By Kate McGovern Tornone, Editor
When an employee works overtime, an employer can’t ignore those hours. Even if an employee fails to report the hours, an employer may be liable for back pay and damages if it “should have known” the employee was working overtime, a recent case illustrates.
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In Craig v. Bridges Bros. Trucking LLC, No. 15-3396 (6th Cir. May 19, 2016), the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals—which covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee—said that a jury should determine whether the company had constructive knowledge that its nonexempt bookkeeper was working weekends without proper overtime pay.
The bookkeeper, Donna Craig, was responsible for processing employees’ timesheets, including her own. She collected the sheets and gave them to the company’s owner with a payroll summary. Her timesheet regularly showed that she worked more than 40 hours in a workweek but she was only paid her regular rate for those hours.
When she requested that she be paid time-and-a-half for those hours, her request was not well received by management, she later told the court. Regardless, she entered time-and-one-half pay for herself a few weeks later—and was fired soon thereafter.
Craig sued, alleging that that she was owed back pay and damages.