Unpaid Interns Suing Madison Square Garden

Companies have turned to the exploitation of college students to receive free labor from young, educated minds for decades now. This common business practice has undergone increasing scrutiny in the last several years as the nature of internships has changed. More and more class action lawsuits are filed against companies that use unpaid labor every month. Madison Square Garden is one of the most notable defendants named in one of these lawsuits. MSG may have won this case in its early stages, but it was not won on the merits of the case.

The first step in a class action lawsuit is for the class to be certified by a judge. This means that the judge must look over the pool of plaintiffs and find that they all have suffered a substantially similar injury from the defendant. The job of their NYC employee class action lawsuit attorney was to present evidence to the court to support that their injuries (not getting paid for their labor) were all substantively similar. The inexperience of the attorneys in this NYC class action lawsuit led to the victims, both past and present interns, not receiving the collective relief they deserve.

The basis of the judge’s ruling was that the plaintiff pool was not significantly similar enough to certifying the lawsuit as a class action because they were from dozens of different departments with different levels of responsibilities/job descriptions. The NYC class action attorneys should not have let MSG confuse the issue in this case. The pool of plaintiffs was all interns that had not been paid for their labor. That was the injury. Setting the amount of damages is a separate issue and should have been managed at a later stage in the lawsuit. It is expected that the class action members will break down into smaller pools and retry their case.

Class action lawsuits are still the quickest and most effective means for groups of wage theft victims to recover what they are owed. The days of using free labor from skilled interns are quickly drawing to a close. Management at Madison Square Garden may have won a small battle here, but it is unlikely that they will be able to avoid accountability the next time a NYC wage theft attorney files a similar petition to the court.

You should call us right away whether you are or were an unpaid intern at a company. Our NYC class action wage theft attorneys at Hepworth, Gershbaum & Roth, PLLC can help you and others like you recover the compensation you deserve for your hard work. Call us at 212-545-1199 or you can contact us online. We offer free initial consultations for your convenience.