ShopRite Overtime Lawsuit Filed by Chef, Claims He Was Not Paid OT

A New Jersey grocery chain has been hit with a ShopRite overtime lawsuit by a store chef who claims he was intentionally misclassified as an exempt employee.

ShopRite is a chain of grocery stores based in New Jersey and has stores throughout the states of the northeast in addition to New Jersey including New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland.

It is considered a cooperative of privately owned grocery stores that all operate under the ShopRite brand, and according to the ShopRite website, is the “largest retailer-owned cooperative in the United States and the largest employer in New Jersey.”

All ShopRite stores are members of Wakefern Food Corporation, and ShopRite claims to operate 2.5 million square feet of grocery retail and non-food warehousing.

This recent ShopRite overtime lawsuit has been filed by Jung-Hua S. who worked as a chef for a ShopRite grocery store owned by Village Supermarkets, Inc. Village operates supermarkets under the ShopRite name and is a part of the larger Wakefern cooperative. Village owns and operates 29 ShopRite stores across Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

According to this ShopRite overtime lawsuit, Jung-Hua alleges that his store superiors misclassified both him and other employees as exempt workers when they should have been classified as hourly. In doing so, he claims, he and other employees did not receive proper pay for the hours they worked.

Jung-Hua, in this ShopRite overtime lawsuit, claims that he often worked well over 40 hours per week. He claims he should have been paid one and one-half times his hourly wage for every hour worked over 40.

Even though he was classified as exempt, he should not have been, he claims. He and other workers like him were paid a “fixed weekly compensation regardless of the hours [they] actually worked,” the ShopRite overtime lawsuit claims.

The ShopRite overtime lawsuit also asserts that “Defendants’ misclassification of plaintiff and the putative collective members were willful and their failure to pay plaintiff and the FLSA collective their overtime pay violated the FLSA.” The FLSA is the Fair Labor Standards Act, which is a federal law that protects workers from unfair treatment by employers.

The plaintiff is seeking to represent both himself and other employees who worked long hours while being unfairly classified as “exempt.” Exempt employees should have some managerial responsibilities, but Jung-Hua claims that did not have any authority and did not participate in the management of his store.

Additionally, he states he did not even take part in the designing of his menu and he did not have the authority to hire or fire employees.

The ShopRite overtime lawsuit reads, “While employed by defendants, plaintiff was not exempt under federal and state laws requiring employers to pay employees overtime compensation. Defendants knowingly and willfully misclassified plaintiff as an exempt employee.”

He often worked nine hours a day and six days a week, for which time he was never compensated, he claims.

The ShopRite overtime lawsuit mentions that the FLSA also allows for a “learned profession exemption” to the minimum wage issue. However, Jung-Hua states he did not have a culinary degree or any specialized certification.

This ShopRite Overtime Lawsuit is Case No. 2:17-cv-05033, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

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