Pizza Hut Agrees To Settle Overtime Suits

Courier Journal:

Pizza Hut has agreed to pay $12.5 million to settle two class-action lawsuits involving overtime pay for managers at its company-owned restaurants.

The deal would end a federal lawsuit claiming Pizza Hut, part of Louisville-based Yum! Brands Inc., improperly classified restaurant managers as exempt from overtime pay, even though most of their duties involved handling food, ringing up checks and cleaning up, much like workers who get overtime. The deal also covers a similar suit in California state court.

The decision would award the workers $1.35 million in the federal case and $11.15 million in the state lawsuit. Pizza Hut also would pay the administrative costs of handling and distributing the money.

“We settled it on what we consider to be a favorable basis,” said Pizza Hut attorney Bob Millen. The settlement won preliminary approval from a federal judge last week.

While the workers’ lawyers had estimated the federal case could involve as many as 3,100 workers and cost Pizza Hut as much as $300 million in actual and punitive damages if it lost a jury trial, the settlement terms limit the pool of workers to a few hundred.