Articles Posted in Wage and Hour Law

Large corporations are often built upon the labor of many hard-working hourly employees. Unfortunately, such companies do not always pay their employees the wages that they have earned, and when such mistakes are made, those employees must do what they can to get what they are owed. When enough employees have been denied their earned wages, a class-action lawsuit may be the most efficient means to get everyone their unpaid wages, and our Naperville overtime class-action attorneys recently discovered another such lawsuit in the Northern District of Illinois federal court.

In Hundt v. DirectSat USA, Plaintiffs were employed by Defendant as warehouse managers who regularly worked more than forty hours per week, but were not paid any overtime because Defendant classified them as exempt employees. Plaintiffs believed that they were misclassified because their job duties did not meet the overtime exemption requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the Illinois Minimum Wage Act (IMWA), and filed a class action lawsuit for the unpaid overtime. After sending out opt-in notices to the potential class members, Plaintiffs discovered that the class should not be limited to just those employees with the title of warehouse manager. Plaintiffs therefore amended the complaint to broaden the class to include warehouse supervisors and other workers in similar positions, and filed a motion to send notice to these additional putative class members.

Defendants opposed the motion, stating that there were significant differences between warehouse managers and supervisors and claimed that Plaintiffs failed to sufficiently allege the existence of a common decision, policy, or plan to deprive them of overtime wages. The Court disagreed with Defendants, holding that all of the putative plaintiffs were similarly situated despite their varied job titles. In making its decision, the Court cited several internal communication emails that indicated the titles were interchangeable, and that was enough to meet the minimal burden required. Thus, the Court granted the motion to send notice to the additional class members.

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Our lawyers are passionate about protecting the rights of workers and are constantly researching new wage and hour decisions rendered by the federal courts here in Illinois. Our Buffalo Grove overtime class-action attorneys recently discovered a case that impacts potential clients seeking to certify wage and hour class actions under the Federal Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

The Plaintiff in Russell v. Illinois Bell Telephone Co. worked at Defendant’s call center in Arlington Heights, Illinois for five years and was paid hourly wages, commissions, and bonuses. Plaintiff and the other purported class members all had scheduled shifts and lunch breaks, but allegedly were required to perform work tasks both before their shifts and during their lunch breaks. Plaintiffs were not paid for the work they performed pre-shift and during lunch breaks, and filed suit for their unpaid wages. The trial court then conditionally certified the class, and additional discovery commenced.

Through discovery, Plaintiffs learned that Defendant has a written policy that hourly employees must obtain permission from a supervisor before working overtime and any employee who works overtime must be compensated accordingly. Defendant’s Code of Business Conduct also explicitly states that “managers are prohibited from requiring nonexempt employees to work off the clock.” However, after deposing 24 individual Plaintiffs, the record showed that the majority of Plaintiffs had to spend time logging into their computer systems prior to the start of their shift because their supervisors had instructed them to be “open and available” at the start of their shift. To be “open and available,” Plaintiffs had to boot up their computers and get several applications up and running. This system start-up process took between three and twenty minutes to complete depending upon the individual computer.

In addition to the pre-shift issues, the record showed that Plaintiffs would often have to work a few minutes past the end of their shifts to finish handling calls already in progress. Because Defendant has a policy that any overtime worked in an amount less than eight minutes is not compensable and many of the post-shift calls are resolved in less than eight minutes after the end of their shift, Plaintiffs were not compensated for the overtime worked while finishing calls at the end of the day.

After more discovery and the deposition of thirty-nine individual Plaintiffs, Defendants moved to decertify the class based upon individual issues embedded in the case and the absence of a company-wide policy that violates the FLSA. The Court found that the class members shared enough of a factual and legal nexus that pursuing a class-action was proper through the use of subclasses where necessary. The Court went on to decertify the individual claims that did not fall into the enumerated subclasses of pre-shift overtime, post-shift overtime, and work performed while on lunch breaks. Finally, the Court stated that due to the large amount of discovery still to be performed, that they reserved the right to revisit the decertification issue should it become apparent that the case was unmanageable as a class-action.

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Filing a lawsuit requires some legwork up front, but overall is a relatively painless process. Getting a class-action lawsuit certified by a federal court, however, is neither easy nor straightforward. Lubin Austermuehle focuses on getting major wage and hour lawsuits certified as class-actions and getting them resolved. Our Buffalo Grove overtime attorneys unearthed a federal case from the Northern District of Indiana regarding class certification that is of interest to both our present and future wage claim clients.

The dispute in Powers v. Centennial Communications Corp. arises out of claims for unpaid overtime and overtime adjustments for sales commissions for work performed by Plaintiffs in their capacity as a sales representatives for Defendant. Additionally, Plaintiffs claim that when they were paid commission-based overtime, the timing of those payments also violated federal law. The named Plaintiff filed suit as a result, and she alleged violations of the Indiana Wage Payment Satute and the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and sought to certify a class-action on the federal claim under FLSA.

The District Court found that, in spite of the fact that she was not paid owed overtime wages, Plaintiff failed to make FLSA’s required initial showing that she and her putative class members were “victims of a common policy or plan” to do so. Finding fault with the fact that Plaintiff had only shown that one person (the named Plaintiff) had not been paid correctly, the Court declined to certify the class as to the unpaid overtime claim, as it would “have the effect of turning every individual violation of the FLSA into a bulky collective action.”
The Court then turned to the unpaid commissions-bassed overtime claim and determined that it could proceed to the opt-in stage because Defendant had systematically deferred the commission-based payments pursuant to its stated Sales Compensation Plan. Because the applicable statutes allow only for a limited delay in the payment of overtime adjustment payments and Defendant had repeatedly waited weeks to make the required payments after they were earned, the case could proceed as a class-action.

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There are many employees out there who should be getting paid overtime wages, but because they have been misclassified by their employers, those people are being paid on a salary basis instead. We at Lubin Austermuehle know that these things happen, which is why we fight for the rights of employees who have been paid incorrectly. Our Evanston overtime class action attorneys recently discovered one such case regarding the misclassification of employees and wanted to share it with our readers.

In Gromek v. Big Lots, the named Plaintiff worked for Defendant as an assistant store manager, and was never paid for any of the time he worked in excess of forty hours per week. Plaintiff regularly worked over forty hours, and spent most of his time performing non-managerial and non-exempt duties for Defendant, but was paid a salary and never received overtime wages. As such, Plaintiff filed suit to recover his unpaid overtime pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and sought conditional class certification of the action under FLSA §216(b) to include all of his fellow assistant store managers who worked for Defendant.

The Court sought to determine whether Plaintiffs were similarly situated enough to meet the requirements of §216. Plaintiffs provided declarations from fifteen potential class members stating that they had all been misclassified and underpaid due to Defendant’s common policy, which weighed in favor of granting class certification. However, a previous and similar class-action filed by another group of Defendant’s assistant store managers was decertified because many of those Plaintiffs had significantly different job duties, which made the claims unsuitable for resolution by class-action. Due to this earlier case, the Court denied the class certification motion because Plaintiffs had failed to show why their case differed from the prior action, though the Court stated it would be willing to hear any such arguments the Plaintiffs could provide.

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Every man and woman who goes to work each day has the right to be paid for his or her labor, but sometimes the companies for whom they work either fail to do so, or miscalculate the wages that they owe their employees. Those miscalculations may be intentional or they may be by mistake, but that does not change the fact that they must pay for the errors. At Lubin Austermuehle, we represent many workers who were not paid the regular and overtime wages they are owed, and our Barrington class-action overtime attorneys are always tracking new court cases in the field of wage and hour law.

One recent case from the US District Court in the Northern District of Illinois is Chavez v. Don Stoltzner Mason Contractor, Inc. The action was filed by Plaintiffs, who were former employees of Defendant and provided masonry installation services to Defendant. Plaintiffs claimed that Defendant illegally adjusted their time records downward to avoid paying them the required time-and-a-half rate for the overtime that they worked. Plaintiffs also alleged that they were required to work on Saturdays without pay for an extended period as well. Eventually, Plaintiffs filed a class-action in Illinois state court alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Illinois Minimum Wage Law (IMWL) for unpaid overtime wages. Defendant subsequently removed the case to federal court. Plaintiffs then sought to certify an IMWL class-action under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 and pursue their FLSA claims individually.

The Court granted class certification under Rule 23(b)(3), holding that the numerosity requirement was met because there were between seventy and 130 potential plaintiffs, and joinder of that many actions would be impracticable. Next, the Court found Rule 23’s commonality requirement was met because Defendant had a common practice of underpaying its employees’ overtime wages, and the typicality requirement was satisfied because all potential plaintiffs’ claims were based upon the same violations of the IMWL. Because there was no evidence the named Plaintiffs had a conflict of interest with the remaining class members and their counsel was deemed competent to pursue their claims, the Court found that the class was adequately represented. Finally, in granting class certification, the Court held that there was a single common issue (Defendant’s policy of not compensating employees for overtime) overriding the litigation, and that a class-action was the superior method for resolving the claims.

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