MTA Partly Beats Worker Wage Claims With Rail Carrier Exemption

Two Metropolitan Transportation Authority-operated commuter railroads fall under a rail carrier exemption to federal wage laws, dooming their workers’ overtime claims.

There’s no dispute that the Long Island Railroad and Metro-North Railroad qualify as rail carriers, and the workers can’t claim the Fair Labor Standards Act’s protections while ignoring its carveouts, the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York said Thursday, granting summary judgment in the railroads’ favor.

The plaintiffs allege the MTA, LIRR, MNR, and related entities underpaid them or paid them late thanks to a payroll service outage and improper overtime rate calculations. They sued ...