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Severance Agreement Can Not Make Employees Drop Pending Claim.
Posted by: Melville Johnson, P.C.
June 09, 2008
Topic: Employment Discrimination
The Attorneys at Melville Johnson, P.C. can provide this type of representation for you regarding your Severance Agreement Negotiation.
A federal judge has determined that SunTrust Banks, Inc. can not force workers to choose between dropping a pending wage-and-hour suit in exchange for severance pay in a severance agreement. SunTrust is planning to layoff technical service writers, who are responsible for repairing and maintaining the bank's computers. The workers in Georgia (including Atlanta, GA), Florida, Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina were told sometime in late April, 2008, that SunTrust had determined it would layoff 178 employees effective June 30, 2008.
Some of the employees, who were notified that they were being laid-off, were part of a class action lawsuit involving a claim under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which alleges that SunTrust failed to adequately pay them for overtime work. SunTrust offered these employees a severance package. The Severance Agreement contained a clause where the workers agreed "to forever release SunTrust...from any and all claims, charges, actions, arbitrations, demands, damages or expenses- past or present-[the employee] may have... If [the employee] ha[s] already filed any Claim referred to in this paragraph, [the employee] agree[s] to withdraw it prior to the date [he or she] receive[s] [his or her] Severance Pay and never to refile it." The District court in issuing an injunction to prohibit SunTrust Banks from using the clause in the Separation Agreement stated that an employer discriminates against an employee in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act "when it conditions an award of a benefit 'that is part and parcel of the employment relationship' on the basis of participation in an FLSA action 'even if the employer would be free...not to provide the benefit at all.'" Melville Johnson, P.C. is an experienced law firm, and its attorneys handle all types of severance agreement negotiations.
This blog is largely based on a Law.com article by Janet L. Conley dated May 14, 2008.
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Employment Discrimination
Erisa Retirement Benefits
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Pension Rights
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Trust, Will, and Probate Litigation
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