By ALAN FARNHAM
May 16, 2013

A group of unpaid interns, suing for back pay they claim is owed them, have hit a legal wall: A New York judge has dismissed their class-action suit against Hearst Corp., saying they don't meet the definition of a class. If they want to sue, they will have to do so as individuals.

The setback comes at a time when tens of thousands of college students are seeking summer internships--many of them unpaid.

New York attorney Maurice Pianko, whose website Intern Justice, acts as an aggregator of intern lawsuits and a disseminator of legal information, says the ruling by District Judge Harold Baer Jr. will make it much harder for this particular group of unpaid interns to pursue its claim.