Court provides guidance on volunteer workers and wage and hour laws

Laurie Woods sued the American Film Institute, a nonprofit entity, because she thought she should be paid for volunteering. In fact, she thought it should pay all its volunteers. Consequently, she filed a class action lawsuit against the institute for unpaid wages, unpaid overtime, missed meal and rest periods, failure to reimburse expenses, and failure to provide wage statements.

Both the trial court and the appellate court refused to allow Woods’ case to proceed as a class action because “workers are not employees unless they expect compensation for their services” and “determining whether particular class members were actually employees would create individual issues that would dominate the trial.”

Volunteer contends she was unpaid employee

Since 1987, the American Film Institute has used unpaid volunteer workers to run its annual film festival in Los Angeles. Specifically, volunteers usher guests, answer phones, control lines for events, work in the box office, and run errands, among other things.

Woods purportedly volunteered at the American Film Institute’s film festival for four days in November 2017. She alleged she worked between 12 and 14 hours each of those days.