Sherry Katheren, a presently employed Individual Disability Claim representative, who was hired under the title of Case Manager, has commenced this Nation-wide FLSA collective action overtime wage lawsuit against Guardian Life Insurance Company (GUARDIAN) seeking to recover overtime wages for herself and all present and former Disability Claims employees who worked for Guardian remotely from their homes anytime within the preceding 3 years.
Katheren, alleges the job required her to routinely work more much greater than 40 hours per workweek in order to complete her job duties and hit metrics and production requirements, including taking shifts handling inbound telephone calls, but the company De Facto policy was that claims reps were not to report or claim the overtime hours and but to do whatever time off the clock to meet with production requirements and performance metrics.
Kahtheren says in the complaint that she had a 9 hour work day, 45 hour a week schedule of 8 am to 5pm, but didn't have time to take 1 full hour, non-working meal break and that added to the overtime hours she suffered to work without pay.
Plaintiff alleges management knew the job of the claims rep could not be completed in a 40 hours of work time, and management knew it but meanwhile pressured her and other disability claim reps to work off the clock and not take the 1 hour meal break or claim that time on the time sheets under warnings of disciplinary action.
Ketheren seeks to recover in this lawsuit, all the unpaid overtime wages, plus an equal sum in liquidated damages, and payment of all incurred attorney's fees and costs for all claims reps who worked for Guardian any time in the past 3 years, and up to 6 years for all New York based employees.
According to Katheren, Disability claims reps had a quota to keep up with processing claim files by set amount of time, but also had to meet required talk time and phone call minimums, and do all of it in no more than 8 hours each day of work, which was not possible.
Moreover, As Katheren claims in the complaint, she and other claims reps routinely worked outside the 8 to 5, M-F schedule, including weekends, and that management saw and knew it, and that their time records were inaccurate, understated but all management cared about was that the time sheets never reported any time over 40 hours.
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires Guardian Life to pay all non-exempt hourly-paid employees a premium amount of pay of time and one half (1.5) their regular rate of pay for all hours worked of 40 that any employee works or which the employer knows or has reason to know was being worked. Here, as Plaintiff explains and contends Guardian knew these hours were occurring, reaped the benefit of the overtime hours, but willfully chose to steal these wages and not pay its employees to increase profits.
Thus, Katheren seeks to recover overtime wages for all hours worked by herself and all hourly paid disability claims reps under any job title who worked for Guardian anytime in the prior 3 years, or up to 6 years for NY employees, plus an equal sum in liquidated damages and payment of attorney's fees and costs of the lawsuit.
The law, and 1st AMENDMENT of the US Constitution permits attorneys in FLSA class/collective actions to communicate in this form with the class members (current and former employees) before certification. See Cooper v. E. Coast Assemblers, Inc., 21 Wage & Hour Cas. 2d (BNA) 152: January 2013.
To be clear, the purpose of this website and any related contact by our law firm is NOT to solicit you to opt into and join this collective (CLASS) action lawsuit, (which will seek a national class certification) and to claim your wages, or to advertise our firm. Rather, we interested in speaking with you to determine what your experience has been, and if similar to what our client has alleged, and to corroborate facts for this case.
We have successfully recovered millions of dollars in wages for thousands of workers against such companies as:
We have successfully recovered millions of dollars in wages for thousands of workers against such companies as:
We have recovered millions of dollars in wages for thousands of employees in such cases as: