On Sept. 20, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued a precedential opinion in Souryavong v. Lackawanna County that is music to the ears of employers on two fronts. First, the court of appeals defined a willful violation under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) narrowly, requiring actual awareness of the specific FLSA violation and a degree of egregiousness. Second, the Third Circuit affirmed the district court’s attorney fees award, applying a hybrid lodestar and multi-factor test analysis, resulting in an award to the plaintiffs’ counsel of approximately one-third of what the plaintiffs originally sought.
The plaintiffs were a class of employees who worked “in two separate part-time capacities for Lackawanna County.” According to the Third Circuit, the county did not aggregate the hours of the employees in their separate jobs for purposes of calculating overtime. In 2011, the county became aware of their error. In the few months following this discovery, the county began aggregating the hours of the employees in calculating overtime.
