While at least one case, brought against Sirius XM radio by an intern for the “Howard Stern Show,” was reportedly settled for seven figures, another high-profile case by a former intern who had worked on a film for Fox Searchlight Pictures is still in limbo.
The plaintiff was initially awarded summary judgment by a court that relied on Department of Labor (DOL) guidelines for interns, but that decision was overturned by the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which felt the DOL six-part “litmus test” to determine whether an intern was actually working as an employee was outdated.
In its ruling, the Second Circuit offered its own seven-step test, which, while not differing that much from the DOL guidelines, adds a “primary beneficiary” question that seeks to determine who benefits more under the internship arrangement – the employer or the intern?
This raises a number of interesting issues for both sides, including whether the internship is in keeping with the intern’s academic course of study (as they are traditionally supposed to do); or whether interns can derive sufficient benefit from the experience to further their career path even by performing menial tasks – i.e., while being exposed to high-level contacts in the industry or merely having the name of a prestigious company on their resumes.
In other words, if the intern succeeds in getting a permanent job in large part due to an internship at a Fox Searchlight or a Sirius XM radio outlet, does it really matter that he or she was asked to fetch coffee or file papers; or, for that matter, how much the experience complemented their major in communications? This may have far-reaching implications for interns and the companies that routinely engage in having interns.