Atlanta, GA: Marketsource Inc, a contractor of Ford Motor Company, is facing a potential unpaid overtime class action lawsuit filed by a former employee who alleges the company misclassified its Ford account managers as being exempt from overtime pay.
According to the complaint, Marketsource misclassified its Ford account managers as salaried workers and therefore were exempt from overtime pay, in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The plaintiff asserts they regularly had to work in excess of 40 hours a week and were not reimbursed for their time when required to travel to retail stores and car dealerships to perform their duties.
Filed by a former Ford account manager Sivi Hoel, the complaint states “Throughout the course of her employment by Marketsource, plaintiff was always denied overtime compensation even though she routinely worked overtime hours with the knowledge, encouragement and behest of Marketsource management.”
From April 2012 to March 2016, Hoel, who lives in California, was employed by Marketsource as an account manager to train and assist car dealership employees on how to sell certain Ford contracts. During that time, she was required to visit multiple car dealerships spread across a large geographic region, the lawsuit states.
Hoel seeks to certify a nationwide collective group of workers employed by Marketsource as account managers, who worked on the Ford program in the past three years. She is seeking unpaid overtime wages and liquidated damages, including interest, on behalf of that group, and attorneys’ fees.
Hoel is represented by Mitchell L. Feldman of Feldman Williams PLLC.
The case is Sivi Hoel v. Marketsource Inc., case number 1:17-cv-05547, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
