29 U.S.C. § 257
Section 257 · Pending collective and representative actions
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 10 court decisions — leading case Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Gilbarco, Inc. (1980)
Most recently applied in 761 F. Supp. 2d 1114 - Bollinger v. Residential Capital, LLC (January 2011)
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.
The statute of limitations prescribed in section 255(b) of this title shall also be applicable (in the case of a collective or representative action commenced prior to May 14, 1947 under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended [29 U.S.C. 201 et seq.]) to an individual claimant who has not been specifically named as a party plaintiff to the action prior to the expiration of one hundred and twenty days after May 14, 1947. In the application of such statute of limitations such action shall be considered to have been commenced as to him when, and only when, his written consent to become a party plaintiff to the action is filed in the court in which the action was brought.
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 text, 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.