A Win in Texas? We’ll Take It!

In a win for workers everywhere, last week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied Wells Fargo’s petition for a writ of mandamus in a case involving the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) collective action mechanism.

Huh?

Okay, a writ of mandamus is just a fancy way of telling someone to do something. In seeking a writ of mandamus, Wells Fargo was asking the Fifth Circuit to tell the district court in Texas that it messed up and needed to try again. And in denying the petition, the Fifth Circuit politely said “thanks, but no thanks.”

So what’s the issue here? Well, the FLSA requires that certain employees be paid overtime for any works weeks over 40 hours. And the collective action mechanism in the FLSA allows workers to bring lawsuits on behalf of themselves and others to enforce this law.

The National Women’s Law Center filed an amicus brief urging the court to deny Wells Fargo’s motion for the writ (so: yay, we won!). We explained why collective actions are essential to women workers’ claims under the Equal Pay Act (EPA), an amendment to the FLSA, and why the way the district court handled the case was appropriate.

Collective actions are important, we argued, because many of the workers covered by the FLSA and EPA are low-wage hourly employees. This means that each individual’s claim might not be worth a lot on its own, making it difficult for potential plaintiffs to find attorneys willing to take their case; however, a collective action allows “similarly situated” plaintiffs to add all their claims together. In addition to being good for workers, this scheme is good for the court system, allowing it to deal with a bulk of claims at once.

We’re happy that the Fifth Circuit denied the writ and left in place the district court’s decision, which is good for plaintiffs and good for the courts.