Common Sense Prevails in Overtime Pay Case
Posted by robert ottinger on Thu, Jul 08, 2010 @ 08:19 AM
The outcome of an overtime class action involving 2500 employees hinged on the meaning of a word: salesperson. The question before the court was simple - does an employee have to sell something in order to be deemed a salesperson?
The case involved 2500 Novartis employees who sought overtime pay. Novartis argued that the 2500 employees were not entitled to overtime pay because they were outside salespeople. Under the Fairl Labor Standards Act, outside salespeople are not entitled to overtime pay.
The court took a pratical approach and said that an employee cannot be considered an exempt outside salesperson unless they actually sell something. Makes a lot of sense. The 2500 employee were called "sales representatives" but a person's title means little in these cases. After taking a look at what these employees did, the court found that the employees did not sell anything.
The employees only visited doctors offices and entertained them in order to promote Novartis drugs with the hope that the doctors might prescribe Novartis drugs to their patients. Since there were laws that strictly prohibited the Novartis employeses from actually selling the drug, the court concluded that the Novartis employees were not salespeople. Also the drugs were sold at drug stores and the employees had nothing to do with these sales. An employee cannot be deemed an outside salesperson unless they actually sell something.