The Second Circuit Court of Appeals, the federal appeals court which covers New York, Connecticut and Vermont, recently made a very important decision regarding a failure to pay overtime claim.
In Dejesus v. Mgmt. Services, LLC, the plaintiff’s overtime claim was dismissed by the trial court because her complaint did not include “any approximation of the number of unpaid overtime hours worked, [the plaintiff’s] rate of pay, or any approximation of the amount of wages due”. Instead, the plaintiff’s complaint simply alleged that the plaintiff worked more than forty (40) hours per week during “some or all weeks” of her employment.
On appeal, the Second Circuit affirmed the decision of the trial court, finding that the plaintiff had not plausibly alleged that she worked overtime without proper compensation under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). In doing so, the court reiterated its holding from an overtime case decided earlier this year (Lunay v. Catholic Health System of Long Island) that a plaintiff must sufficiently allege forty (40) hours of work in a given workweek as well as some uncompensated time in excess of the forty (40) hours. Significantly, the appeals court explained that if an employee has absolutely no recollection whatsoever about the times worked, then he or she should not pursue a claim in court.