Law360, New York (October 1, 2015, 11:27 AM ET)
In a case involving one of the many unpaid internship arrangements under today’s graduate programs, the Eleventh Circuit recently reversed a summary judgment entered against former anesthetist nursing students who alleged that the clinic where they worked as unpaid clinical interns violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by failing to pay them wages and overtime. See Schumann v. Collier Anesthesia PA, No. 14-13169, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 16194 (11th Cir. Sept. 11, 2015).
The Eleventh Circuit determined that the primary beneficiary test articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court nearly 70 years ago needed updating in order to properly address modern-day internships, and that informal guidance previously issued in 2010 by the U.S. Department of Labor on this topic was not dispositive of the issue.