Tennessee Injury Lawyer Blog

Over the past few months, our Nashville law office has had an large increase in wage and hour cases throughout Tennessee. I do not know if it is a product of the current economy or people are just tired of being mistreated. Regardless, it is unfortunate but it is often the case the Tennessee employers try to increase their profit by cheating Tennesseans out of their wages.

One common scheme we are seeing recently are having people clock out of work while they are still required to be on the premises. Often the company will have the worker clock out and come to a mandatory office meeting. Although this may only be a few dollars for the individual employee it adds up to a significant amount of money that the employer is taking from their workers.

We are also seeing significant number of misclassification cases. Put simply, the TN employer gives a regular employee a supervisor or manager title so they do not have to pay overtime. The problem arises when the employee has no manager duties.

For instance, in one recent case our Nashville law office pursued almost every employee at a fast food restaurant was called an "assistant manager" and paid a salary. The employees worked in excess of 40 hours a week but received no overtime because of these bogus titles. Fortunately, our employment lawyers were able to recover a significant amount of lost wages for these workers. Some of the workers had been losing their overtime for several years of unpaid overtime, so the lost pay they recovered was significant.

If you have an overtime pay or other employment law question, please feel free to contact our Tennessee workplace law office.

In a follow-up to a Tennessee Law Blog’s wage and hour reporting last July (Unpaid Wages and Unrecorded Hours Subject of Local Nashville, TN Car Wash Lawsuit), I and my fellow TN employment attorneys at the Higgins Firm are glad to announce a $130,000 settlement between Shur-Brite Hi-Speed Car Wash and 120 of its current and former Tennessee wage employees.

Shur-Brite, which has operated in Tennessee for three decades, recently got into trouble with federal law on their wage and hour practices. Allegations included various violations of workplace law, but the main abuse was time card violations. Workers were forced to clock out when they were not actively working. As Tennessee Law Blog previously reported:

... the wage and hour lawsuit alleges that Shur-Brite High Speed Car Wash owners knowingly, and illegally, forced employees to clock out when there were no cars to wash... [On] slow days, workers would be forced to clock out as often as ten times during the day. Many workers would be at the car wash site for over 40 hours a week but only get paid for 15 at Tennessee’s minimum wage of $5.85 an hour. Some workers put in twelve-hour days hoping to get paid for eight. Many times it was unclear to workers whether they were on or off the clock ...

If an employer pays a wage, then that wage must apply for the time worked. Work is not simply the active performance of duties, as one California wage and hour lawsuit against Costco is teaching managers who would force workers to clock out before they were free to leave.

If your employer requires that you remain on premises or take a mandatory training, these hours must be recorded and count towards overtime. You have the right to be paid for the time you work, and federal and Tennessee employment law offers means of recovering unpaid wages. National and state employment laws overrule most verbal or written agreements you may have made with your Tennessee employer regarding wages and overtime. In other words, just because you agree to not be paid overtime does not mean that your employer is freed from accurately recording your hours or paying you for overtime.

Unfair wage payments and timecard abuses against employees often occur against those who are the most desperate and needy. This is because these employers feel they can pay unfair wages to employees who are most need a fair wage. Fortunately, a Tennessee lawyer can often keep confidential clients' reports of workplace abuses or bring together multiple workers at a store, factory, or other business in a class action wage and hour lawsuit.

If your Kentucky, Georgia, or Tennessee employer frequently changes your schedule to prevent paying you overtime or does not pay you for time that you are required to be on-site, then you should speak with a Higgins Firm wage and hour attorney about a possible wage and hour lawsuit. Typical settlement and court awards include backpay for unpaid wages, including overtime, liquidated damages, and attorney’s fees. Filing a wage and hour lawsuit with a qualified employment law attorney can help correct many unfair workplace practices and help prevent retaliation.

Costco employees have filed a unpaid wages lawsuit in California stating the company had repeatedly violated the state’s wage and labor law. Costco faces allegations similar to those Tennessee Law Blog reported last year in the nationwide unpaid overtime lawsuits against Wal-Mart stores. Specifically, Costco has allegedly required employees to work off the clock by locking employees in the store after their shifts and not paying them for this time or overtime as required under state employment laws.

Unlike earlier Wal-Mart lawsuits, Costco has apparently claimed that keeping employees after they clocked out was for security reasons. Apparently managers forced employees to remain after their shifts while they performed closing tasks, such as removing valuables from display cases and emptying cash registers. Costco employees were unpaid for this time off-the-clock during which they were not permitted to leave.

Tennessee labor law requires employees be paid for their time, including required training and, in some cases, travel time. If something similar to what California Costco employees faced is happening at your Tennessee place of employment, you may have the opportunity to recover unpaid wages under Tennessee's wage and hour law.

In other employment law news, drugmaker Wyeth faces False Claims Act penalties for overcharging Medicaid for Protonix, a popular stomach acid drug. Two whistleblower lawsuits have been joined by the U.S. Justice Department for recoveries and penalties in the millions of dollars.

From 2000 and 2006, according to court papers, Wyeth offered dramatic discounts (up to a 94% discount) to thousands of hospitals nationwide for its stomach acid drug that weren’t offered to state Medicaid programs. By doing so, the whistleblower lawsuits and federal government claim, Wyeth avoided hundreds of millions of dollars of rebates that would have cut costs to the program for the poor--prescription costs that state and federal taxes had to pay. Simply put, Medicaid programs in Tennessee and throughout the U.S. were forced to pay significantly more for their Wyeth drugs than they should have. These overcharges violate Medicaid programs’ “best price reporting requirements” and can be recovered under False Claims law.

In addition to Tennessee, the other states joining the lawsuit are (alphabetically) California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

In this economy and era of big pharmaceuticals and contractors working with the military and disaster recovery, False Claims law needs greater qui tam awards to protect our federal and Tennessee tax moneys.

For unpaid overtime, whistleblower actions, and other Tennessee workplace legal issues, visit Higgins Firm’s workplace lawyers’ Tennessee Employment Law pages. To speak directly with an employment lawyer about a potential Tennessee workplace lawsuit, contact our Nashville, TN law offices.

Just a couple of years ago, a company called MuscleTech produced dietary supplements with ephedra that was believed to have caused strokes, heart attacks and death. That company went into bankruptcy and put new dietary supplements on the market under known as Hydroxycut. Now it appears that this new Hydroxcut product may be just as dangerous as the old product.

The FDA has received 23 incident reports of liver damage in users of Hydroxycut supplements. These injuries include jaundice, liver damage, and even liver transplant. One reported case involves a 19-year-old who died as a result of the associated liver damage. Symptoms of serious liver disease include jaundice (yellowing of the skin or whites of the eyes) and brown urine.

Currently the FDA has recalled the following products:

Hydroxycut Regular Rapid Release Caplets
Hydroxycut Caffeine-Free Rapid Release Caplets
Hydroxycut Hardcore Liquid Capsules
Hydroxycut Max Liquid Capsules
Hydroxycut Regular Drink Packets
Hydroxycut Caffeine-Free Drink Packets
Hydroxycut Hardcore Drink Packets (Ignition Stix)
Hydroxycut Max Drink Packets
Hydroxycut Liquid Shots
Hydroxycut Hardcore RTDs (Ready-to-Drink)
Hydroxycut Max Aqua Shed
Hydroxycut 24
Hydroxycut Carb Control
Hydroxycut Natural

Even you have taken any of these products and believe you have a claim please feel free to contact our Tennessee Legal Office. You can also contact us toll free at 1-800-705-2121.

The Tennessee Supreme Court has established that a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress is a separate stand alone cause of action. Okay, so what does that mean and what is the big deal? Generally, each insurance policy has a limit of coverage for each person. If someone is killed in a car wreck the limit for the death may just be $100,000.00 under the insurance. Obviously, if you have lost the family wage earner the family will need all the financial help they can get. As such, it is important to obtain the full recovery under the insurance policies. This seperate cause of action is often a way to increase the recovery.

One way we have been able to increase the policy coverage is under the now recognized separated claim . Specifically, if a person witnesses a tragedy involving a loved one they may be able to recover additional compensation for seeing that tragic loss. This is obviously not going to make up for any emotional loss but it may help recover some of the financial hardship. I know that if something happened to me i want my family to get all they can to help them through life without me.

I have now had a couple of wrongful death cases where we were able to double the financial recovery under this law. It is not available in every Tennessee wrongful death or serious injury case but it is important to look for it. If you have questions about this newly recognized separate claim feel free to give my Tennessee Law Office a call.