29 U.S.C. § 253
Section 253 · Compromise and waiver
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 16 court decisions — leading case Stilwell v. Hertz Drivurself Stations, Inc. (1949)
Most recently applied in Mei Xing Yu v. Hasaki Restaurant, Inc. (December 2019)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Any cause of action under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended [29 U.S.C. 201 et seq.], the Walsh-Healey Act [41 U.S.C. 35 et seq.], or the Bacon-Davis Act [40 U.S.C. 276a et seq.], which accrued prior to May 14, 1947, or any action (whether instituted prior to or on or after May 14, 1947) to enforce such a cause of action, may hereafter be compromised in whole or in part, if there exists a bona fide dispute as to the amount payable by the employer to his employee; except that no such action or cause of action may be so compromised to the extent that such compromise is based on an hourly wage rate less than the minimum required under such Act, or on a payment for overtime at a rate less than one and one-half times such minimum hourly wage rate.
Any employee may hereafter waive his right under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended [29 U.S.C. 201 et seq.], to liquidated damages, in whole or in part, with respect to activities engaged in prior to May 14, 1947.
Any such compromise or waiver, in the absence of fraud or duress, shall, according to the terms thereof, be a complete satisfaction of such cause of action and a complete bar to any action based on such cause of action.
The provisions of this section shall also be applicable to any compromise or waiver heretofore so made or given.
As used in this section, the term “compromise” includes “adjustment”, “settlement”, and “release”.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
References in Text
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended, referred to in subsecs. (a) and (b), is act June 25, 1938, ch. 676, 52 Stat. 1060, as amended, which is classified generally to chapter 8 (§201 et seq.) of this title. For complete classification of this Act to the Code, see section 201 of this title and Tables.
The Walsh-Healey and Bacon-Davis Acts, referred to in subsec. (a), are defined for purposes of this chapter in section 262 of this title.