Barnes & Noble was denied summary judgment in Trimmer v Barnes & Noble, Inc. The plaintiffs in this case are Assistant Store Managers (“ASM”) who worked for Barnes and Noble and allege that they were misclassified as exempt employees and denied overtime wages in violation of the FLSA. In its motion for summary judgment, Barnes & Noble argued that the evidence in the record was sufficient to show that plaintiffs were properly classified under the executive and administrative exemptions.
The Court concluded that there were genuine disputes of material fact as to whether the plaintiffs exercised discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance and whether they had authority to hire or fire employees. Although the plaintiffs were involved in the interview process, there was no evidence provided as to the weight their recommendations were given in hiring and firing other employees.
With regards to both the administrative and executive exemptions, the Court found a genuine dispute of material fact over whether the administrative or executive duties were the “primary” duties of the plaintiffs. Further the court found that in this case, ASM earned only a little more than the nonexempt employees. In fact, ASMs sometimes earned less than the nonexempt employees if the nonexempt employees worked more than 45 hours a week. Further, there were also issues of fact with regards to whether Barnes & Noble acted recklessly in classifying the plaintiffs as exempt employees. The Court concluded that by failing to reclassify ASMs as nonexempt in the rest of the country, after doing so in California is at least some evidence that a jury could consider on this issue. The Court noted that California law was on its face similar to the FLSA consequently placing Barnes & Noble on notice that the ASMs in other states were misclassified. Barnes & Noble failed to show that they conducted a diligent review or sought legal advice after the California lawsuit to examine whether ASMs in other states should also be reclassified. In light of the factual circumstances of this case, a jury would be able to find that Barnes & Noble was warned of possible FLSA violations in the classification of ASMs nationwide and that their disregard of this warning was evidence of willfulness.
Please contact our office at (212) 300-0375 to speak to one of our lawyers if you believe you are being misclassified and being denied overtime wages in violation of the FLSA. To learn more about the employment lawyers at Fitapelli & Schaffer, LLP, please visit our website https://www.fslawfirm.com/