Panera Franchisee Faces Unpaid Overtime Lawsuit From Former Assistant Manager

Panera’s largest franchisee, Covelli Enterprises, Inc. is facing an unpaid overtime lawsuit from an assistant manager who alleges that Covelli does not pay its assistant managers overtime.

Plaintiff Chelsea R., a former employee of Panera through Covelli Enterprises, claims that she worked at a Panera Bread owned by Covelli Enterprises from September 2014 to August 2016 in Johnstown, Pa. She claims that during this time, she regularly worked well over 40 hours per week but was not paid overtime for her labor.

The Covelli unpaid overtime lawsuit claims that the Panera Bread franchisee owns about 260 Panera Bread bakery and cafes in Ohio; Pennsylvania; West Virginia; Kentucky; Florida; and Ontario, Canada. The lawsuit then goes on to claim that the franchisee hires both salaried and hourly employees, and both Managers and Assistant Managers.

Chelsea claims that she regularly worked 50 to 55 hours a week, but was paid no overtime. Additionally, she claims that Covelli made a practice of not correctly recording assistant managers’ hours, and that assistant managers were regularly assigned non-managerial duties, such as serving customers and cleaning.

Misclassified Employees and the FLSA

According to the unpaid overtime lawsuit, Covelli’s practices violate the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). She claims that Covelli misclassified its Assistant Managers as exempt from overtime pay guaranteed under the protections of the FLSA by making a practice of requiring Assistant Managers to perform non-managerial duties while not paying them overtime.

She claims that the non-managerial duties she was required to perform would be duties for which she would receive overtime if she were not an Assistant Manager.

Chelsea claims that “despite the non-managerial nature of their job duties, at all relevant times Defendant improperly classified [Chelsea] and its Assistant Managers as exempt from federal overtime compensation and, in the process, deprived them of overtime wages for hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek.”

The Panera Covelli unpaid overtime lawsuit claims that assistant managers in almost all or all of Covelli’s Panera Bread locations were required to perform non-managerial duties and were subjected to the same practice.

She claims that “pursuant to a centralized, company-wide policy, pattern, or practice that was authorized, established, promulgated, and/or ratified by its corporate headquarters, Covelli classified Plaintiff and the [Assistant Managers] as exempt from the overtime protections of the FLSA.” Thus, Chelsea argues that this practice was essential to the franchisee’s business model.

She then argues that “Covelli is aware or should have been aware that federal law required it pay employees performing non-exempt duties…an overtime premium for hours worked in excess of forty (40) per workweek.” She also notes that Covelli did not analyze the duties of each employee in classifying employees as exempt or non-exempt from overtime pay.

In the Covelli unpaid overtime lawsuit, Chelsea seeks damages for lost wages for herself and for similarly affected assistant managers employed by Covelli Enterprises.

The Covelli Panera Bread Unpaid Overtime Lawsuit is Case No. 4:18-cv-00434-JG, in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Ohio.

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