In the case of Pierce v. Wyndham Vacation Resorts, Inc., Jesse and Michael Pierce filed a collective action against Wyndham Vacation Resorts (Wyndham) for violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by not compensating sales employees for their overtime work hours.
Jesse and Michael Pierce claimed that Wyndham made their sales employees underreport their hours or manipulate their timesheets to avoid providing overtime pay. Wyndham had allegedly implemented a policy where employees had to clock out when they were not actively working. This led to some employees working more than 40 hours per week but not having their hours recorded in their timesheets.
The court found that the evidence presented by Jesse and Michael Pierce showed that Wyndham had also prohibited other employees from recording or recovering overtime pay. Additionally, Wyndham had instructed managers to edit employees’ timecards.
The court granted judgment for in-house and front-line sales employees but excluded discovery salespersons. This is because discovery salespersons had different titles, sold different products, and even had different work schedules.
Ultimately, the court awarded the employees $5,025,925 in damages, which includes overtime pay and liquidated damages.
Key lessons from this case:
- Employees can choose to bring a collective action (group legal action) under the FLSA on behalf of themselves and other employees who are similarly situated.
- Representative evidence can be used as liability for employees who testify as well as non-testifying employees in a collective action.
- Sales employees in Tennessee are entitled to overtime pay unless specifically stated otherwise.
If you want to know more about overtime regulations, read our guide on Tennessee Overtime Laws.
