ROBERT O'BRIEN, individually and on behalf of a class of employees similarly situated, Plaintiff, v. ENCOTECH CONSTRUCTION SERVICES, INC., and HOWARD FRANK, Defendants., 183 F. Supp. 2d 1047

Summary

The court found that the private releases in this context not only undermined the statutory goals involved but provided inadequate assurance that the practices giving rise to the dispute would be discontinued. The private settlement, under the guise of "some additional compensation," was highly unlikely to leave either party with an accurate sense of its rights and obligations. And, more important, it left open the real possibility that the employees would never receive that to which the law entitled them. Thus, the court concluded that the releases were void as a matter of law and ordered that corrective notices be sent to employees who executed such releases.