The panel reversed the district court’s summary judgment in favor of defendants on a retaliation claim under the Fair Labor Standards Act and remanded for further proceedings.

Zoe Hollis, a dancer at a Portland strip club called Sassy’s, sued the club’s owners and managers under the FLSA for misclassifying its dancers as independent contractors and violating corresponding wage and hours provisions. After Hollis filed the complaint, Frank Faillace, a partner and manager of both Sassy’s and another club called Dante’s, canceled an agreement for Hollis to perform at a weekly variety show at Dante’s. Hollis then amended the complaint to allege that Faillace’s decision to cancel the performance at Dante’s constituted retaliation in violation of the FLSA. The district court granted summary judgment on the ground that to have a private right of action for retaliation, Hollis must have been employed at Dante’s when Faillace canceled the scheduled performance.

The panel held that, while the FLSA requires an underlying employment relationship, it covers retaliation committed by the employer or “any person acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to an employee.” Thus, the alleged retaliator need not be the actual employer, and the plaintiff need not have been employed by the actual employer when the retaliation occurred. The panel held that, in the context of retaliation, the phrase “indirectly in the interest of an employer” does not require an agency relationship with the actual employer or the conferral of any direct benefit to the employer.

The employee-employer relationship at issue was the one between Hollis and Sassy’s. The panel left it to the district court to determine on remand whether Hollis’s work at Sassy’s satisfied the “economic realities” test for establishing employee status. The panel held that in ascertaining whether Hollis was an employee of Sassy’s, it was not relevant that any FLSA wage and hour claims based on the alleged misclassification were time-barred. The panel also left it to the district court or trier of fact to determine on remand whether Faillace’s acts in canceling the scheduled performance and barring Hollis from future work at Dante’s constituted retaliation.

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2025/11/18/24-2464.pdf