Santa Clara, CA: A federal employment and labor law class action lawsuit has been filed against Express Inc., alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Specifically, the suit claims the clothing retailer misclassified co-managers as exempt employees, and denied paying them for required overtime when they worked in excess of 40 hours per week.
Filed by a former New Jersey employee, Karla Reynosa, the suit alleges she worked as a salaried co-manager at Express stores in New York as well as New Jersey. During her employment with the defendant, Reynosa and other co-managers were frequently required to work overtime but were paid “supplemental” pay equal to one-half of an hourly rate calculated off her annual salary, the suit states.
The FLSA stipulates that time and a half is the hourly overtime rate. “Defendant knowingly and willfully operated its business with a policy of not paying overtime premiums equal to one and a half times Plaintiff’s regular hourly rate for hours worked in excess of forty in a workweek,” the complaint states.
According to the suit, Reynosa worked for Express from 1999 to 2013 at stores in Manhattan. In 2012 she became a co-manager and generally put in between 43-45 hours per week, and on occasion as much as 49 hours per week. She then moved to an Express in Jersey City, where she worked as a salaried co-manager from June 2015 to about September 2016, and again generally worked 42 hours per week.
Despite her title, Reynosa didn’t have duties that were meaningfully different than the hourly sales associates and wasn’t involved in management, hiring or operational decisions at either store, the complaint states.
The complaint alleges failure to pay overtime in violation of the FLSA, violations of New Jersey labor law for overtime and unpaid overtime wages, and a violation of New York labor law for unpaid overtime wages.
Reynosa seeks to represent a class of anyone who worked as a salaried, exempt co-manager for Express and put in more than 40 hours per week during any workweek in the past three years. She also seeks to represent a class of those who were allegedly misclassified pursuant to the New Jersey and New York claims.
Reynosa is represented by Keli Liu of Hang & Associates PLLC. The case is Karla Reynosa v. Express Inc., case number 2:17-cv-02424, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.
