Unpaid Interns Class Action Settlement Gets Preliminary Approval

A New York court has granted preliminary approval to an unpaid interns class action settlement involving advertising firm Arnold Worldwide LLC.

Supreme Court Judge Joan M. Kenney gave preliminary approval to the settlement, signaling the beginning of the end of an employee rights class action lawsuit claiming Arnold Worldwide exploited unpaid interns for labor that should have been compensated.

Judge Kenney found the terms of the settlement “fair, adequate and reasonable” as to all potential class members and that it meets the requirements for preliminary approval.

Final certification of the settlement should come after a hearing in December.

Unpaid Interns Class Action Settlement to Benefit N.Y. Interns

Under the terms of this unpaid interns class action settlement, each unpaid intern who worked for Arnold Worldwide in New York since 2008 can receive a payment of $500.

The plaintiff’s motion for approval says she believes there are about 50 such class members. Class members will need to make a claim to receive their payment.

The settlement also provides for a payment of $2,600 to lead plaintiff Mollie Ableman. Attorneys for the plaintiff class are seeking $20,000 in fees.

By its terms, the settlement forbids both parties and their attorneys from speaking about the agreement to the news media. Although it agreed to the settlement, Arnold Worldwide does not admit any wrongdoing.

Ableman initiated this employment rights class action lawsuit in June 2014, alleging Arnold Worldwide’s unpaid intern program exploited interns in violation of New York state labor laws.

She claimed she worked as an unpaid intern for Arnold Worldwide during the summer of 2008. From June through August, she said, she worked from 9:30 AM to 6:00 PM four days a week.

Ableman argued that Arnold Worldwide instituted this intern program to avoid having to pay employees for the same work.

The tasks these unpaid interns were performing were “central to the business” she claimed, including writing ad copy and designing layouts and logos.

These interns were performing essentially the same tasks that Arnold Worldwide employees performed – only for no pay and no academic credit, said Ableman. Were it not for this free intern labor, the company would have had to hire more paid employees, she said.

Ableman submitted the unpaid interns class action settlement to the court for approval in January, with no opposition from defendant Arnold Worldwide.

This action is one of many similar actions filed recently on behalf of interns who say the terms of their internships violate employment laws.

In 2014, Warner Music Corp. faced a certified class of about 3,000 former interns who claimed they should have been classified as non-exempt employees, entitling them to minimum wage protection and overtime wages.

The interns claimed they had performed essentially the same tasks as paid employees – tasks like product development and radio promotion – without receiving any compensation or school credit.

Two former film business interns recently reached a settlement with Fox Searchlight Pictures and Fox Entertainment Group Ltd. over the behind-the-scenes work they did on the movie “Black Swan”.

The judge in that case said that to qualify for a labor law exemption from paying compensation, an internship must provide some benefit to the intern.

The judge found that for spending their internships doing tasks like making photocopies or running errands, the plaintiffs should have been classified as employees.

The Arthur Worldwide Unpaid Interns Class Action Lawsuit is Mollie Ableman v. Arnold Worldwide LLC et al., Case No. 155839/2014, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York.

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