Business Litigation

Brian Butler will be a speaker at the Louisville Bar Association's seminar covering the latest updates in criminal law for the Commonwealth of Kentucky on April 18, 2024.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Stites & Harbison, PLLC welcomes attorney Bridget A. Stewart to the firm based in the Nashville, Tenn., office. She joins the Business Litigation Service Group.

In an opinion that raises as many questions as it answers, the Sixth Circuit foreclosed two methods of calculating how delivery drivers paid the minimum wage should be reimbursed for the costs associated with using their vehicles for work under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). Rejecting both the drivers’ assertion that they should be reimbursed using the mileage rate published by the IRS, and the employers’ argument that drivers should receive a “reasonable approximation” of their costs, the Sixth Circuit held in two consolidated appeals in Parker v. Battle Creek Pizza, Inc., Nos. 22-2119, 22-3561, 2024 WL 1068871 (6th Cir. Mar. 12, 2024), that drivers’ actual costs must be reimbursed to avoid a minimum wage violation and remanded both cases to their respective district courts with little guidance as to how to calculate those costs. Robin McGuffin and Harlee Havens take a close look at the ruling in this Stites & Harbison Client Alert.

In a published opinion issued on March 27, 2024, the Sixth Circuit applied for the first time the waiver standard announced in the Supreme Court’s 2022 opinion, Morgan v. Sundance, Inc., 596 U.S. 411 (2022), in affirming the denial of a motion to compel arbitration due to the defendant’s extensive participation in the litigation.