Many employment law statutes base the level of damages or length of the applicable statute of limitations on a determination of whether the employer’s actions were “willful.” While the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit had previously indicated that a finding of willfulness required a level of “egregious” conduct, in Stone v. Troy Construction, ____ F.3d ___, 2019 U.S. App. LEXUS 24769 (3d Cir. Aug. 20, 2019), the appellate court clarified that “egregiousness” is not a required to support a finding that the employer’s actions may have been willful.

FLSA Bases Limitations Period on ‘Willfulness’

The Stone case arose under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which provides that actions “must be commenced within two years ‘except that a cause of action which arises out of a willful violation may be commenced within three years after the cause of action accrued.,” see McLaughlin v. Richland Shoe, 486 U.S. 128, 129 (1988). Under the FLSA, therefore, determining whether the employer’s actions were “willful” is critical to both the size of a potential class, as well as potentially adding a third year of damages for class members.

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