Employment Law

Dsouza Law Group, P.A., focuses on wage, hour and overtime law. Our Attorneys represents Employees in wage and overtime disputes when they are owed money by the Employer. We do not represent Employers or their Management. We protect the rights of the Employee. We get paid when we win or settle the case for the Employee.

Our firm handles all types of wage, hour, unpaid commission and overtime cases by following a simple philosophy - that no case is too big or too small and that every client deserves the best representation possible.

Brief Overview Of Wage & Hour Law

There are various laws, both state and federal, that ensure an employee’s right to be paid wages that are due from an employer. Florida law provides that an employee can bring suit over unpaid wages, and the Florida Constitution provides that all Florida employees must be paid no less than the state’s minimum wage. These state laws apply to all Florida companies and employees, and serve to ensure that Florida employees will at least be paid a minimum wage and will be paid for the time that they work.

Even more importantly, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is a federal law that not only sets the federal minimum wage, but also mandates that a qualifying company must pay its nonexempt employees at a rate of time and one half overtime pay for all hours worked in excess of forty (40) during a given work week. In many circumstances, the Fair Labor Standards Act also provides for something called liquidated damages, which essentially doubles the amount that the employer owes to its unpaid employee.

Our attorneys are up to date with recent changes in labor laws and have extensive experience in helping employees and employers. We aggressively fight for the underpaid employee.

Common Wage & Overtime Violations

Although there are many ways that an employer can violate the FLSA or state wage laws, most violations fall into a number of predictable categories. The most common violations are as follows:

• Paying Overtime Hours At Regular Time Rates
• Withholding An Employee’s Last Payroll Check
• Paying The Employee A “Salary”
• Requiring An Employee To Work Off The Clock
• Refusing To Pay An Employee For Unapproved Overtime
• Asking An Employee To Work During Lunch Break
• Assigning On-Call Work To An Employee
• Paying The Employee On A Two Week Pay Period

Paying Overtime Hours At Regular Time Rates

Employers will often pay hourly employees for all of the hours they work, but will simply refuse to pay the overtime at the proper overtime rates. Occasionally, employers will do this openly due to a mistaken belief that they are not required to pay overtime rates. Other times, employer will attempt to hide the fact that they are paying the overtime hours at the wrong rate by paying the overtime hours in cash or paying the overtime hours from a second account. In all of these instances, the employer is in violation of the law and the employee has a legitimate claim for additional pay.

Withholding An Employee’s Last Payroll Check

This happens for a variety of reasons. The employer may claim that it doesn’t have the money at that time, that it takes additional time to process the final check and that the employee will get paid “eventually” or that it won’t pay because the employee did something wrong (e.g. – angered a customer, failed to give enough notice, didn’t do the job properly, etc.). Sometimes, it is because the relationship ended on bad terms and the employer is simply attempting to punish the former employee. In any event, this is not a legal action on the part of the employer and is covered under both state and federal law.

Paying The Employee A “Salary”

Employers often assume that if they pay an employee a salary, then they are not required to pay that employee for overtime. However, many “salaried” employees are not truly exempt from overtime requirements, even if the company assigns them a title such as “manager” or “supervisor”. The true test of whether such an employee is entitled to overtime pay depends on the actual duties that employee performs on a day to day basis. In cases such as this, the hourly rate can be determined by dividing the “salary” by the standard forty hour work week.

Requiring An Employee To Work Off The Clock

Sometimes an employee will be required to perform certain setup tasks before clocking in or will be required to be at work by a certain time and then have to wait to be assigned the first job before clocking in. Other times, employees are told that they are not allowed to have overtime on their time cards, but they are required to get the job done before leaving for the day, even if it means working after clocking out. In these types of cases, the employer is breaking the law and the employee is entitled to be paid at the appropriate rate for those additional hours.

Refusing To Pay An Employee For Unapproved Overtime

Many times, employers will reduce the amount of hours due to an employee because the overtime was not approved in advance. This is legally improper, as the employer is required to pay the overtime even if it has a policy that the overtime requires prior approval.

Asking An Employee To Work During Lunch Break

If an employee is not entirely free from regular job duties during lunch, the employer owes that employee additional wages for the lunch break. Employees often report being interrupted during lunch breaks to handle phone call or urgent issues on a regular basis, and are entitled to wages when that happens.

Assigning On-Call Work To An Employee

If an employee is “On-Call”, that individual is required to be paid for the actual work performed during that period at a minimum. Under certain circumstances, the employee may be entitled to wages for the entire time spent On-Call.

Paying The Employee On A Two Week Pay Period

Employers often pay their employees every two weeks. When they do, sometimes the employer will only pay overtime rates if the employee works more than 80 hours over the two weeks, even if they work more than 40 hours during one of the weeks. This is improper, as the employer is required to pay overtime rates for the hours in excess of 40 for the one week, even though the two week total is not more than 80 hours.

Labor and Employment Law

If you believe that your employer has failed to comply with any of the following laws, please contact us. We may be able to assist you.

• Americans with disabilities act
• Discrimination claims
• Employee contracts
• Employment audit
• Fair labor standards act
• Family and medical leave act
• OSHA
• Unemployment compensation