In a recent Missouri Court of Appeals decision, the appellate court reversed and remanded the trial court’s calculation of the winning plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees. The plaintiff, Thomas Dewalt, did not receive the full amount of his attorneys’ fees ($125,000), but rather was awarded only awarded a little over half of his claimed attorneys’ fees the trial […]

Employees can face discrimination in many ways, including age discrimination. The Missouri Human Rights Act (MHRA) protects employees in Missouri from age discrimination. In a recent decision, Trickey v. Kaman Industrial Technologies, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals (which includes Missouri and other states in the Midwest) affirmed a trial court judgment of $760,000 for a plaintiff in an

In a class/collective action lawsuit being handled by Riggan Law Firm, LLC, a St. Louis employment law firm, a federal court Judge recently reconsidered a prior ruling and held that claims for unpaid wages under Missouri common law are subject to a five-year statute of limitations, and not a two-year statute of limitations as the Court

Currently, a major issue in the field of labor law is the enforceability of class waivers. Some employers have attempted to avoid the risk of class action employment cases by requiring their employees–as a condition of employment or continued employment–to sign a written document agreeing never to file a class action lawsuit or to serve

Employees often need to take leaves of absence for family and/or medical reasons, such as for the birth or adoption of a child or to obtain medical treatment or to care for a close family member. The Family and Medical Leave Act and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) allows eligible employees of covered employers to take

People realize that not everyone is alike; some people are tall, some people have blue eyes, some people are deaf. Nicholas Keith just happened to be deaf since birth. But what most people don’t realize is that that disability laws–namely, the Americans Disabilities Act (ADA) and usually equivalent state law–protect people like Nicholas who have handicaps or

On January 17, 2013, Riggan Law Firm, LLC, a St. Louis employment law firm, filed a lawsuit on behalf of its client against I.C.S. General Contracting, LLC d/b/a Reclaim Services for unpaid overtime wages. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of a former Project Manager who worked for the company, alleges that the Project Manager consistently worked more than

Historically, when settling cases involving claims for unpaid wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), employment lawyers have typically operated under the assumption that FLSA claims cannot be “privately” settled and that a settlement must be approved by the U.S. Department of Labor or a court before the settlement (and hence, the FLSA release

Many employees experience some type of unlawful discrimination in the workplace. Federal and Missouri law prevent covered employers from discriminating on the basis of age, race, national origin, gender, sex, disability, pregnancy, and religion. But what sexual orientation? Is an employee’s sexual orientation a protected category that an employer cannot consider when making personnel decisions,