Save Around Hit with Wage and Hour Lawsuit Over Alleged Employee Misclassification

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Enjoy the City North, Inc., which operates as Save Around, is the defendant in a lawsuit out of Florida filed by an employee who alleges he was misclassified as exempt from overtime pay and is thus owed unpaid wages.

According to the case, the plaintiff was hired by the defendant, an audience development and brand-building firm, in February 2011, and worked his way up to the position of senior business leader in the company’s sales division. The plaintiff states his primary responsibility is to execute sales to new and existing customers for a salary plus commissions.

The plaintiff, who the suit says still works for Save Around, alleges he routinely works 55 hours per week, including during evenings and on weekends, and puts in an additional five hours of traveling time without receiving time-and-a-half overtime pay. Further, the man claims he’s received no wages for the two to four trade shows, which typically last two days, that he’s required to attend each year. As the suit tells it, the plaintiff’s job duties, which he claims are almost entirely dictated by the defendant’s policies and procedures, do not exempt him from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime requirements, as he, for instance, does not direct the work of at least two or more other full-time employees or have the authority to hire or fire workers.

“Plaintiff only met the salary requirement for the executive exemption,” the case states. “Apart from salary, [the plaintiff] did not meet any other requirement for the executive exemption.”

The suit goes on to say the plaintiff put the defendant on notice with regard to his alleged misclassification in a July 2018 email. After receiving the plaintiff’s email, the defendant went on to change the man’s commission structure, the lawsuit says, requiring him to now meet his year-end total sales as a base goal in order to be eligible for commissions. According to the complaint, the defendant changed the plaintiff’s commissions structure in retaliation for complaining of his alleged misclassification.