Battery Maker Beats DOL’s Bid to Quash Wage-Case Fraud Lawsuit

The US Department of Labor failed to convince a federal judge to throw out a battery maker’s lawsuit alleging the agency secured a $22 million enforcement action trial victory against it through fraud.

East Penn Manufacturing Co. sufficiently alleged that the Labor Department’s lead trial counsel in the wage-and-hour suit repeatedly represented himself to the jury as the agency’s regional solicitor despite having lost that title the year before, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said in an opinion docketed Thursday.

The DOL successfully argued at trial that East Penn violated the Fair Labor Standards Act ...