CHICAGO—The top 10 private wage-and-hour settlements paid or agreed to in 2009 under the Fair Labor Standards Act totaled $363.6 million, a 43.9% increase from 2008, according to an annual report released this month.

The 575-page report, Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report, 2010 Edition, by Chicago-based law firm Seyfarth Shaw L.L.P. analyzed 715 cases and highlighted key trends in federal and state courts last year.

“The lesson to draw from 2009 is that the private plaintiffs bar and government enforcement attorneys are apt to be equally, if not more, aggressive in 2010 in bringing class action and collective action litigation against employers,” the report concludes.

The 10 largest wage-and-hour settlements were split evenly between nationwide and state-specific claims. Five involved lawsuits pending in federal or state courts in California, according to the report.

The lawsuits typically allege failure to pay overtime, often by misclassifying hourly workers as being exempt from overtime.

Meanwhile, the top 10 private settlements under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act in 2009 decreased to $499.5 million from $17.7 billion in 2008. But ERISA class settlements actually increased in 2009 when three 2008 settlements involving voluntary employees' beneficiary associations, which totaled $17.4 billion, are excluded, according to the report.

In addition, the monetary value of the top 10 private plaintiff settlements in employment discrimination cases dropped 27.2%, to $86.2 million, in 2009.

The report says the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in fiscal 2009 filed 281 new lawsuits, resolved 319 pending lawsuits and secured $294.1 million in settlements for allegedly injured victims of job bias. The monetary value of the top 10 settlements paid or entered into in 2009 totaled $107.1 million, a 26% increase.

Key trends in federal and state courts last year included:

c Fueled by the economy, the plaintiffs bar increased the pace of FLSA collective action and ERISA class action filings seeking recovery of unpaid wages and 401(k) losses, while displaced workers also filed more wage discrimination and Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act lawsuits.

c Wage-and-hour litigation continued to outpace all other workplace class actions.

c The Obama administration's emphasis on regulation and enforcement led to more government-initiated litigation over workplace issues, and employers are expected to encounter more investigations and governmental enforcement lawsuits in 2010.

c The Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, which was intended to curb abusive class actions, continued to significantly affect workplace litigation, particularly on wage-and-hour class actions in state court. “As the plaintiffs bar continues to devise techniques to adapt to the CAFA, rulings on the scope, meaning and application of the law are already numerous for a statute of such recent vintage,” the report says.

c Cutting-edge developments spread rapidly among plaintiffs lawyers.

c The financial stakes continued to increase. “Plaintiffs lawyers have continued to push the envelope in crafting damages theories to expand the size of classes and the scope of recoveries,” a trend that is “unlikely to abate in 2010,” the report says.

Copies of the report can be obtained at www.seyfarth.com/ClassActionReport or by e-mailing ClassActionReport@seyfarth.com.