Unpaid Wages Case Update (Docket No.: 17-CV-5041) Judge grants Conditional Certification of Collective Action in the Eastern District of New York

Judge grants Conditional Certification of Collective Action in the Eastern District of New York
As previously reported on this website, in Henry v. Prishtina Construction Designs, Inc., on August 25, 2017, Lead Plaintiff Mr. Henry, on behalf of himself and those similarly situated, filed a class and collective action lawsuit in United States District Court – Eastern District of New York against Prishtina Construction Designs, Inc., and Flamur Prishtina, individually, alleging willful violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) including, but not limited to the failure of Defendants to pay overtime wages. The factual allegations of the case are referenced in on our New York employment lawyer court decisions page and are summarized as follows:

• Defendants employed Plaintiff to work as a construction worker from in or about June 2011 to June 12, 2017;
• Throughout his employment, Plaintiff’s duties mainly consisted of manual labor;
• Defendants required Plaintiff to work, and Plaintiff did work a total of fifty-seven hours per week;
• Defendants paid Plaintiff a flat weekly rate of $720.00 which was intended to cover only the first forty hours that Plaintiff worked each week,
• Plaintiff’s straight-time rate was $18.00 per hour (an amount equal to his base rate of pay).

Straight-time rate is particularly important because when a non-exempt employee works over 40 hours a work-week, the employer is required by law to pay the employee at 1.5x his/her straight-time rate of pay for each hour worked in excess of forty. The additional pay is called the overtime rate. In this case, Defendants paid Plaintiff $18.00 per hour for the first forty hours he worked per week and nothing additional for the seventeen overtime hours worked per week, in clear violation of the New York Labor Law and the FLSA.

Certification of Collective Action
In this case, pursuant to the request of the Plaintiff, the judge reviews claims that Plaintiff brings forward alleging that there are additional workers in the same “class” (performing the same or similar duties) whose rights were violated. After reviewing the facts of this case, Magistrate Judge Ramon E. Reyes, Jr. granted “conditional certification” allowing the case to proceed as a collective class action enabling any other workers who were not paid properly to join the lawsuit and seek redress for the Defendants’ failure to pay them in accordance with the law.

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If you or a person you know worked for the Defendants named in the lawsuit during the time period of Thursday, August 25, 2011– present or has information that may be relevant to this case, contact Borrelli & Associates, P.L.L.C. as soon as possible through our website, www.employmentlawyernewyork.com, or any of our phone numbers: (516) 248-5550, (516) ABOGADO, and (212) 679-5000.