Class Action Against Burger King for Alleged Wage Theft Can Proceed
Fast-food chain Burger King Corp. is facing two different class action lawsuits over claims that it misclassified its “coaches” as non–exempt employees and wrongfully failed to pay them overtime compensation in violation of the federal Fair labor Standards Act.
A Florida federal court conditionally certified two classes of Burger King employees who worked for the company from July 2012 through April 2013, Law 360 (subscription required) recently reported. The court found that the employees had the same job titles and were subject to the same policies and procedures as non-exempt employees even though the majority of their work consisted of flipping burgers, running cash registers, cleaning, and greeting customers.
So far 36 plaintiffs have opted into the two lawsuits – one class consists of employees with “sales, profit, and operations coach” titles who currently work for Burger King in the U.S. or did so within the past three years. The other class consists of employees working in the U.S. as “trainees, coach trainees, or operations trainees” within the same time frame.
Misclassifying a worker as an exempt employee and not paying overtime is a violation of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. If you or someone you know works or worked for Burger King as a coach or trainee, or if you suspect you’ve been a victim of another employer’s unlawful compensation practices, please contact the attorneys in Sommers Schwartz’s Employment Litigation Group to discuss your situation.