Oracle Unpaid Overtime Class Action Lawsuit Denied

An Oracle unpaid overtime class action lawsuit was derailed in December.

Judge George C. Hernandez Jr. denied the proposed Class on the grounds that there was a lack of commonality. The unpaid overtime class action lawsuit accused Oracle America Inc. of failing to pay overtime to technical analysts and denying meal and rest breaks.

Plaintiff Raghunandan M. proposed a Class of nearly 1,000 Class Members who were all technical analysts working in California between August 2006, when technical analysts were allegedly reclassified as nonexempt workers, and the present.

The plaintiff worked for Oracle from October 2006 through March 2008. His job was to provide customer support to both consumers and software buyers. While employed at Oracle, he was allegedly wrongfully denied overtime. In 2009, he filed the unpaid overtime class action lawsuit.

The unpaid overtime lawsuit alleged that Oracle required overtime hours to be approved in advance which dissuades technical analysts from reporting all of the action overtime hours worked.

It was suggested that this system caused employees to be hesitant or even afraid to accurately report all hours due to a possible denial of promotion or raise.

The plaintiff also claimed that some managers refused to approve overtime hours and that the company either did not keep or provide pay statement that reflected the actual amount of hours worked. It was alleged that Oracle used two databases to record the hours and to pay the technical analysts which led to several discrepancies.

While Judge Hernandez did not reject all of these allegations, he found that the expert who was called to compare the databases made several mistakes and used software that could not accurately analyze the situation. One error was that it ignored a whole column of overtime hours that were actually paid. The hours were incorrectly listed as unpaid overtime.

If the plaintiff could not provide accurate information on the large amount of unpaid overtime that was supposed to exist, then the class could not adequately show the lack of payment. The expert’s flawed analysis resulted in the denial of this unpaid overtime class action lawsuit.

It is possible that individual lawsuits might be more effective in this situation. Judge Hernandez stated, “class proceedings will not be superior to individual actions” for this problem.

Oracle provides hardware and software products and support for thousands of people across the world. The company has over 10,000 products with almost 20,000 employees working in support in 65 countries.

Although this Class certification was denied, thousands of employees have joined unpaid overtime class action lawsuits filed against their respective employers. These wage and hour lawsuits seek to win wages that were due to the plaintiffs.

This Oracle Unpaid Overtime Class Action Lawsuit is In Re: Oracle Wage and Hour Cases,  Case No. JCCP00497, in the Superior Court of California in the County of Alameda.

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