he served as the online managing editor of the Northwestern University Law Review. While in law school, he was a clinical student at the Donald Pritzker Entrepreneurship Law Center and at the Center on Wrongful Convictions, a teaching assistant, and an OUTLaw/LAGBAC representative.

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Higgins v. Bayada Home Health Care Inc., held that it is not a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for an employer to deduct time from an exempt employee’s paid time off (PTO) bank for failing to meet a productivity target. The employer in the case had developed a point-based system to ensure that employees met certain “productivity minimums,” with various tasks being assigned a certain number of “productivity points.” When employees consistently exceeded their productivity minimums, they received additional compensation. When employees failed to meet their weekly productivity minimums, however, their available PTO was deducted. The employer did not deduct from an employee’s salary once PTO had been exhausted.…

Continue Reading Third Circuit Rules Paid Time Off Is Not Part of an Exempt Employee’s Salary

In O’Reilly v. Daugherty Systems, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit[1] ruled that, for purposes of the Equal Pay Act (EPA) claim, greater experience can serve as a legitimate reason for a pay differential on March 29, 2023. Affirming the district court’s grant of summary judgment for the defendant, the Eighth Circuit held that differences in skillset and experience between a plaintiff and a single comparator can establish that a pay disparity between them was based on a factor other than sex, an affirmative defense to an EPA claim. The recent decision adds one more notch in the developing question of what constitutes a legitimate reason for pay differences under the EPA.…

Continue Reading Eighth Circuit Pushes Back Against Using More Experienced Comparators in EPA Claims