An important part of the litigation practice is appellate law.  One side can win in the trial court – by a motion to dismiss, on summary judgment, or after a jury trial – only to have the result overturned on appeal.  The court of appeal can send the parties back for an entirely new trial,

hourglass-small.jpgA California Court of Appeal decision recently went against existing authority interpreting the FLSA and found an employer’s change to employees’ FLSA workweeks with the purpose of limiting the employer’s overtime obligations to “evade” the overtime requirements of the FLSA.  The decision has come under sharp criticism from a federal court.

Under the FLSA, an

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Section 203(o) of the Fair Labor Standards Act excludes from the definition of hours worked time spent “changing clothes or washing at the beginning or end of each workday” if it has been excluded “by the express terms of or by custom or practice under a bona fide collective-bargaining agreement.”  However, the term “clothes” is