NEW YORK — Information and telecommunication employees at Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) have reached a settlement with the company for $11.8 million. The settlement is expected to resolve the employees’ class action overtime pay lawsuit against HP. The employees’ claimed to have been wrongfully denied overtime due to HP’s misclassification of the employees as exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and New York labor law. Now that the parties have reached an agreement over the settlement, they are requesting approval of the settlement terms in New York federal court.
The IT Claims
The settlement intends to resolve three claims against HP and Electronic Data Systems Inc. (EDS), now HP Enterprise Services LLC, an HP subsidiary. Two of the claims, which were initiated in 2006 and 2007, are primarily against EDS brought by information associates and information security masters. Those claims were consolidated and gained conditional certification in 2010 with six subclasses for potential plaintiffs to opt into.
It was one of these EDS claims that led opt-in plaintiffs to bring a separate FLSA overtime claim against HP in June 2012. The HP claim represents three groups of HP employees in telecommunication, including service information development and technical consulting. In all three claims, the information and telecommunication employees were classified as exempt under the FLSA’s Computer Employee exemption. The Computer Employee exemption applies to employees earning either a salary of at least $455 a week or an hourly wage of at least $27.63, and who are skilled employees in a computer field with primary duties in systems analysis, computer system design, or program design and testing.
The Settlement
After 79 depositions and 1.5 million pages of documents during discovery phase and considerable negotiation, both parties decided it was more advantageous to reach a settlement than to continue litigating. The terms of the settlement release HP and EDS from all state wage claims and FLSA overtime claims raised in the three lawsuits. The parties designated three classes in the settlement. One of the classes will include class members who opted-in to the previously certified class. The two new classes include a class for those with FLSA claims who had service delivery jobs with HP from June 2009 to the date the settlement offer received preliminary approval. Those employees with state wage claims, in the same job categories as those with FLSA claims, will be the final class in the settlement. The class members will receive an average of $950 from the settlement.
If you are an information and telecommunication employee at HP or any other company and you believe you have been misclassified as exempt and denied overtime wages, call our top-rated team of overtime pay lawyers today at (855) 754-2795. Or complete the Free Unpaid Overtime Case Review form and our experienced legal team will evaluate your case. If we accept your case, we will represent you under our No Fee Promise.