City Workers Hit San Diego With Unpaid Overtime Lawsuit

The City of San Diego is being sued by 40 current and former employees who allege they have been shorted overtime pay for the past three years. The plaintiffs are seeking class action status for their unpaid overtime lawsuit in order to represent all other similarly situated employees.

Lead plaintiffs allege in their unpaid overtime lawsuit that the City of San Diego has been miscalculating their regular rate of pay in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The class action lawsuit says that the City failed to include “cash-in-lieu” of payment, used to cover payments for health and welfare benefits, when determining employees’ overtime pay.

“During the relevant period, City did not count or include any of these ‘flex dollars’ as eligible ‘remuneration’ when determining the employee’s premium overtime rate payable for that workweek,” explains the unpaid overtime lawsuit.

“Each Plaintiff and all similarly-situated non-exempt current and former employees have been affected by the City’s conduct in the same manner because City’s policy and practice of excluding all FBP-related compensation from eligible ‘remuneration’ when calculating an employee’s regular and premium overtime rates of pay 15 has been uniformly applied to all Plaintiffs and others similarly situated when they have 16 worked in excess of 40 hours in a 7-day work week during the relevant period,” the unpaid overtime lawsuit continues.

The employees say that the City of San Diego notified them in June that their overtime pay would be changed to include benefits credits after a recent court decision found that failure to include these benefits violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA). However, says the unpaid overtime lawsuit, the City of San Diego has failed to correctly calculate the workers’ rate of pay for over three years and has not offered back pay for that mistake.

“Each Plaintiff and those similarly-situated are entitled to receive the full amount of FLSA-eligible premium rate overtime earned during the relevant period based on a ‘regular rate of pay’ which includes all cash-in-lieu of benefits payments as remuneration,” the plaintiffs allege.

According to the unpaid overtime lawsuit, City of San Diego workers are also entitled to additional damages because the City “voluntarily and deliberately” failed to correctly calculate their rate of pay in violation of the FLSA.

“Each Plaintiff and those similarly situated are also presumptively entitled to liquidated damages in an amount equal to the amount of the underpaid overtime City owes,” allege the city workers in their lawsuit.

The city employees are seeking back pay with interest along with liquidated damages from the City of San Diego for their alleged unpaid overtime. They are also say that other city workers should be notified of their right to join this unpaid overtime lawsuit without fear of retaliation, along with an injunction against the City for further violations of the FLSA.

The San Diego Unpaid Overtime Lawsuit is Mitchell v. City of San Diego, Case No. 3:17-cv-02014-H-AGS, U.S. District Court, Southern District of California.

Unpaid Overtime Lawsuits

Federal law provides that certain employees are entitled to time-an-a-half for overtime work. Overtime includes any hours worked over 40 in one week; however, some employers try to skirt the law by miscalculating the regular rate of pay of their employees.

If you are worried that you are losing out on your overtime pay, a California employment law attorney can help. You have rights to fair pay under the law and are protected from retaliation by your employer. An attorney can help you protect your rights and try to get the pay you deserve.

Contact the California employment law attorneys at Bradley/Grombacher today for a free case evaluation by filling out the form on this page.