School and Residence Are Joint Employers Under the FLSA

Murphy v. HeartShare Human Services, ____F.3d____(2d Cir. June 1, 2017) (NYLJ registration required), discusses joint employment under the FLSA. The case is like a treatise of FLSA law and is full of regulatory and case citations. Plaintiff worked at both a special needs school and at the residences. Plaintiff claimed that he was jointly employed and therefore, entitled to overtime when he worked more than 40 hours. The employer, however, claimed that plaintiff was separately employed by each entity. In finding a joint employment relationship, the court stated in part:

All plaintiffs' allegations, taken together, are more than sufficient to make out a claim that defendants are so interconnected in their operations that they should be considered to be joint employers for purposes of overtime liability. See Flannigan v. Vulcan Power Grp., LLC, 642 F. App'x 46, 52 (2d Cir. 2016) (finding that a jury verdict of joint employment based in part on (1) employers operating out of the same office, (2) sharing at least one administrative employee, and (3) being controlled by the same officer was not manifestly unjust); Schultz v. Capital Int'l Sec., Inc., 466 F.3d 298, 305-06 (4th Cir. 2006) (finding that "the entire employment arrangement fits squarely within the third example of joint employment in [29 C.F.R. §791.2(b)]" because the employers were both involved in the hiring of the workers; played some role in scheduling, discipline, and terminations; and shared responsibility for supplying the workers with equipment).
It is difficult to see how two employers which were in part created to serve the same clients, are headquartered at the same address, physically operate out of the same address, share employees, share an accounting and human resources department, require employees to perform
tasks that simultaneously benefit both employers, and share a name — HeartShare — are "completely disassociated" with respect to plaintiffs' employment.