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Keith Anderson is a litigation and labor & employment partner and concentrates his practice on representing financial institutions in the financial services industry, as well as representing employers in employment matters. He has handled multiple litigated matters under the FLSA, ADA, ADEA, FMLA and claims of discrimination and retaliation, as well as counseling employers on compliance and effective employment policies.

It’s What I Said Before: DOL’s Opinion Reversal Does Not Sway Arkansas Federal CourtWhen the Department of Labor (DOL) withdraws one of its previous opinion letters and issues a new interpretation, should a court change its ruling? No — not according to a federal judge in Arkansas.

DOL Opinion Letters

As background, the DOL issues opinion letters as a means to provide guidance for Fair Labor Standards Act

Update: Maximum Ending for Alabama Minimum Wage Suit? Eleventh Circuit Affirms Lower Court’s Dismissal of Case Dealing with Inflation of Minimum Wage, But Is It the End?Ever wonder what happened with the minimum wage fight that has been going on between Alabama and Birmingham? Well, here is the latest — the full panel on the Eleventh Circuit has now spoken: the district court rightly dismissed the lawsuit against Alabama’s governor and attorney general alleging discrimination in the state’s minimum wage law. 

Sunday May Still Be Sacred: Texas Jury Sides with Employee Who Chose Church Service Over WorkIf an employee misses work to attend church on Sunday morning and the company subsequently fires her, is that religious discrimination? A jury in Texas recently said yes and awarded the plaintiff close to $350,000. The verdict is a reminder to employers to remember your religious accommodation obligations.

Trouble with supervisor and work scheduled for

The Door Gets a Little Wider: D.C. Circuit Rules Employee-Plaintiff Can Get Comparator Discovery to Prevent Dismissal of CaseIf your employee sues you for discrimination, they don’t get to look at how the decision-makers treated everyone else, do they? Well, in Cruz vs. US Homeland Security, the D.C. Court of Appeals says yes they do. Although the district court granted summary judgment and did not let the plaintiff take discovery on how

Bag the Gag Provision: New Jersey Is the Latest State to Restrict Non-disclosure Agreements in SettlementsYou finally settled that tough discrimination or harassment claim. Now you just need to ink the settlement agreement, and obviously it will include a standard non-disclosure clause to prevent your claimant from ever talking about the events or settlement amount ever again – right? Well, depending on the state you are in, not so fast.

Take Two: Alabama’s City Versus State Minimum Wage Dispute to Get Full Appellate ReviewMinimum wage laws invite controversy, and Alabama’s latest tug-of-war between the state and its largest city is going to get another wider review. You may recall that back in 2015, Birmingham, Alabama, passed a local minimum wage law. On the heels of that move, the Alabama Legislature then passed a state-wide minimum wage law,

You Don’t Get a Bite at the Big Dog: Texas Court Rules that Injured Worker CannotWhat if your employee plaintiff sues you and then demands to take the deposition of your company CEO or some other high-level corporate executive who has no personal knowledge about the facts of the case? No one would be excited about that prospect. Fortunately, a Texas appellate court recently ruled that high-level executives can be

Combining Classrooms and Class Actions: Trump Proposes Combining Labor and Education DepartmentsCould the Department of Labor (DOL) and Department of Education (DOE) possibly merge in the near future? President Trump thinks so and recently announced his desire to combine the two departments into a single federal agency to be called the Department of Education and the Workforce. According to a White House Statement, the new agency

Cooperate or Pay: Recovering Attorneys’ Fees to Get to ArbitrationDoes your arbitration agreement allow you to recover attorneys’ fees if the employee rebels against arbitration and you have to compel it? Maybe it should. In Aralar v. Scott McRea Automotive Group, a court in Florida recently affirmed an arbitrator’s award of nearly $20,000 in attorney’s fees for the defendant’s hassle of moving for