Bed Bath & Beyond Unpaid Overtime Lawsuit Filed By NJ Employees

A group of New Jersey employees recently filed a Bed Bath & Beyond unpaid overtime lawsuit against their employer, alleging the company shorted certain workers their overtime pay.

The Bed Bath & Beyond unpaid overtime lawsuit alleges that by failing to pay all overtime wages to eligible employees. the company violated state wage-and-hour laws.

Employees involved in the class action lawsuit, led by plaintiffs Brent Carter, Robert Haynes, and Kenny Cuoco, include department managers, assistant store managers, and customer service representatives.

According to the Bed Bath & Beyond unpaid overtime lawsuit, employees in these positions are denied the state-mandated overtime pay rate of time and a half per hour worked over 40 a week.

The lead plaintiffs allege that the company, instead of using the state-mandated time and a half overtime pay formula to calculate overtime wages, used what they call a “fluctuating overtime” formula.

According to the Bed Bath & Beyond unpaid overtime lawsuit, the company’s “fluctuating overtime” policy is found by dividing a week’s base salary pay by the number of hours an employee worked, divided by 2, and then multiplied by the number of overtime hours worked.

The employees in these positions are salaried workers, but according to the lawsuit, actually perform the same duties as Bed Bath & Beyond hourly workers.

These employees therefore claim that the company improperly classified them as overtime exempt employees, avoiding paying proper overtime payment.

According to the complaint, “Defendant BBB unlawfully applied the fluctuating OT formula to avoid paying […] overtime compensation as required under the New Jersey Wage and Hour Law.”

The Bed Bath & Beyond unpaid overtime lawsuit further alleges that the retailer did no pay the required minimum wage to its employees.

One lead plaintiff, Brent Carter, worked as a department manager for Bed Bath & Beyond between December 2010 and April 2015.

Though Carter received a $65,000 salary annually, the duties of his position included unloading freight, stocking merchandise, helping customers, cashiering, cleaning and ordering merchandise, and other tasks similar to those of hourly workers.

According to the Bed Bath & Beyond unpaid overtime lawsuit, this department manager position did not entail managerial work like hiring, firing, or management duties.  Haynes and Cuoco, the two other lead plaintiffs, held similar managerial positions at the retailer, yet performed similar non-managerial work.

The complaint notes that these employees “regularly worked in excess of 40 hours per week” but did not receive overtime pay.

Plaintiffs are seeking declaratory relief, as well as statutory and other damages and attorneys’ fees.

If you or someone you know has worked for an employer like Bed Bath & Beyond that has failed to follow proper overtime pay or some other part of the Fair Labor Standards Act or state labor laws, you may be able to join a wage and hour class action lawsuit or file a lawsuit of your own.

The Bed Bath & Beyond Unpaid Overtime Lawsuit is Carter v. Bed Bath & Beyond Inc., Case No. MID-L-06178-16, in the Middlesex County Superior Court.

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