Hunton Retail Law Resource

On October 15, 2020, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas granted conditional certification to a class of assistant managers (“AM”s) in 550 wireless retail stores across the country. In Martinez v. Mobilelink, assistant store managers in the wireless retailers’ stores alleged that they were regularly required to work unpaid overtime. The employees sought to certify a class consisting of all current and former AMs employed by Mobilelink from March 2017 through the present.

Many retailers use bonus programs to incentivize employee performance. With respect to bonuses paid to non-exempt employees (i.e., those employees who are entitled to overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act), the retailer must then determine whether it owes additional overtime on the incentive bonus.

As reported on the Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives Blog on May 14, 2019, Massachusetts’ highest court, The Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”), recently issued its long awaited decision in Sullivan v. Sleepy’s LLC, SJC-12542, in which the SJC responded to certified questions of first impression from the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

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