[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official website] on Thursday ruled [opinion, PDF] that unpaid internships are legal when they are tied to the intern’s education. The decision reverses [Reuters report] a lower court decision that Fox Searchlight Pictures acted illegally by not paying interns, finding that the lower court erred when it ruled that interns should be treated as employees because Fox derives some benefit from working hours. Writing for a three-judge panel, Circuit Judge John Walker [official website] stated that “the purpose of a bonafide internship is to integrate classroom learning with practical skill development in a real-world setting.” The lower court may now be asked to rule again on the facts of the case but it must use the standard set forth by the appeals court rather than the Fair Labor Standards Act [materials] definition of employee.

The matter of unpaid internships has been a hot issue [NUS backgrounder] over the past few years. Eric Glatt, one of the plaintiffs who was an unpaid intern for the film “Black Swan,” stated, “Every intern who thinks something is questionable has to litigate it. It’s a terrible, terrible burden. Why burden the most vulnerable possible employee with all the heavy work?” The lower court’s 2013 Fox case decision sparked other similar lawsuits, prompting Warner Music Group Corp to agree last month to pay over $4.2 million to hundreds of interns. The US Supreme Court has not yet addressed the difference between paid and unpaid employees. In 1947, however, the court did find that a railroad did not have to pay brakemen trainees, who did not have the same responsibilities as a regular worker.