Class Action: Jason’s Deli Refuses to Pay Assistant Mangers Overtime Wages

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Deli Management, Inc. (which operates approximately 158 Jason’s Deli restaurants across 14 states) is facing a proposed collective action filed by a former employee who claims he and other assistant managers were misclassified as exempt from Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) overtime requirements. The plaintiff says he worked as an Assistant Manager 3A from February 2015 until he was promoted to an Assistant Manager 2A position, which he held from June 2015 to May 2017.

According to the suit, assistant manager duties were “manual in nature” and should have been considered non-exempt under the FLSA, meaning employees would be entitled to overtime wages. In an effort to reduce labor costs, however, the defendant misclassified the plaintiff and similarly situated employees and refused to pay them overtime, the complaint says.

The defendants allegedly announced that they would be reclassifying assistant managers as non-exempt beginning in December 2016. However, after a Texas federal district court blocked the Department of Labor from implementing new overtime rules in November 2016, Deli Management reversed its decision, the plaintiff says.