Migliaccio & Rathod LLP, with Sommers Schwartz, PC, has filed a class action lawsuit against JAC Products, Inc. over allegations that JAC failed to pay employees the proper overtime rate. According to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), all employees must be compensated for hours worked over 40 in a workweek according to their regular rate, which reflects all earnings, including bonuses and extra pay. When no additional non-discretional earnings are involved, an employee’s overtime pay can be simply calculated as 1.5*hourly rate. However, the FLSA outlines that, when employees earn non-discretional bonuses or other additional income, employers must calculate overtime payments as 1.5*“regular rate,” which includes these other forms of pay and will therefore be more than if the employer just calculated 1.5 * hourly rate. For more information on regular rate and common violations thereof, visit our other investigations on bonus and overtime calculations.
The plaintiff alleges that she regularly earned non-discretional bonuses, including shift differentials and peak-demand pay at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, JAC continued to compensate employee overtime at their standard 1.5*hourly rate, rather than the proper 1.5*regular rate, which requires factoring in ALL additional earnings from these bonuses. As a result of JAC’s failure to include bonuses in employee overtime rates, the lawsuit alleges that JAC employees missed out on a subtle but substantial portion of owed wages.
The complaint is captioned Sours v. Jac Products, Inc., Case No. 2:22-cv-10532, and is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan and can be found here. As of January 2023, conditional certification of the class was granted.
If you were employed by JAC Products, Inc. as an hourly employee in the last three years, or if you believe you were impacted by similar circumstances, please give us a call at (202) 470-3520 or send us an email at [email protected].