By Ashley Harrison Sakakeeny, JD
The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals— which covers Connecticut, New York, and Vermont—recently announced a surprisingly employer-friendly test for evaluating whether unpaid interns should be classified as employees.
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The case, Glatt v. Fox Searchlight, Inc., dates back to 2011, when two unpaid interns working on Black Swan sued Fox, claiming the film company should have classified them and other Black Swan interns as employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The interns argued that they were entitled to minimum wage and overtime pay.
In 2013, a federal district court judge agreed with the interns and held that they should have been paid for their work. To reach that decision, the judge relied on the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) six-factor test for determining whether an intern should be classified as an employee under the FLSA. Fox appealed the ruling.