Intern Lawsuits Move to State Court; Face Class Decertification, Labor Test Uncertainties

Both before and after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in its 2015 Glatt v. Fox Searchlight Pictures decision, 11 F.3d 528 ' which vacated a class certification on the ground that “the question of an intern's employment status is a highly individualized inquiry” and thus curtailed the ability of unpaid interns to sue for back wages in federal court ' two New York firms have been teaming up to bring a slew of putative intern class actions in state court in Manhattan. For at least three years, Leeds Brown Law and Virginia & Ambinder have sought to take advantage of what they see as the state's “much more liberal interpretation” of what is required for class certification.

But now, even Virginia & Ambinder seems to be looking closely at how much life remains in bringing these actions in a New York court. That's because of a little-noticed trial court decision handed down in July by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Cynthia Kern, who effectively ruled that she would likely adopt something close to the stricter class certification standard laid out in Glatt.